First overview of social science research in a decade

First overview of social science research in a decade

The first comprehensive overview of social science in a decade has been prepared by the International Social Science Council (ISSC), which has its headquarters in France.

The report, called Knowledge Divides, was published jointly with UNESCO and launched at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris last month. The World Social Science Report team includes senior managing editor Françoise Caillods, who worked for four decades at UNESCO's International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), since 1969. The report's scientific adviser is Laurent Jeanpierre, a political science professor at the University of Paris Saint-Denis who focuses on scientific migrations, brain drain, science policy and social studies of social science and contributed a section on the international migration of social scientists.

Researchers for the report include Elise Demeulenaere, Mathieu Denis, Koen Jonkers and Edouard Morena. The research spans the globe.

Ebrima Sall, who heads the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), at its headquarters in Dakar, Sénégal, notes progress in Africa, writing that ''from a very small number at the end of the colonial era, African universities are now close to a thousand, and still growing at breakneck speed.''

CODESRIA, which has been in existence since 1973, has created the Africa Review of Books, published twice a year, and trying to establish an Africa-based social science indexation system says Sall, who has co-authored books such as Citizenship and Political Violence in Côte d´Ivoire (Frontières de la citoyenneté et violence politique en Côte d´Ivoire) and co-edited the book Human Rights, Regionalism and the Dilemmas of Democracy in Africa.

Contributors to the Knowledge Divides report included Egyptian political scientist Moushira Elgeziri, the former manager of the Middle East awards (MEAwards) for population and social science research, who is currently studying for her doctoral degree in development studies in the Netherlands.Elgeziri co-authored a section on development challenges in the Arab-speaking region.

A comprehensive study of publications at King Abdulaziz Foundation Library in Casablanca in Morocco was the underpinning for an article analysing the focus of social sciences in the Maghreb region of North Africa.

The authors of the North Africa study included Roland Waast, senior researcher at the Development Research Institute (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement or IRD) in France as well as co-founder of the Science, Technology and Society journal. Other authors included Rigas Arvanitis, who led the European project ESTIME (Estimation of scientific and innovation capabilities in eight South Mediterranean countries, from Morocco to Lebanon) as well as statistician Claire Richard-Waast and IRD engineer Pier Rossi.

One of the report's two forwards was contributed by Pierre Sané, born in Dakar, Sénégal, and UNESCO's assistant director-general for social and human sciences until June 2010.

*Munyaradzi Makoni contributed additional reporting to this article.

Links
Knowledge Divides
International Social Sciences Council
Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS)
Africa Review of Books