Social Science Space

A report from RBC Royal Bank reaffirms what thought leaders keep insisting — there will be more and more demand for a liberal arts education in our increasingly digital world. “I prefer to call them “essential skills,” because we all need them every day, though we don’t always use them well. They are the foundational skills that allow us to learn and live and work productively with other people.”

Increasingly, write Ashley Frawley and Daniel Nehring, the waning societal valuation of the arts and social sciences is seen in these terms—if their value to a company’s bottom line is at all in question, then their entire raison d’etre is in doubt. Reversing this trend may involve some unpalatable decisions.

Grappling with climate change going forward won’t be so much grappling with climate as it will be grappling with human reactions to the forces already in motion. Universities have a role to play in marshaling all their disciplines in this endeavor, says Matthew Nisbet.

A network of coalitions of research universities from around the world have come out with a strong statement stressing the importance of social science and humanities in the academy and among policymakers.

As the independence vote moves from all-consuming question to historical incident, what are the lessons that Scottish universities and in particular Scottish social scientists should take away?

Parsing federal education statistics, it turns out that prospective social scientists are the most avid consumers of humanities courses as undergrads (not counting humanities majors themselves, that is).

Doctor Who’s sobriquet implies he’s earned a doctorate in something. The Doctor’s not telling what he might have studied, but his actions and attitudes make a strong case for one discipline …

Beyond the funding fears experienced by the social science, the humanities have those kinds of worries and their cyclic existential crisis.

China’s apparent reluctance to publish it social science and humanities scholarship openly is less about what it lets out, argues Michael Hockx, and more about what opening up might let in.

The landscape for open access in Britain’s social science and humanities fields is very different and very similar to the better studied STEM fields, a new report from the British Academy finds.

A new project from the British Academy sets down the calculator in the latest attempt to tot up the value of the social sciences and humanities.

I’m not a huge fan of the topic of racial and gender discrimination. The heated debates that go around it […]