Net4Society ISSUES e-magazine

Jane Ohlmeyer & Doireann Wallace

SSHA Integration, or the purposeful funding of interdisciplinary research between scientists and researchers in the social sciences, humanities and arts and their counterparts in the natural sciences, engineering, technology, math and medical sciences, is a hallmark of Horizon 2020, the current European Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. Designated as a “cross-cutting priority” within the Programme, SSHA Integration represents an important piece of European research funding policy. Its primary aim is to produce more nuanced and multifaceted solutions to grand societal challenges, like migration, or the crumbling trust in democracy and democratic systems and institutions of governance, or climate change; thus, combining the various strengths and insights of different disciplines in a single, supercharged effort of understanding. It is a strong belief on the part of the European Commission, that no single discipline can adequately address the complexity of the problems currently facing Europe.

With the start of Horizon Europe, the successor R & I Framework Programme, expected in early 2021, a focus on SSHA Integration will continue to be pursued. While this decision comes as positive news for the SSHA research community, it also raises questions about the nature of this process and how it can ultimately be improved. These questions concern a series of known shortcomings associated with the current practices of SSHA Integration at the European level, which tend to unintentionally disadvantage researchers from the social scientific and art and humanities disciplines.

To better understand what these shortcomings are, ISSUES spoke with Professor Jane Ohlmeyer and Dr Doireann Wallace of the Horizon 2020-funded project SHAPE-ID: Shaping Interdisciplinary Practice in Europe. This 30-month coordination and support action, CSA, project (2019-2021), coordinated by Trinity College Dublin in Ireland, directly grapples with improving SSHA Integration practices through the delivery of recommendations and concrete tools focused on best practice engagement in inter- and transdisciplinary research activities.

ISSUES posed questions to Professor Ohlmeyer, SHAPE-ID’s coordinator, and Dr Wallace, SHAPE-ID’s project manager, concentrated on the subject of bringing more SSHA research in general into the next Framework Programme, the sort of skills necessary for interdisciplinary research to be successful, and the betterment of integration pathways, in particular for the arts and humanities, which are, on the whole, far less referenced in calls and topics than the social sciences. The following is an excerpt of this conversation and has been edited for clarity.

There is a concern that there are not enough research opportunities available for the Arts and Humanities in the current EU Framework Programme, which has raised the question of how to get more SSHA research into the Horizon Europe Programme. How does SHAPE-ID seek to contribute to this objective? What are the specific activities engaged in by the project?

DW: SHAPE-ID has addressed this issue directly at a workshop at the University of Edinburgh last year (January 2019), focused on environmental humanities. Researchers engaged in the humanities and policy makers (UK) were invited to attend. During the workshop, they focused on examples of calls/texts (related to environmental challenges) that come up under Horizon 2020. For the most part, SSH disciplines are referenced in a token way in calls. Participants felt that the language of calls is very exclusive, there is no room for humanists to come in with their nuanced cultural perspectives on their problem. The calls are very closed. Expected impacts are very specifically defined, with no sense of an invitation to the researcher to come and say “I want to rethink this problem; I want to look at it from another point of view,” which is really where the strength of the arts and humanities lie (in viewing problems from really different perspectives/point-of-view). Humanities and arts bring the strength of saying “we don’t have to enter this problem this way, we don’t even have to understand a problem like ‘this’”. We need to see (a problem) from a different point of view.

DW: The language used in calls is also problematic. Do they really want broader perspectives? This is something we, SHAPE-ID, have engaged with in a policy brief. It is really an “upstream” problem. We call for substantive representation—people with broad SSHA and interdisciplinary competence, understanding and experience, informing how the calls are written. This really means rethinking the aims of the entire SSHA Integration programme from the top-down.

Are humanists and artists willing to put themselves forward to take part in a project?

JO: Yes, but this calls for co-creation. This is necessary, if you really want these colleagues. There is no reason why the European Commission can’t have humanists in the room when the calls are being created. Colleagues are willing—they tend to be more senior—because they have the luxury if something fails, it doesn’t matter—they aren’t investing in something that, if it doesn’t go anywhere, adversely affects them— to step up to the plate. They recognize the importance of bringing different perspectives and demonstrate a willingness to engage. It’s harder for junior (early/mid-career) researchers. But, there is a core of people out there who are actually doing this.

