Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

Problem-focused research 605
I. Appreciation of the importance of study and research as bases for intelligent
action.
2. Complexity of the subject of research; not only are the phenomena to be
studied complex, but their complexity creates problems for research.
3. The need to solve new problems for which no traditional solution is avail-
able.
4. Certain topics lend themselves better thanothers toproblem-focused research;
in so far as future developments can be foreseen, they present a problem.
This is true wherever change, development and planning are concerned.
5. Industrialized and developing societies are changing societies. Planning
becomes a component of these changing societies and calls for joint study
by a variety of specialists.
6. The need to call on specialists from several of the sciences of man is partic-
ularly apparent when the investigator is faced with a problem in a cultural
context different from his own ; whether they be personality disturbances,
problems relating to the family, to crime, economic development, political
and administrative structures, it is plain that a whole series of elements in
the socio-cultural environment enter in.
7. Appreciation of team-work and, in a world in which special branches of
learning are multiplying fast, anxiety to increase communication and ex-
changes between them.
A number of the factors involved in multidisciplinary association are undoubt-
edly characteristic not only of problem-focused research, but also, in some
cases, of the association of scientific disciplines for free basic research. I have,
however, refrained from mentioning factors that would appear to concern the
latter more exclusively; in this connexion, I might have alluded, for example, to
the interest in multisectorial dimensions such as time or space, or the apper-
ception of new theoretical concepts which might be discoverable or applicable
in several fields of knowledge: models, information systems, etc.
Moreover, among the factors noted - and the list is, of course, incomplete -
there are five which relate to the content of problem-focused research, whereas
two only concern the human element and the mode of intervention. But though
it must be borne in mind here that research is becoming increasingly well
organized and teams more numerous, it must also be emphasized that private
and public funds are earmarked with increasing priority for this form of re-
search. In the domain of the sciences of man, problem-focused research stands
the best chance of being financed - and the better it is organized, the greater its
chances wil be.
Still other factors are suited to promoting certain forms of multidisciplinary
research: institutional proximity and scientific affinities play an appreciable
role.
The fact that specialists representing several of the sciences of man are en-
gaged, in the same institution, in studying a single problem makes it far easier
for them to exchange views and compare results than when they remain isolated
or work in separate disciplinary institutions. Multidisciplinary research teams