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

The organization and financing of research 695
inhibit its growth, on problems of scientific manpower and scientific expenditure,
and on the efficacy and ethics of the various options that are developing for
relating science to policy-making and to using it generally for social and eco-
nomic benefit. A new discipline, sometimes called the ‘science of science’, has
been created which transcends the ‘sociology of knowledge.’I73 An organization
entitled the Foundation for the Science of Science conducts a wide range of
activities in London. Chairs have been created at Yale and at Brandeis in the
US. A centre with a long-range programme has been established in Sweden at
Lund; another at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. Though focussing
on the natural sciences, the new discipline is extending its horizon to include
the social sciences. Academic research is necessary for two reasons: I. without
it, more powerful concepts and methods wil not develop to improve the quality
of the material collected by official agencies; 2. this material wil not be subject-
ed to sufficiently critical examination. The central issues of science policy and
organization are controversial as they impinge on the political sphere, so much
the greater is the need for independent research.
9. The second main point is the rapid rise in studies of ‘the future’. One may
note the establishment of Groupe ’85 in France by the Commissariat du Plan
and of a Commission on the Year 2000 in the us by the American Academy of
Sciences. In Britain the recently established Social Science Research Council has
set up a Committee on the next 30 years. Meanwhile increased attention is being
paid to long-range planning of 20 or more years in the countries of Eastern
Europe. According to the CIBA Foundation, institutes concerned with studies of
the future have sprung up all over the world. An international congress, held in
Norway in 1967, brought into being an international society. Study of the
future now constitutes a recognized field as much as the study of science. The
two are inter-connected. For the growth of science, in accelerating the change-
rate, has created an awareness that the future is unlikely to resemble the past as
closely as it has up to the present.
IO. This awareness has led to a spread of a planning orientation through all
types of society at all stages of development. This is apart from ideological
tenets. Interest in planning has risen as a response to the increased level of
uncertainty experienced in the contemporary world as .a result of the accelerat-
ing change rate. Once the planning orientation exists and the future time per-
spective becomes salient increased demand is placed on the social sciences for
more information about men and their societies in all their aspects; for method-
ologies and techniques of forecasting and prediction; and for logics and values
on which to construct models of ‘alternative futures’.
Country groupings
I I. In view of the unevenness of the available data attention was concentrated
on nine target countries representing different types of society, stages of develop-
ment and regions of the world. Intensive reports* were prepared and compared
with material more readily available on other countries to bring out trends and
* The author is indebted to David Armstrong of the Tavistock Institute for collating
the material for most of these.