DW: Also important is the need to interpret for researchers—Net4Society plays an important role here, in filtering and presenting this list of where the opportunities are. University research offices do that too, trawl through calls. But more interpretive work is needed. This is also needed from the Commission if they are serious about interdisciplinary research—for them to provide this themselves, this intermediate level. For example, by saying “we invited SSHA contributions here” and even to say, you know, it might seem the calls are quite specific, but we are open to different perspectives on this”. We need competence and capacity building at the national level for SSHA researchers. Start on a smaller scale, with seed-funding to encourage interdisciplinary research in the first place.

JO: This brings me to how people get to know each other, networking, brokerage(s). We simply do not know how to connect with each other. We need to be thinking at this level on even how to facilitate getting people connected. This is a probably something institutions need to facilitate, that brokerage. But it is also national agencies, European agencies, that need to recognize that that (brokerage) needs to happen.

Are you saying that is not yet clear enough? This support from national bodies or European bodies? That it’s not yet in place?

JO: Yes. It doesn’t exist. This is where our toolkit comes into play. Explaining to our universities that step one is, you know, matchmaking. Speed-dating for your academics that want to collaborate with each other. Without people coming together around common challenges, it’s very hard to figure out what I, as a researcher, can bring to the table. You’ve got very basic things that need to be addressed.

JO: If you are already collaborating in an interdisciplinary way, you are fine. It’s the ones who want to engage, but don’t know how, who we need to address.

What are the specific sorts of skills an interdisciplinary researcher possesses and can bring to collaborative research projects? Are these skills that are more disciplinarily-oriented, or are they a completely different set of skills?

JO: You know, that is such a great question…and it’s one that I actually had to think a little bit about, because I’m so used to having to think about what the particular attributes of SSHA is. So, the first thing is to be very clear: you can’t have strong interdisciplinarity without strong disciplines, so obviously you’re bringing the skill set associated with your discipline to the table. But I actually think that when you start to do that, it makes you much more open-minded. I’m just going to talk through the type of person I see at the end of this process of actually engaging in interdisciplinary research. Much more creative in the way that they think. Much more willing to take risks. Much greater openness to ideas and thinking. Because if you don’t have these sorts of qualities and attributes coming into the conversation…and the conversation reinforces that…for me, sometimes the interdisciplinarity is an amplifier of the disciplinary skills that you’re bringing…but it also, I think, increases an academic’s sense of confidence as well, because actually you can see by being better together by working in a collaborative way, you’re actually making a difference in a very tangible way.

JO: The thing is, then you start to think more as a team-player, you are then much more respectful of people’s perspectives and ideas There can be an arrogance associated with disciplines. It’s very humbling when you’re up with a neuroscientist and you don’t have a clue what they’re talking about; you’re out of your comfort zone, if you know what I mean. And that involves trust and risk-taking, but you know that the rewards are such that you’re willing to do it. But it brings it back to good interdisciplinarity. It’s about trust, it’s about time, and it’s about reciprocity. “The reason I’m willing to take these risks and have conversations with you as an anthropologist is that I’m actually going to learn something that’s going to allow me to do my research better. Because I think academics particularly are inherently selfish, so if they don’t think they’re going to get something out of this at the end of it, then they are not going to engage. It’s a very interesting question and it’s one I think we need to take up in SHAPE-ID and really think about it, because that in a sense is your sales pitch for why you do it interdisciplinary research at some level.

Your project talks about the necessity of improving pathways to SSHA Integration in EU R&I framework programmes. What are these improvements? What form should they or do they need to take? What, if any, reaction to these suggestions have there been?

JO: If we’re going to fund this kind of activity, then we need to make it easy for people to take the intellectual capital and get it rewarded somewhere, which isn’t happening, really. The Commission can help enormously with this in terms of the way it links interdisciplinarity with impact. I think doing so would be very, very helpful. In other words, you’re seeing an immediate societal benefit from doing it. Also, the Commission needs to make sure that if something is flagged as being interdisciplinary, and requiring a SSHA collaboration, if that is not there in a true and meaningful way, that whole thing should not be funded. It should be sent back, saying “this isn’t interdisciplinary”.

