Symposium The Impact of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Discussing Germany and Japan.
Following recent developments in science policy around the world the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) will host a symposium on “The Impact of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Discussing Germany and Japan” on 14th and 15th November 2017.
This symposium brings together high profile speakers from both the academic and research/science policy communities from Japan and Germany in order to seek new insights into the meaning and effects of the discourse of “societal impact” and related administrative practices.
It will include a keynote speech by DFG-President Prof. Dr. Peter Strohschneider.
The symposium also explores the contributions of pioneering research in German and Japanese social sciences to understanding and addressing the major social, political and regional developments of the global era, with the aim of exploring similarities and differences in meeting contemporary challenges to social integration and political stability.
Objectives
Academic research costs money, and it is neither surprising nor inappropriate that researchers and research institutions are asked to justify their use of public resources. What calls for analysis and discussion, however, is the expectation that such justifications be framed in terms of how likely a given individual research project is to meet “societal needs” or what “societal impact” or “output” it has or is likely to have in the future.