Brussels, 16/09/2014 (Agence Europe) - The sidelining and marginalisation of the human and social sciences and particularly humanities, as an area of research, in the first work programme (2014-2015) of the new EU research and innovation framework programme for 2014-2020 (Horizon 2020) is the main reproach formulated by the Science Europe scientific committee for the humanities in a report published at the beginning of September in response to the choices made by the European Commission.
After closely scrutinising the Horizon 2020 work programme for 2014 and 2015, which the Commission presented in December last year (see EUROPE 10983), the Science Europe report (The Human Factor in the 2014-2015 Work Programme of the Horizon 2020 Societal Challenges), drafted by a collective of 15 University and research institute lecturers (Denmark, Hungary, Britain, France, Sweden, Ireland, Iceland, Switzerland, Spain, Finland, Belgium and the Netherlands) delivers a harsh criticism: “We conclude that the actual role of the humanities in the 2014-2015 Work Programme is marginal in quantity as well as quality”. This role in the programme is also too often “simplified” because it is perceived as being secondary to other research areas.
The analysis carried out by these researchers focused on one of the three pillars in Horizon 2020, “Societal Challenges”, which has received a 38.53% allocation from the total framework programme budget, which is around €80 billion. This pillar comprises the following themes: health; agriculture, maritime activities and the bio-economy; energy; transport; climate action, the environment, rational use of resources and raw materials; reflective societies and security. At the time, the committee welcomed it being set up but the final results are far from satisfactory. In this pillar, as devised by the first work programme, just 26.7% of themes clearly open the way to contributions from the social sciences and humanities. Humanities, which cover disciplines such as philosophy, history and linguistics, are even more marginalised and only account for 10% of these themes.
From a qualitative point of view the report issues a similar criticism: “Finally, the Work Programme hardly refers at all to cultural and historical dimensions” because the majority of themes chosen constitute the variation of one and the same thematic geared towards technologies, particularly information and communication technologies (ICT). The omission of these two dimensions, according to the report, is the equivalent of failing to find “radically new approaches to the development and application of technological or social processes” that are needed to “better understand the changes they bring to people's behaviour, pervasive values, cultures of practice and modes of communication”. By failing to take into account historic and cultural perspectives, is to ultimately reject analyses on pre-conditions of human behaviour, even though analysis of human behaviour and how to influence it are the most pervasive areas of research in the work programme or at least in areas where social sciences and humanities are still called on to make a contribution. (JK)