DW: We could say, in terms of the principles of what a good interdisciplinary research project looks like, what would good SSH integration look like. Joint-problem framing would be one thing. Not bringing on the SSHA partner after you’ve already defined the problem, after you’ve already decided on the approach. There are a huge number of different definitions of interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity. If you take the basic idea that it involves people from different disciplines sharing methods, data, approaches and whatever it is they’ve got to share, that question of working out the method, working out the concepts together and developing a shared language at the start of the project, when the project is being conceived is really, really important.

DW: Our colleagues in Switzerland (ETH Zurich) have done a lot of work on that, those barriers between disciplines, between ways of thinking which need to be overcome. They work with the Swiss transdisciplinary research network (td-net), which has a really great toolkit for different problems you might encounter, for example for sitting down with other people and trying to align understandings and expectations, where you expect to make impact with the project and things like that. Overcoming those communication barriers is something their toolkit addresses really well. Obviously, we don’t want to reinvent the wheel when there is already good material available, so one aspect of SHAPE-ID’s toolkit will be to bring together and signpost what’s already been done. The useful tools and materials that are already out there together to create, you know, a space that’s going to facilitate knowledge sharing, for people to learn from one another about best practice in doing this kind of research.

JO: Just in terms of what Doireann is saying…there are so many good reports out there. If the LERU report on interdisciplinarity had been implemented, we would already be in a different space. We’re very good at producing stuff, but not really acting on the recommendations, and that’s true of the Commission, and its true of the universities, so the question is “what can we do that will actually get people to actually start to implement”. And I’m not sure we can, but that is what the missing link is.

Do you think it might be possible to talk a little bit about what is going to be in that toolkit?

JO: Yes, but it is a work in progress. We aren’t entirely sure ourselves, but we do want it to be a very practical, useful set of resources that brings together what is already out there on the one hand, but also is presented in a way that it’s very accessible to that researcher who wants to begin that interdisciplinary journey, but that’s also useful to anybody who funds interdisciplinarity.

DW: Our partners at the University of Edinburgh are leading the development of the toolkit. A couple of things that are important about the toolkit would be that we want to create an online resource that will offer points-of-access and pathways. The toolkit is really about pathways to SSHA integration. Pathways are going to look different for different stakeholder groups. SHAPE-ID is trying to reach four different stakeholder groups: researchers themselves, that could be both SSHA and STEM, it can be both early career and senior, all of whom who would have different needs in terms of points-of-access [into interdisciplinary research]. We’re also trying to reach [research] funders and policy makers, university decision-makers and professional staff in universities, by supporting capacity-building in interdisciplinarity. And there’s kind of the more difficult question of research users or co-creators, people who would be involved from outside of academia; representatives from industry or civil society, who would be partners in transdisciplinary research, or who might be you know, consumers of research outputs where they are designed to have societal impact. So essentially, we want to create a navigational interface to guide people to different resources, tools, recommendations, guidelines that would be useful to each of these [groups] in a very targeted way, in terms of what they need to improve their ability to either do or to support this kind of SSHA integration.

DW: This could involve things like a centralized point-of-access to what’s already out there, like the td-net tools. It could include how to deal with issues like how researchers can connect with each other, how can they sit down and negotiate expectations around project outputs, and also things like the value of guidelines for evaluators, the things we have been discussing. But all of this is still very much under discussion, a work in progress as Jane says. We might look at assessment tools for SSHA integration—what does it look like? Are you involving, if you’re thinking of involving an SSHA partner in the right way, at the right level, are you aware of what they can bring? Have you discussed with them what they can bring? So, you know, countering that question of tokenism…is this real integration or is it just, you know, the basic distinction between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research, where with multidisciplinarity you have people kind of working in parallel on different strands, as opposed to people actually working in a more integrated way, to consider and develop a problem and an approach. Bringing those kinds of things in to help people reflect on what they are doing when they’re setting out to do this kind of research.

