International Social Science Council Research Articles

Mei-Hung Chiu elected on the ISC board

Abstract Last October, a new Governing Board has been appointed to lead the International Science Council (ISC), an international non-governmental organization that works to provide a global voice for science. The Governing Board is a central decision-making body of the Council, which was formed in 2018 by the merger of the International Council of Science (ICSU), representing the natural sciences, and the International Social Science Council (ISSC).

Interview with Sir Partha Dasgupta

The following is an edited transcript of an interview conducted on September 26th, 2018, with Professor Partha Dasgupta, the Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, while he was visiting Kyushu University to deliver the plenary talk to the 2018 World Social Science Forum by the International Social Science Council hosted by Kyushu University.

Are the Sustainable Development Goals self‐consistent and mutually achievable?

AbstractOn September 18, 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which sets out wide‐ranging ambitions for global development. In response to the 2030 Agenda, the International Council for Science (ICSU), in partnership with the International Social Science Council (ISSC), subsequently published a detailed commentary on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the linkages between them.The ICSU–ISSC Report raises the possibility that the SDG framework as a whole might not be internally self‐consistent, and the report itself calls for a wider “systems perspective.”In this paper, we use the ICSU commentary as the basis for a quantitative theoretical analysis of the SDGs from a systems perspective. We provide a mathematical definition of self‐consistency and show that the linkages we infer from the ICSU–ISSC report imply that the SDGs are not self‐consistent.However, using a simple dynamical model to investigate the combined outcome of direct efforts at tackling each Goal and the indirect effects on progress due to network effects, we show that network effects could be used to secure better outcomes on every Goal than would be possible if linkages between Goals did not exist at all. These better outcomes would be possible through an unequal, targeted reallocation of direct efforts. Unequal distribution of direct effort can therefore make the SDGs mutually achievable.These conclusions contribute to the ongoing debate on the development of global strategies for the achievement of the 2030 Agenda, their implementation, and the definition and monitoring of progress towards the Goals.

John Innes Clarke OBE, 7 January 1929–3 May 2018

John wrote the first English language book devoted exclusively to Population Geography (1965), setting the agenda for a generation with a focus on “how distribution, composition, migrations and growth of populations are related to spatial variations in the nature of places.” It sold over 100,000 copies and was translated into Arabic, Malay, Orissa and Spanish. His later papers developed themes of scale, population growth, sex ratio, migration and the relation between population and environment. John enjoyed travel and visited 83 countries in all. His research covered many countries in the Middle East, North Africa and West Africa and he had many PhD students from those countries. He edited numerous volumes, often involving international collaboration as he chaired the International Geographical Union (IGU) Commission on Population Geography (from 1980 to 1988) and established a Commission on Population and the Environment within the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP), chairing from 1990 to 1995. From 1990 to 1993 John chaired the International Social Science Council (ISSC) Working Group on Population Data and Global Environmental Change. His low-budget Sierra Leone in Maps (1966) established a much-copied format, and he also edited the innovative laser-printed grid-square atlas People in Britain (1976). In Durham, John established the Census Research Unit, with Dewdney, Rhind, Evans and Visvalingam, initially from 1973 to 1976, but with publications continuing to 1986. After a spell as Acting Principal of Trevelyan College, in 1981 he succeeded his teacher and mentor Bill Fisher (see The Geographical Journal, 1985, 151, pp. 148–149) as Head of the Geography Department. Unlike his predecessor, he served a three-year term and was anticipating the reward of a double sabbatical, but instead was persuaded to accept the appointment as Pro-Vice-Chancellor (PVC) and “Sub-warden” of Durham University. The 196 committee meetings he attended or chaired in 1985 led him to propose a restructuring of PVC duties, with greater division of labour, which was accepted. John was also Director of Development, but had the misfortune to occupy these positions of responsibility during the Thatcher years of cuts in university budgets. John was very active in the Geographical Association, the Institute of British Geographers and the Royal Geographical Society. He was a member of the research committee of the RGS from 1974 to 1981, chaired the RGS Jordan Badia research and development programme from 1991 to 1997, represented the RGS on the British National Committee for Geography from 1976 to 1981, and served as Vice President of the RGS to 1995; he was awarded the Victoria Medal of the RGS in 1991. John was also a member of the Social Science Research Council's Human Geography Committee from 1970 to 1977. He also made a number of radio broadcasts, and was Durham President of the Association of University Teachers between 1975 and 1978. After a second term as PVC of the University of Durham, John retired in 1990 at the early age of 60 and applied his energies to important roles in County Durham. He chaired the Durham and North Durham Health Authorities (1990–1996) and served as Deputy Lieutenant of County Durham: in 2003 he was awarded an OBE for services to the community in County Durham, recognising work for the University, the Health Authority, the National Lottery charity and the County Durham Foundation. John was happily married to Dorothy (known affectionately as Dig by friends and family) from 1955 until her death in 2008, and is survived by their three daughters, and grandchildren. Dig's serious illness in her last 10 years was the saddest episode in a devoted husband's life. Throughout his long and active life John Clarke was above all a very pleasant, likeable and helpful person. He had great influence on population geography and the study of the Middle East and North Africa. John made tremendous contributions to the University and County of Durham. His advice was always welcome, and he remained cheerful and good company to the end, when it was hard for him to bear a steady loss of memory. John was very sociable, an academic leader, an approachable colleague and an influential teacher, and he is missed for all of those qualities.

