European Consortium of Humanities
Institutes and Centres (ECHIC)
And
Mediterranean Consortium of Humanities
Institutes and Centres (HUMED)
Joint response to
Consultation on the state of the
Socio-Economic Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in Europe
Humanities institutes and centres play an
important role as focus points and facilitators of research and innovative
teaching, in particular with regard to emerging interdisciplinary fields.
Numbers have grown rapidly in recent years, and ECHIC and HUMED were both
founded in 2011. ECHIC has 40 members
and 11 affiliate members in 20 countries. HUMED counts ten member institutions
in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Together, we command an extensive
global network of connections with centres across Asia and the Pacific region
as well as in North and South America.
We offer the following short joint response
to the Consultation, noting that the consultation seems to be primarily directed
at the individual level. We believe that research institutes and centres and
indeed their associations are likely to play an increasing role in the European
Research Area in the future and we look forward to future engagement.
European humanities is undergoing a radical
transformation which provides huge potential benefits to society. The
transformation is evident in methodologies
(digital humanities) , resurgence of multi- and interdisciplinary approaches in environmental, medical,
health, cognition and many other fields, application
(use of historical data for public planning, narrative models for business,
arts technology for media, bioethics, etc.). In addition, classical fields of
humanities are ever more important as interpretative frameworks for
cross-cultural understanding in a globalizing world. These changes affect the
teaching curricula and the teaching methodologies in and beyond the humanities.
The impact of this transformation is sub-optimal because supporting structures
and scaling are problems: there is a lack of translational infrastructure (as we know it in translational
medicine), and lack of appropriate incentives
at the individual and collaborative levels.
European humanities commands global respect
and attracts tens of thousands of overseas students and scholars to Europe.
They return to their home countries trained in European thought and
knowledgeable of European values, which include the practice of democratic
criticism and free public debate. This soft
power is of immense value to the European Union and to the practice of
European citizenship and it must be cherished, researched and taught to our own
best standards. It is particularly important to overcome methodological
nationalism and increase understanding and bridging of regional cultural divides
both within Europe and with neighbouring regions. In particular, humanities
institutes and centres play a crucial role in reducing the divides between
North and South, East and West, by bringing together scholars in dialogue and
collaboration. Given the critical state of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership,
HUMED is offering a unique network for reflections on diversity and coherence
of cultural, intellectual and social traditions and perspectives in the region.
Despite notable progress, it must be
recognized that large and important numbers of humanities researchers have not
called on by FP7 work programmes. The failure to include humanities research
incurs huge opportunity costs for the
European Union. The overarching
challenge to Grand Challenge research is to build radically inter- and
transdisciplinary research environments to deal with the complexity of
contemporary problems. It is urgent therefore to mobilize all relevant knowledge bases, as
knowledge growth is much larger by
adding another discipline than by adding more resources to a discipline which
is already engaged. It is therefore of the utmost importance to call on the
huge knowledge base of the humanities and to offer dynamic research
perspectives to this community of scholars.
In order to make up for these lost
opportunities, we recommend
·
A substantial increase of entry points for Humanities scholarship -
in terms of funding, work programme design and language - under the Horizon
2020 6th challenge "Inclusive, innovative and reflective societies"
·
That the humanities as well as
and in equal measure to the social sciences be mainstreamed across all research challenges
·
That active humanities
researchers be members of all panels that provide scientific advice on the
design of work programmes
·
That work programmes for all
grand challenges encourage the inclusion of humanistic research wherever
relevant
·
That a criterion of funding be that
proposals, when relevant, include an adequate and realistic budget for humanistic
research
·
That review panels include
active humanistic researchers
·
That a conference to review Horizon 2020 progress on SSH perspectives on the grand challenges be called every second
year
·
That a specific call be made
for infrastructural support of humanities
consortia to overcome national and disciplinary fragmentation and to
improve the translation of humanities research into education and policy.
Prof. Poul Holm, Trinity College Dublin (ECHIC)
Prof. Rosi Braidotti, Utrecht University (ECHIC)
Prof. Javier Moscoso, Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales (HUMED)
Prof. Eduardo Manzano Moreno,
Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales (HUMED)