DW: That would be that in terms of thinking of the toolkit at the moment. What is important to us is to have a lot of consultation around the toolkit. We’re working with an expert panel to help us define what should be in the SHAPE-ID toolkit and what kind of tools do people need, in different areas, to support this process. We invite any of your readers to contact us to tell us they know about this great tool, this should be in in the toolkit. We’re interested in that kind of consultative process with as many people as possible. Or if people have a sense that “this is a real challenge for me in my daily work, and I would really like to see some kind of resource that could help me do this”. I don’t think we can address everything that everybody might want, but we would love to hear about what people think, that would be useful to them or if they need resources or access.

SHAPE-ID will be hosting a webinar under the title of “Professionalising Inter- and Transdisciplinary expertise”, on 10 December 2020 from 13:00-14:15 CET. For more information, please click on the title provided.

Joanna Sofaer & Tony Whyton

Enhancing democratic governance, promoting cultural heritage, and management of social and economic transformations are the three destinations of the upcoming Horizon Europe Cluster 2. The main objectives of this cluster are to foster greater understanding of a culturally and socially rich and diverse Europe, and to show how it can benefit most from adopting new paradigms, and policies for change in a context of fast-paced transformations and international interconnectedness. Although the challenges are great, so too are the opportunities to turn these challenges into strengths through European cohesion, convergence, diversity and creativity across all areas of the economy, society, culture and governance.

Humanities research plays an indispensable role in society’s development and well-being, by addressing the most fundamental challenges of human history, culture and identity; by reflecting on the basis of knowledge and truth; and by promoting the values of intellectual curiosity, innovation, critical thinking and tolerance. HERA is a network of European funding organizations dedicated to creating new opportunities for innovative, transnational research in the humanities. In 2017, HERA appointed two Knowledge and Impact fellows, Professor Joanna Sofaer (University of Southampton) and Professor Tony Whyton (Birmingham City University), to work with HERA funded projects and to support and encourage knowledge exchange. ISSUES reached out to both professors for their thoughts on why humanities matter, and what insights humanities research can provide in the current climate and in the upcoming Framework Programme.

The upcoming Work Programme of the Horizon Europe Cluster 2 is focusing on democracy, cultural heritage and social and cultural transformations. What could be the role and the specific contribution of the humanities within those thematic areas?

JS: All these areas require the essential skills and insights of the humanities. The humanities contribute to understanding what people are about – how they became who they are and who they are today. Understanding and promoting democracy requires analysis of concepts like trust and civil liberties – these are just as much philosophical and anthropological questions, as those of political science and statistical analysis. We cannot fully understand what patterns in contemporary data mean without placing them in an historical context. The historical perspective and critical thinking of the humanities is vital. This is particularly obvious when we look at tendencies such as ‘fake news’ or the pandemic we are facing right now. The humanities can also suggest paths for the future. For example, cultural heritage studies can provide us with insights into what we would like to take from the past into the present and the future. It’s impossible to address heritage without a humanities component.

TW: I agree. The humanities are key to understanding and engaging with cultural heritage. They resist notions of heritage as simply being about issues of conservation, and open up the field to different perspectives and discourses. Besides working for HERA, I previously worked as a project leader for a JPI Cultural Heritage project called CHIME. Within this context, humanities scholars would ask really important questions that challenge many assumptions about heritage, such as who has the right to speak, how can we best acknowledge the heritage of marginalized groups, what are the tensions between top down and bottom up notions of heritage and so on. The HERA Joint Research Programme, which celebrates its tenth anniversary, has been contributing to the themes outlined in the new Horizon Europe work programme for many years now. Indeed, cultural transformation was embedded within the first HERA programme ‘Creativity as a Source of Innovation,’ and will feature as a primary theme in the new Joint Research Programme, which will be launched next year.

Impact and public engagement are important aspects of all research projects in the upcoming Framework Programme. How should humanities researchers think about impact and public engagement in their projects?

