Seminar: The Relevance of Social Sciences

What does impact mean in the context of social sciences? What makes social sciences relevant beyond academia – at the moment, and in the future?

Seminar: The Relevance of Social Sciences

Tuesday, 20 August 2019, 1-4 pm, University of Helsinki Language Centre, lecture hall 115 (Fabianinkatu 26)

Welcome to a seminar organized by the University of Helsinki’s Faculty of Social Sciences, with presentations from members of its international Scientific Advisory Board and faculty. Representing a broad field of social sciences and its approaches, the speakers will address the question of relevance in social sciences.

What could be done to make the social sciences more relevant? What kind of international collaboration and benchmarking are beneficial to this goal? How could research and teaching be organized to enhance the relevance of social sciences? Should social sciences organize around problem/phenomena, instead of theories or methods? What is happening to traditional ways of understanding disciplines and disciplinarity in social sciences?

Program

Chair: Vice dean Juhana Aunesluoma

1 – 2.30 pm: Disciplines and paradigms

Social psychology: a discipline in the midst of an(other) identity crisis. Laurent Licata, Université Libre de Bruxelles.

The inequality paradigm and the future of social science. Mike Savage, London School of Economics and Political Science.

The future of the social sciences: a personal view. Stephen Broadberry, University of Oxford.

Discussant Nelli Hankonen, University of Helsinki

Break

2.45 – 4 pm: Interdisciplinarity and institutions

Interdisciplinarity and impact in social science – creating the new American public university at ASU. Karen Mossberger, Arizona State University.

The relevance of social science: experiences across the fault lines of policy and engineering. Elizabeth Shove, Lancaster University.

[Title TBC] Annelise Riles, Northwestern University

Discussant Risto Kunelius, University of Helsinki

All are welcome! Priority will be given to members of the Faculty of Social Sciences. No registration is required.