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World Social Science Report
In 2010 the ISSC will produce the 2009/2010 World Social Science Report (WSSR). The remit to produce this report was given to the ISSC by UNESCO. The first and only such report was produced by UNESCO ten years ago in 1999.
The main objective of the 2009/2010 WSSR is to highlight the importance of social science expertise in understanding how societies function and evolve, with a view to inform policy makers and society, and possibly contribute in finding solutions to contemporary global challenges.
The report will:
Preliminary findings were debated with scientists, policy makers and funders in meetings held at the World Social Science Forum, Bergen.
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Since the World Social Science Report is to be produced on a regular basis, a theme will be chosen for each publication. The theme chosen by the ISSC General Assembly for the 2009/2010 report is Knowledge Divides. Hence the report will focus on inequalities and asymmetries in social science knowledge production in an overall context of economic, social and cultural globalisation.
The specific objectives of the 2009/2010 WSSR will be to:
- Geographic divides in research organization and knowledge production
- Publication and linguistic divides
- Capacity divides
- Competing divides in assessment and funding
- Disciplinary divides
- Science and society divides
The targeted audience of the WSSR includes:
The approach
The report aims to address global development issues and the concerns facing decision makers. It will contain general introductions and syntheses of social science literature, contributions from well known scholars in different parts of the world and keynote papers from the World Social Science Forum. The report will contain an annex providing basic statistics on social science research and development.
The ISSC is seeking maximum involvement from its membership and regional partners in the production of the Report. A questionnaire was sent at an early stage to ISSC members and professional associations in order to identify regional trends in knowledge production, priority concerns in social science research and the main users of the knowledge produced. Regional associations including CLACSO, CODESRIA and AASSREC have also been asked to contribute to the report.
2009 WSSR Team
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Senior Managing Editor |
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Senior Advisor Laurent Jeanpierre, Professor of Political Science at the University of Paris 8 at Saint-Denis, is a senior adviser to the Editorial team. One of his research interests is the history of the social sciences and the sociology of their internationalization. |
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Postdoctoral Researcher WSSR Elise Demeulenaere studied natural sciences at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon. She holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris. Her research interest is on the relations between societies and their natural environment. She has been collaborating as a social science researcher in interdisciplinary teams on various ecological issues (traditional ecological knowledge and management systems - Ethiopia, agrobiodiversity on-farm and ex-situ management - France). She is interested in the contribution of social sciences in Environmental Studies. contact: wssr.issc  unesco.org |
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Koen Jonkers, Postdoctoral fellow at the CSIC Institute of Public Goods and Policies in Madrid. He studied biotechnology at Wageningen University and holds a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Several of his recent and forthcoming publications deal with highly skilled mobility, international research collaboration and the transformation of the Chinese research system. His other research interests lie in the social studies of the life sciences. |
Edouard Morena
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The WSSR Editorial Board is comprised of high level scholars from different regions and disciplines, the ISSC Secretariat representatives, the Managing Editor, and an observer from UNESCO.
The role of the Editorial Board is to advise the Managing Editor on the structure and content of the WSSR, advise on the choice of authors, provide comments on contributions and to serve as a reference group.
1.Presentation at the ISSC General assembly in Cape Town. Francoise Caillods, WSSR Managing Editor, gave a presentation on the state of preparation of the WSSR during the XXVIIth General Assembly (GA) of the ISSC, held at the Spier Conference Center, outside Stellenbosch in Cape Town, South Africa, from 24th to 28th November 2008. The general orientation of the report was approved.
2. A call for contributions was widely publicised at the end of 2008. This resulted in the submission of a large number of proposals, which have since undergone a selection process. Authors are currently in the process of writing.
3. Eight reviews of the state of social science production in different regions of the world with a special focus on institutional aspects have been commissioned. These will be presented and discussed in a special session held at the World Social Science Forum in Bergen.
4. Data has been collected on various aspects of social science R&D in some 50 countries with respect to numbers of researchers, students, funds and products. This will provide a macro-level measure of global research efforts in the social sciences and humanities and will illustrate existing and foreseeable trends in the geography of social sciences.
5. A second meeting of the Editorial Board took place in Bergen on May 12th 2009, which drew lessons from the World Social Science Forum.
6. Papers written by some 50 authors from different disciplines and different parts of the world are being put together in different chapters. The report is being drafted by the editorial team.
Publication
The 2009/2010 report will be published early in 2010 in English. Long contributions which cannot appear fully in the report will be placed on the ISSC web site. The ISSC enjoys full editorial freedom to produce the Report. On completion, the WSSR will be printed, produced and disseminated by UNESCO who will maintain ownership and copyright .
Funding
The ISSC is benefitting from the generous support of UNESCO - which contributes some 40% of the anticipated production costs of the WSSR, of NORAD and SIDA. The ISSC must continue to fundraise though its membership to allow for a wider distribution and translation into other languages.
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UNESCO's 1999 World Social Science Report
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updated on September 22, 2009 | print version | give us your feedback