Editorial: Understanding Collective Learning and Human Agency in Diverse Social, Cultural and Material Settings

The significance of environment and sustainability education research and practice, and its potential contribution to a sustainable future for humanity, is conveyed by the International Social Science Council (n.d.), which explains: People everywhere will need to learn how to create new forms of human activity and new social systems that are more sustainable and socially just. However, we have limited knowledge about the type of learning that creates such change, how such learning emerges, or how it can be scaled-up to create transformations at many levels. Here, the important shift is towards considering what social systems, forms of knowledge, learning processes and questions of justice are associated with perpetuating or halting the decline of Earth’s bio-geo-chemical systems. This edition of the Southern African Journal of Environmental Education contributes three research papers and a themed Think Piece collection to these international deliberations about the role of education in enabling transformations to sustainability. Collectively, the articles highlight how relationality and the formation of human agency in socio-cultural and material settings in past–present–future configurations underpin all environment-oriented learning processes. The three research papers constituting the first part of this volume offer glimpses into how current unsustainable socio-cultural and material configurations might be transformed to address social inequalities and damaged people–nature relations. The Think Piece collection, introduced by Lotz-Sisitka, Laessoe and Jorgensen later in this editorial, focuses on how learning can foster and contribute to the development of change agents and collective agency for climate-resilient development.

ICSU to Merge with ISSC

AbstractAt an extraordinary General Assembly of the International Council for Science (ICSU) and General Assembly of the International Social Science Council (ISSC), held in Oslo on 24 October 2016, members voted overwhelmingly that the two organizations should merge. This in-principle decision followed a recommendation by the two organizations’ executives, setting the two councils on a trajectory to become one by October 2018.

2016 to Be the International Year of Global Understanding

Last September, on the first day of the World Social Science Forum 2015 in Durban, South Africa, the International Council for Science (ICSU), the International Social Science Council (ISSC), and the International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences (CIPSH) jointly announced that 2016 would be the International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU). The aim of IYGU is to promote better understanding of how the local impacts the global in order to foster smart policies to tackle critical global challenges, such as climate change, food security, and migration.

Launch event for SDGs review held at UN in New York

The International Council for Science (ICSU), in partnership with the International Social Science Council (ISSC), organized an event during the second intergovernmental negotiations session on the Post-2015 Development Agenda at the United Nations in New York on 17-20 February 2015. At the event, ICSU launched the "Review of Targets for the Sustainable Development Goals: The Science Perspective" [1], an independent scientific review of the Sustainable Development Goals targets by over 40 scientists to assist in their consolidation and support their effective implementation and monitoring. The event brought together a wide range of stakeholders, government delegates and UN staff: about 70 people in all.