JS: Humanities impact is qualitatively different from the impact of the hard sciences. It’s not about developing a drug or a specific device. It’s about deep change, which makes people think differently. This potential of humanities research is often underestimated, as to date there has been so much focus on economic impact.
I also would like to challenge the predominant understanding of impact as being instrumentalist. We should understand impact in a broader sense in terms of social, cultural and economic benefits. This includes, for example, people’s well-being. There are infinite areas where the humanities can contribute, which at the same time may create difficulties in how these impacts are perceived, as we cannot easily pin our contribution down to one concrete outcome.

TW: In our role as Knowledge Exchange Fellows, we created a toolkit around impact, public engagement and knowledge exchange specifically for the humanities. With this toolkit, we would like to provide researchers with models to think about impact in different ways. Over a 10-year period, we have gathered a wealth of data on different humanities projects and their engagement with non-academic partners, different stakeholders and audiences. The range of partnership, knowledge exchange activities, and broader impacts are profound, and we’ve highlighted some wonderful examples within the toolkit itself.

JS: Alongside the toolkit, we worked with award-winning animator Annlin Chao to create a humanities advocacy film. It’s the story of a character who starts off in a world without the humanities, within a blank world, so to say. This character finds a book and travels through different ‘worlds’ of humanities, becoming human as she does so. The animation is targeted at people who might not have immediate links to the humanities. This is a way of reaching out to the public in a creative manner. In fact, that’s another strength of the humanities: they are really good at engaging with and through creativity.

Research and innovation will play a pivotal role in guiding us through the current COVID-19 crisis. What can the humanities teach us in these difficult times?

JS: The humanities have never been more vital! Unfortunately, governments sometimes tend to focus on hard sciences, when it comes to solutions for the COVID crisis. Obviously, those disciplines are crucial for addressing the current challenges. But people have other needs as well. Humanities-based knowledge inspires people and provides essential nourishment. In the short term, art, literature, film, music or learning another language have kept people going during lockdowns - it is humanities scholars who understand these forms of human expression (think of people playing music on their balconies and what that meant to people around the globe). COVID-19 will doubtless also have long-term consequences and here, too, the humanities have an important part to play, such as the role of culture in post-COVID economic regeneration, or recognising the importance of museums, galleries and historic places to people’s mental health. There are also vital questions around the opportunities and inequalities that the pandemic has exposed by suddenly requiring new ways of doing things, including the relationship between people and technology, in education, and the possibility of mandatory vaccines. Addressing these effectively requires cultural, philosophical, ethical, creative and critical expertise clearly belonging to the humanities. The humanities, therefore, ought to lead dedicated research programmes.

TW: I fully agree. There is a complexity within the humanities that allows us to understand a wide range of topics. COVID has really brought this complexity to light, from the way in which music, film, and literature have preserved people’s well-being during periods of isolation, to the questioning of racial prejudice, and interrogation of the populist political agendas we see in many countries around the world today.

JS: Yes. Another good example is the impact of COVID-19 on the nature and understanding of public spaces. This topic is part of the HERA Joint Research Programme on European Public Space, Culture and Integration, highlighting the importance and relevance of humanities research to present events. Perhaps we should also remember that COVID-19 is just one part of a long human history that is not only a history of crises, but also one of creativity, imagination, joy and hope. We should learn from our past in order to develop solutions, not just during COVID-19, but also to climate change and economic challenges. To do this we need the contribution of the humanities.

Matthias Reiter-Pázmándy

Let’s start with a basic, but crucial question: What is the added value of the Social Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts (SSHA) disciplines for the European R&I?

MRP: SSHA research brings knowledge and methodological tools on humans and societies into the R&I process. This might sound somewhat trivial, but it can trigger an “aha” effect for researchers with backgrounds in technical or natural sciences. SSHA expertise is also demanded by non-academic stakeholders. One example is the creative sector, including the gaming, music and television industry, where the links to the humanities and the arts are obvious. Another example are first responders. In Austria, we have currently discussions on how to manage emergencies by bringing expertise from different stakeholders together. In such cases, the collaboration with SSHA researchers should certainly be improved.

If we turn the question upside down: What is the added value of European R&I for the SSHA disciplines, especially when we look at collaborative projects?

MRP: This differs from case by case. For some countries, the financial support for a project is the most important reason to submit a proposal under the European Framework Programmes. In other cases, it might rather be the possibility of extending one’s international network or working together with prestigious partner institutions.

