Press release - The challenges Europe faces are fundamentally human
26 June 2012
Leuven, 26 June 2012. The challenges Europe faces are fundamentally human in nature. The EU should do more to stimulate and fund research that will help us understand individual and collective human behaviour and the cultural and historical contexts in which people operate. The League of European Research Universities (LERU) is releasing a paper today with suggestions on how this can be achieved in the EU’s next research funding programme Horizon 2020.
Whether it is about climate, energy, food supply or security, the societal challenges enveloping us are real and require serious attention. Research from and across many fields will be needed to deliver better understanding leading to better solutions, not only from the “hard” sciences but crucially also from the social/behavioural sciences and the humanities (SSH). Modern society depends on the whole range and interconnectedness of knowledge rather than on a restricted number of academic disciplines.
LERU welcomes the fact that the European Commission has included societal challenges research as one of three pillars in the EU’s next research funding programme Horizon 2020. But the Commission has to make sure that SSH research is adequately represented in all the societal challenges proposed for Horizon 2020. In other words, SSH research is equally important in the “health, demographic change and wellbeing”, the “smart, green and integrated transport” and other challenges. It should not be relegated to the “inclusive, innovative and secure societies” challenge.
To be clear, this is not to argue that SSH should be at the service of other research fields. SSH research generates new insights which have a deep and intrinsic value. Therefore, the Commission should also take care to fund SSH research generously within the ‘excellence in the science base’ pillar of Horizon 2020, which supports frontier research aimed at producing new knowledge without a primary regard for societal impact.
In the paper we examine the six (probably to become seven) Horizon 2020 societal challenges, we explain how SSH research is relevant to each of them and we suggest which SSH questions and lines of research can or should be pursued in these societal challenges. To give but one example, a sustainable climate policy has to address such fundamental “human” questions as why people should be motivated to opt for sustainable policies if they have far reaching consequences on their life style, or how conflicts can be resolved between individual rights expectations in a liberal society and the needs of sustainable policies. To ensure the success of Horizon 2020, it is essential that SSH researchers are fully engaged and involved in the whole process right from the start, from agenda setting and problem formulation to project decisions and implementation, in all societal challenges.
We make a number of related recommendations to strengthen SSH research at a European level:
- National research funding organisations should be encouraged to continue creating common funds for cross-border SSH research;
- European research infrastructure consortia should accommodate SSH in a creative way, with special attention for digital infrastructures;
- International collaboration in “small or threatened disciplines” (for some fields of, but by no means limited to, the Humanities) should be promoted to strengthen them;
- A European SSH platform should be created to develop and update SSH research agendas; it should be led by leading SSH researchers.
In a fast changing world in which Europe will continue to encounter new challenges, SSH research is of vital importance to enable European societies to think critically, to remain tolerant and to become more innovative and inclusive.
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For questions about the report or about LERU or to arrange an interview with a LERU representative in your country, contact Dr. Katrien Maes, Chief Policy Officer, tel BE +32 16 32 09 04, Mob. +32 (0)473 97 70 14 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).