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Under the aegis of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation's (UNESCO) Programme on the Management of Social Transformations (MOST) an international conference on 'Social Science and Governance' was organised in The Netherlands on 20 and 21 March 2000. The conference was a joint co-operation of  the Netherlands National Commission for UNESCO, the MOST Programme and Utrecht University as well as the organisers of the different workshops. Description and purpose The core theme of the conference were the (conditions determining the) processes of research-policy interaction. The aim of the conference was to bring together a wide audience of scientists, policy makers and practitioners around clearly circumscribed workshop topics, engage participants in fruitful debate, and facilitate mutual understanding. This joint endeavour had three major objectives: to highlight examples, through a series of workshops case studies, of where social science research has brought to bear on social policy; to identify best practices in this area; to suggest new research avenues to further understanding of knowledge used by practitioners and policy makers. The topics from the workshops were close to the themes of the UNESCO-MOST programme. The Conference started with a plenary session that provided the context and set the stage for the actual work that took place in workshops. In the seven workshops a limited number of case studies - three, maximum four - were dealt with in-depth, by more than one presentation of different persons involved, both from the research and the policy domain. The closing plenary was a forward looking session, giving pragmatic directions for improving the linkage between research and policy. Publication The conference will result in a publication containing a selection of the speeches and papers that were presented in plenary and workshops at the conference. Contact information Netherlands National Commission for UNESCO Kortenaerkade, 11 P.O. Box 29777 2502 LT THE HAGUE Tel: (31-70) 426.02.63 / 8 Fax: (31-70) 426.03.59 E-Mail: scunesco@nuffic.nl International Conference on Social Sciences and Governance, Final Report, by Roger Henke (Managing Director, Netherlands School for Social and Economic Policy Research), June 2000 (PDF format) Social Sciences / Social Policy Linkages, preliminary working paper for the conference, by Roger Henke (Managing Director, Netherlands School for Social and Economic Policy Research) Building Bridges: Towards effective means of linking scientific research and public policy: Migrants in European cities by Malcolm Cross, Roger Henke, Philippe Oberknezev and Katarina Pouliasi, Research Paper of the Netherlands School for Social and Economic Policy Research (AWSB), February 2000 (PDF format) Conference Programme   Monday 20 March 2000 10:00 Plenary session, chair mrs. dr. L. van Vucht Tijssen Opening: prof. dr. P. de Meijer (Dutch National Commission) Welcome: dr. A. Kazancigil (UNESCO-MOST Programme) 10:30 Keynote speakers Mrs. prof. dr. C. Weiss (Harvard): What have we learned from 25 years of knowledge utilization studies? Mr. H. Helland (General Director, Norwegian Ministry of Children and Family Affairs): The use of social science research in the restructuring of welfare states 12:30 Lunch 14:00-17:45 Parallel Workshops Tuesday 21 March   9:00 – 12:15 Parallel Workshops 12:15-13:30 Lunch 13:30 Keynote Speakers prof. dr. Manuel Castells (Berkeley): The new international agenda: social theory and social policy Prof. dr. P. Schnabel (Social and Cultural Planning office of the Netherlands): Research and policy, a tale of two cities 15:15- 15:45 prof. dr. A. de Ruijter: The Way Forward 16:00 Closure dr. A. Kazancigil Workshops Welfare states and social policy: poverty and welfare/workfare policy dr. Erik Snel   Multicultural policies and modes of citizenship in European cities (PDF format) prof. dr. Rinus Penninx   Urban policy and social sustainability dr. Ronald Van Kempen   Setting the social sciences research agenda mrs. dr. Lieteke van Vucht Tijssen   Human rights and human security in an international perspective prof. dr. Bas de Gaay Fortman   Coping strategies in the absence of clear government policies, the circumpolar region dr. J. Peters   Case studies on the use of knowledge and evaluation research in social policy mrs. prof. dr. Carol Weiss and mrs. dr. Nadia Auriat

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