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

618 Pierre de Bie
disciplinary action is involved. For example, recommendations of an economic
type might have psychological and economic effects not perceived directly by
the economists, and which other disciplines owe it to themselves to point out.’6I
While anticipatory research is quite normally a part of purely scientific work
in many sciences of man, forward-looking research is clearly characteristic of
research with a view to action: starting from a diagnosis of the present position
and of its probable evolution, the forecast will try to set itself certain objectives
in order deliberately to influence the direction taken. In their relations with the
users of their knowledge, specialists in problem-focused research will often have
to participate in the work of reflecting on prospects, at least if they share the
concern that research shall be useful: having identified the problems of lack of
information, of misunderstandings, and other requirements, they will have to
help in establishing how to attain the aims of information, persuasion and
participation. It is not unusual for the first results obtained to form a starting
point for other problem-focused research perceived in the course of considering
prospects. With a change in the subject of research, other disciplines often have
to step in.
The quality of dialogue between the research worker and the client depends
on many conditions and we have by no means referred to all of them, but there
is one we cannot ignore: it is the administrative structure in the framework of
which a dialogue takes place, because that structure may dominate, sometimes
profoundly, the type of relations. Given the cost of problem-focused research,
finance for it comes almost always from some public or private body. At one
extreme of possible situations the research worker stands completely outside
the applicant organization, and at the other extreme is the researchworker
who is employed in it.
Although we do not in this chapter deal with the structures and organization
of research, we must say a word about them in relation to problem-focused
research. The question is to know to what extent the quality of problem-focused
research can be improved by the position of the research worker in relation to
the structure of a client organization: the question must be asked as regards the
dialogue, but also as regards other points not less important, such as the con-
tinuity of the research - and the continuity of the dialogue-access to subsidies
and to means of finance, and the research worker’s freedom of thought.
Where the research worker has an assured position outside the client organi-
zation, has he not all the advantages of independence and can he not therefore
more easily play the part of a free, imaginative and critical social commentator ?
Where, on the contrary, the research worker is a part of the structure of the
client organization, has he not a diminished degree of liberty and is he not, by
his position, less capable of resisting the internal pressures of policy and the
influence, sometimes subtle, but continuous, of value judgments made by the
organization to which he belongs? Has not the former much easier access to
and better contacts with his colleagues working in the theoretical sciences, while
the latter is riveted to his administrative setting and runs the risk of being gagged
by it, especially if he is isolated?
For these questions we could substitute others which might suggest the