2014 Future Earth Young Scientists Conference on integrated science and knowledge co-production for ecosystems and human well-being.

Effective integration in science and knowledge co-production is a challenge that crosses research boundaries, climate regions, languages and cultures. Early career scientists are crucial in the identification of, and engagement with, obstacles and opportunities in the development of innovative solutions to complex and interconnected problems. On 25–31 May 2014, International Council for Science and International Social Science Council, in collaboration with the International Network of Next-Generation Ecologists and Institute for New Economic Thinking: Young Scholars Initiative, assembled a group of early career researchers with diverse backgrounds and research perspectives to reflect on and debate relevant issues around ecosystems and human wellbeing in the transition towards green economy, funded by the German Research Foundation, at Villa Vigoni, Italy. As a group of young scientists, we have come to a consensus that collaboration and communication among a diverse group of peers from different geographic regions could break down the barriers to multi-disciplinary research designed to solve complex global-scale problems. We also propose to establish a global systematic thinking to monitor global socio-ecological systems and to develop criteria for a “good” anthropocene. Finally, we aim to bridge gaps among research, the media, and education from a governance perspective linking with “sustainable development goals”.

Une « humanité inconcevable » à venir : Lévi-Strauss démographe

For a half a century, Claude Levi-Strauss multiplied statements about the demographic situation of humanity and its anthropological consequences. Those statements, often seen as shocking, were interpreted as a kind of aberration which defied rational understanding. Current opinion held was that the analysis of such idiosyncratic ideas overstepped the competence of anthropologists and historians. In fact, as shown in my text based on newly discovered archival materials, quite the opposite is true. Firstly, Levi-Strauss became interested in demography very early in his career. Secondly, his conception of demographic trends and their effects was based on scholarly knowledge. Thirdly, far from being an idiosyncratic extravagance, his demography corresponded to widely shared concerns, central to the cultural policies of UNESCO, in which Levi-Strauss was involved as Secretary general of the International Social Science Council (from 1952 to 1961). These facts are necessary if one is to grasp the cosmological outlook underlying the works of Claude Levi-Strauss. The principles of Levi-Straussian cosmology, in which demography plays an important role, are not reducible to the axioms of his structural theory. Without taking this cosmological infrastructure into account we are unable to correctly understand the moral message that Levi-Strauss endeavoured to deliver, which concerned the extreme dangers humanity could face in the near future.

The ‘Unconceivable Humankind’ to Come: A Portrait of Lévi-Strauss as a Demographer

AbstractFor a half a century, Claude Lévi-Strauss multiplied statements about the demographic situation of humanity and its anthropological consequences. Those statements, often seen as shocking, were interpreted as a kind of aberration which defied rational understanding. Current opinion held was that the analysis of such idiosyncratic ideas overstepped the competence of anthropologists and historians. In fact, as shown in my text based on newly discovered archival materials, quite the opposite is true. Firstly, Lévi-Strauss became interested in demography very early in his career. Secondly, his conception of demographic trends and their effects was based on scholarly knowledge. Thirdly, far from being an idiosyncratic extravagance, his demography corresponded to widely shared concerns, central to the cultural policies of UNESCO, in which Lévi-Strauss was involved as Secretary general of the International Social Science Council (from 1952 to 1961). These facts are necessary if one is to grasp the cosmological outlook underlying the works of Claude Lévi-Strauss. The principles of Lévi-Straussian cosmology, in which demography plays an important role, are not reducible to the axioms of his structural theory. Without taking this cosmological infrastructure into account we are unable to correctly understand the moral message that Lévi-Strauss endeavoured to deliver, which concerned the extreme dangers humanity could face in the near future.

Current issues in environmental management in Australia: what do people think?