Horizon 2020 has implemented the principle of the integration of Social Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts across all thematic fields. Could you tell us about some lessons learned?

MRP: I’d like to mention three aspects. First, monitoring matters and should be further improved in Horizon Europe. It is true that quantitative data provided by monitoring reports are not reflecting the whole reality. But they can serve as a starting point for further discussion. Second, we do not need more SSHA flagged topics; maybe we can have even less? But those topics where a contribution by SSHA disciplines makes truly sense should include this expertise in a more systematic, and most of all, binding way. Third, stakeholders across different sectors should improve their knowledge about SSHA integration. In Horizon 2020, within the European Commission this was mainly the task of the so-called liaison officers. For Horizon Europe, more expertise is needed in the various committees discussing R&I policy. This is true for the Commission, but also we in the Member States delegations need to do our homework. Of course, this is a question of resources. As a Horizon Europe Cluster 2 delegate, I feel responsible to brief my colleagues from the other Clusters and programmes on SSHA aspects. I did so recently regarding the food thematic and it became clear that the Social Sciences and Humanities have a lot to say there, for example regarding economic or cultural issues in nutrition. This was a rewarding experience.
In sum: The availability of expertise at the right spot is certainly one of the main challenges of SSHA integration in Horizon Europe.

Isn’t there a certain risk that the discourse on SSHA Integration could be at the expense of a dedicated SSHA programme, namely Cluster 2 on Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society under Horizon Europe?

MRP: I don’t think so. It would be wishful thinking to argue that without the concept of SSHA Integration the budget of Cluster 2 could be increased. This just doesn’t reflect the current political priorities. From my point of view, there is actually rather a risk of too little SSHA Integration. Under Horizon 2020 we had topics on agriculture or health which were transferred to the Societal Challenge 6 programme on Inclusive Societies, just because they had a focus on socio-economic and humanities aspects. With a SSHA Integration approach, such topics could remain under the dedicated Health or Food programme.

Under Horizon 2020, the Arts and the Humanities have been underrepresented in comparison with Socio-economic sciences, especially in collaborative projects. Will this change under Horizon Europe?

MRP: I don’t think so. The question of the integration of the Humanities and the Arts in collaborative projects is a very specific issue, also from a methodological point of view. I believe that the Arts and Humanities will benefit if the SSHA community as a whole is strengthened. They should go with the flow.
As for the Arts, there have been dedicated topics under the last Societal Challenge 6 Work Programme. I consider this to be a strong signal. It would be great, if we could have a follow-up under Horizon Europe as there is no doubt that the Arts can contribute to the R&I process. Furthermore, there are other European programmes such as Creative Europe, which are of specific interest for artists. Also, there will be a new initiative: the Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) for the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) under the European Institute of Technology (EIT), in short the EIT KIC CCI.

Last but not least: How will the current COVID-19 crisis influence the upcoming Horizon Europe calls, especially with regard to Cluster 2?

MRP: We will see very interesting topics. COVID-19 will definitely have an impact on the next Horizon Europe calls and there will be dedicated topics under Cluster 2. I even heard about concerns that Corona will be too dominant in the upcoming Work Programme (2021–2022) and that Corona should not be an aspect that needs to be reflected in each and every project proposal.
In general, I noticed that there is a high demand on SSHA expertise during the COVID-19 crisis and that the community was able to respond to this need. A good example is the issue of children’s education during the lockdown: educational sciences and social scientists contributed to this question both with basic insights and brand-new findings. This highlights the importance of the SSHA disciplines for our society.

This is actually also a nice reference to the first question and makes the circle complete. Thanks a lot for your time and insights.

Biography

Matthias Reiter-Pázmándy is Deputy Head of the Department for Social Sciences and Humanities in the Directorate General for Scientific Research and International Relations in the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Research (BMBWF). Amongst others, he represents Austria in the Programme Committee for the Horizon 2020 Societal Challenge 6 and will be the national delegate for the Horizon Europe Cluster 2.

Matthias Reiter-Pázmándy studied Sociology and worked several years in Market and Opinion Research before joining the Ministry.