Structures and Meanings in the Agenda of The Scientific Community: an Overview of the International Conference

Abstract

On October 22, 2021, MGIMO University hosted the international scientific conference Risks to the Human Capital of the Scientific Community in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic, organized by the Department of Sociology. The agenda of the conference included a wide variety of topics and issues related to self-identification of the scientific community in times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its relevance and importance of the topic attracted participants from Russia, the Czech Republic, Italy, Belarus, Vietnam, Lebanon, Armenia, Brazil, Austria, China, Finland and Israel making it diverse and international. During the plenary session possibilities and boundaries of the use of the terms capital and risks in the sociological discourse were considered. The participants discussed global dilemmas of the civilization of the future, philosophical education in conditions of social turbulence, psychological factors in inflating risks and social instability as well as the demand for longterm humanistic trends to minimize risks for human academic capital in times of the pandemic. There were three sessions. The first one concentrated on the issue of human academic capital transformation in times of the pandemic. Its focus was on the effects of COVID on the sociological research agenda, new risks for social sciences (such as pseudoscientific arguments) and many others. The second session as devoted to digitalization with its influence, paradoxes, challenges, and risks. The speakers made it clear that digitalization today is not only a new research area, but a factor of producing social knowledge. This idea was illustrated by the analyses of advantages and disadvantages of scientometrics. The third session discussed the risks associated with digitalization of education and overall implications of the pandemic for the learning process. Both explicit and implicit, these implications of distant learning need to be considered. The participants spoke about digital competences and digital capital of university lecturers and professors, students’ academic mobility, etc. The sociological academic community welcome new perspectives and ideas, thus graduate students and masters were invited to participate in the conference together with experts. The conference bridged two main sociological trends: structural knowledge and comprehension. The former studies social institutions and structures and their functioning, while the latter investigates social actions and interactions, coupled with the meanings and intentions behind them. The current situation made it necessary to combine both approaches so that qualitative and quantitative methods would help study social structures, nuanced contexts, and values alike.