In 2010, the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the International Social Science Council (ISSC) published their Grand Challenges in Global Sustainability Research, seeking to mobilise researchers in a 10-year scientific effort to address what they call the “grand challenges in global sustainability”. In this paper, we ask whether these Grand Challenges are relevant to Australian environmental management. We examine this from two angles, insights from public perception surveys, and our own survey data. Public attitudes surveys indicate public ambiguity on the knowledge base, a finding that implies an immediate need for improved public communication of scientific knowledge. Our on-line survey, attached to a conference, Innovative Solutions for Environmental Challenges, targeted Australian environmental managers and scientists’ views on critical issues. The results mirrored global scientists’ views on the need to find ways for the scientific, social and political communities to work together to develop innovative approaches to solving future environmental concerns. Importantly, we found that the specific responses were context and scale dependent, while highlighting the inherent tensions between maintaining production and consumption, and protection of resources and ecosystem services.

World Social Science Report 2010: Knowledge Divides (review)

Reviewed by: World Social Science Report 2010: Knowledge Divides Arno Tausch (bio) International Social Science Council (ISSC). World Social Science Report 2010: Knowledge DividesParis: UNESCO Publishing, 2010. Pp. xi, 422. Paper: ISBN-13 978-92-3-104131-0, €28.00, US$75.40; PDF available at http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/resources/reports/world-social-science-report/. The publication of this volume is timely. Constraints on state budgets around the globe in the wake of the world economic crisis that began in 2008 have increasingly compelled government ministries in charge of financing science to cut back on expenditures for research and to distribute their scarce funds according to 'objective performance criteria' and 'global university rankings,' 1which, in essence, all rely on the article and conference-paper databases that abstract and store scientific literature. 2At no time in the history of scholarly publishing in the social sciences have authors and also publishers faced such strong institutional [End Page 121]and social pressures to abandon more traditional market behaviour (like first publishing scientific results in books and not in journal articles, which was so typical of the classics of social sciences in the early twentieth century, from the works of Freud to those of Keynes and of Schumpeter 3) and to 'go for the journals' instead. The reviewed book is a systematic and critical evaluation of the evolving and deepening centre-periphery structures, which result from the headquarters of the dominant journals being nowadays concentrated in very few countries; as a result, authors seeking publication from the periphery and the semi-periphery of the world system de factohave very limited access to these journals. But the economic structures of the world system, which took shape after the Second World War, are changing dramatically: Countries such as Brazil, India, and China are rising in power and the dominance of the industrialized western democracies in the North Atlantic arena is waning. Thus, some cataclysmic changes in the production and publishing of global social sciences scholarly material are before us. The long-term effects of centre-periphery structures in the field of scholarly publishing—which began to take shape in the sciences long ago, and now have spread to the arts and humanities and the social sciences—will be felt everywhere. Like the triple-A rankings dispensed by the credit-rating agencies in global finance, 'impact factor' language and thinking started in the mid-1970s to dominate the discourse in the arts and humanities and the social sciences as well; deans and vice-deans nowadays circulate lists of journals that are indexed in the databases on which the global university-ranking systems usually rely, and dare you to publish somewhere other than in the journals covered by these indexes. No longer does the market success of an academic product determine an author's standing, like in the days of the groundbreaking books written by Freud and Popper, and Keynes and Schumpeter at the birth of global social sciences in the twentieth century. Instead, the impact factor of the journal where the article was first published is most important. Such structures of non-market behaviour are doomed to failure just like the global economic power of the rating agencies, and the challenges from the new centers of global power can already be seen in the global publishing industry. For example, there are ongoing efforts in Latin America—like the Mexican Latindex 4and the Brazilian SciELO 5 —to provide free access to high-quality peer-reviewed journals produced in the periphery and semi-periphery. [End Page 122] The present ISSC report, published by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), is vital reading for anyone concerned by these structures: research administrators at international, national, and lower levels; administrators of academic institutions, company executives interested in financing research, scientists, journal editors, managers of book and journal publishing companies, and, last but not least, the tens of thousands of students of the social sciences, especially in the developing countries. Some individuals in the social sciences have been aware of these evolving structures for quite some time now. The increase in the proportion of Nobel Prize winners from...

