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

694 Eric Tiist
the trouble taken, immense difficulty was encountered in obtaining the required
facts, let alone in interpreting them, simply because in many of the most im-
portant areas they had never been collected.
4. Nevertheless, the Heyworth and the OECD reports represent major advances
in the recognition of the social sciences. They constitute a signal that societies
in the last third of the 20th century are coming to recognize that the social
sciences are capable of making a serious contribution to understanding and
solving the types of complex problem now being experienced with increasing
intensity and on an increasing scale by nations at all stages of development.
Until this present decade only a very few countries had begun to think seriously
about using the social sciences, apart from economics, as a policy-making re-
source - and on that account the more worthy of development for their own sake.
5. Since 1960 the Science Policy Division in the Science Sector of UNESCO
has been carrying out studies of science policy in a number of coun-
tries.'*g Having been brought into existence by the increasing concern of
governments with the natural sciences, it has spread its interest to include the
social sciences. This development represents another step forward in the inter-
national recognition of the social sciences. Concern with the implications of
science and technology for social and economic development was the factor,
emphasized at sessions of the General Conference, which caused UNESCO to act
in this way.
6. The questionnaire sent out on behalf of the present study could be couched
only in the broadest terms. Whether the response would permit even a trial anal-
ysis was a matter of doubt. In the event, some IOO replies were received from
regional and national bodies and from a variety of scientific and professional
associations. These returns included a number of accounts containing not only
whatever statistical data were available but descriptive material and critical
commentary. Others provided factual data of a miscellaneous kind but little
in the way of evaluation. Most of the replies were fragmentary. Nothing at all
could be reported for many of the newer and less developed countries, or
indeed for some of the older and more developed countries, where the
organization of scientific activities has remained so rudimentary that no overall
picture could be offered without a prior enquiry.
7. UNESCO's regional centres in the developing countries made as complete an
appreciation as they were able, beyond what was required in the questionnaire,
of the situation and prospects of the social sciences in their territories. SO also
did several of the National Commissions in Eastern European countries, where
very different systems of organization of science prevail from those which have
characterized the West. A not inconsiderable literature, directly or indirectly
relevant to our topic was scattered among a large number of sources, most of
which were accessible at UNESCO Headquarters through materials held in the
Social Sciences Clearing House. A systematic search of this literature was
carried out.
8. This has drawn attention to two matters. The first is the scope of the
academic research now being done not only on the history of science, but on
the process of science, on the settings and forms of organization that foster or