Editorial: Presenting the jubilee issue of Social Science Information

It was a day many years ago, when – freshly graduated from the University of ParisSorbonne – I met Fernand Braudel and Clemens Heller on Boulevard Raspail at the ‘historic’ location of both the EHESS and the FMSH, and they invited me to join the editorial staff of Social Science Information. On that day I could never have imagined I would still be in charge of the journal in 2011, and that we would be celebrating 50 years of its publication. Indeed, not many scholarly journals succeed in remaining alive for so long! But here we are and it is certainly an event worth celebrating. Social Science Information was founded in 1961 by Clemens Heller, then in charge of the Division des Aires Culturelles (Area Studies’ Division) at the Sixth Section of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE) – later to become the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales – in collaboration with the Ecole and with the sponsorship of the International Social Science Council (ISSC) of Unesco, who at that time owned the title. Later on, in 1972, when Clemens Heller became Assistant Administrator to Fernand Braudel at the newly created Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, the journal itself was granted the sponsorship of the Foundation. At this time, it was published by Mouton (Paris/The Hague). Then in 1978 SSI was entrusted to SAGE Publications, whose unfailing and generous support over all these years has been the guarantor of the journal’s high standards as well as its unquestionable international renown. In 1987 – to bring this brief historical parenthesis to a close – the ISSC resumed its support for the journal; and ownership of the title passed to Clemens Heller and thereby to the MSH. This Special Anniversary Issue celebrates the journal’s ‘silver jubilee’ of 50 years of continuous publication. The thinking behind its editorial make-up has been to invite key authors and members of the Journal’s committees, those who over the years have become very close collaborators, to submit an original contribution. I deliberately chose not to

Human Behavior in Response to Social Change

Social change is understood as a more or less rapid and comprehensive change of societal structures and institutions, including changes to the economic, technological, and cultural frameworks of a society (Calhoun, 1992). A case in point is the breakup or transformation of the former communist countries in Europe in the 1980s. The political transition to representative democracy included a profound change of the economic system to market capitalism, which was soon overlaid by the negative effects of globalization. Today, some 20 years after the event, we have a huge variation of political and economic transformations around the world. These transformations also include countries such as the United Kingdom or China that have undergone economic reforms without changes in the basics of the political system. Given that social change is evident at the macro level, it is also plausible to assume that such changes have an impact on individuals’ behavior and development. Until recently, however, such issues did not rank very high on the research agenda, at least not for psychology. This is the background to this Special Section, which brings together papers that investigate the effect of social change on the lives of individuals.

Announcement: The Foundation Mattei Dogan and the International Social Science Council prize for excellence in interdisciplinary research

International Social Science JournalVolume 57, Issue 186 p. 737-737 Announcement: The Foundation Mattei Dogan and the International Social Science Council prize for excellence in interdisciplinary research First published: 09 March 2006 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2451.2005.00589.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume57, Issue186December 2005Pages 737-737 RelatedInformation

Fifty years of the international social science council

Fifty years of the international social science council

Strengthening the role of the social sciences in society: the World Social Science Initiative

There seems to be a mismatch between the societal demand for social‐science knowledge and the supply of knowledge from the social sciences. The need for a re‐assessment of the way the social sciences operate and their role and status in society, is the main raison d'étre of the World Social Science Initiative (WSSI), promoted by the International Social Science Council. The WSSI, which emerged as a follow‐up to an OECD International Conference Series on “Re‐thinking the Social Sciences” supported by the European Commission's Research Directorate‐General and UNESCO's Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Programme, offers a flexible framework for enhancing both the scientific quality and the social relevance of the social sciences.

Quo vadis psychologia Europaea

Quo vadis psychologia Europaea

The Politics of Poverty Reduction

at the University of Bergen, Norway. She was President of the International Social Science Council 1996–98, and is a former Vice-President of the International Sociological Association. Since the beginning of 1991 Else Oyen has been Chair of CROP (the Comparative Research Programme on Poverty), an international and interdisciplinary research programme under the International Social Science Council. Her research spans from theory of the welfare state and comparative studies of social policy programmes in industrialised countries, to analyses of poverty and comparative methodology. The politics of poverty reduction