To mark the launch of our new report, The contemporary relevance of the social sciences, we held a webinar last week to discuss the essential role of the social sciences in helping to both harness the many opportunities and mitigate the various challenges that we face in our contemporary human world.
Chaired by the Academy’s President, Will Hutton, the webinar featured reflections from Professor Linda Bauld FAcSS, Michael Davis, Gavin Kelly and Professor Rosie McEachan on some of the report’s key themes and draw on their own experiences, from their research and work, of why the social sciences matter.
In her reflections, Professor Linda Bauld, Chief Social Policy Adviser at the Scottish Government, highlighted how the report will provide support and encouragement for social scientists working in government and civil service, as well as emphasising the importance of using evidence from across the breadth of social science disciplines, including but beyond economics. She drew on two examples of social science research which continues to make important contributions to evidence which guides good government decision making, highlighting how evidence from social science research has played an important role in underpinning the Scottish Child Payment to support in lifting 60,000-80,000 children out of poverty per year. Linda also pointed to the importance of social scientists working societal risks such as work done by Professor Sander van der Linden on mis- and dis-information, which links strongly to Scotland’s recently published Health Information Integrity Strategy.
She said, “I know very well every day in this government role that we’re in a really challenging fiscal context, and there’s no genie we can pull out of a bottle or a magic wand. But I hope that looking at the challenges we face globally, and in the UK, we’ll continue to recognise and support the value of social science.”
Gavin Kelly, Chief Executive of the Nuffield Foundation, focused on the transformational power of social science research for the benefit of society. He illustrated this through explaining the vital role that social science evidence played in the introduction of the national minimum wage, and the role that it continues to play in shaping policy in this area. He pointed out that someone earning the national minimum wage today is earning £6,000 more than if the national minimum wage had not been introduced and low pay had increased at the rate of typical pay alone since the late 1990s.
He said, “The minimum wage has been a story of transformation, and it’s been very significantly powered by social science, and it has changed the lives of many millions of people in this country.”
Gavin also highlighted that timescales need to be considered when thinking about the impact of policies and the importance of providing timely evidence at regular intervals to ensure that policymakers can support their decision making. He used Sure Start centres as an example of how the positive impact from policies can often take a long time, in political cycles at least, to emerge.
Professor Rosie McEachan, Director of Born in Bradford, built on both Linda and Gavin’s reflections to highlight how the Born in Bradford research programme, which is a case study in the new report, is an excellent example of how social scientists work with communities and stakeholders to create solutions to the many varied problems society faces. She summarised how data from their research has led to interventions by the Bradford local authority to improve over 40 pockets of parks and green space in some of the most deprived parts of the city and the introduction of a clean air zone. Following this, ongoing research by the Born in Bradford team has indicated a decline in the number of GP visits related to respiratory illnesses.
Rosie said, “The power of the social sciences is that you can help to give policymakers evidence that enables them to have more confidence, and the ability, to implement policy and [reassure them] that it is going to be a success.”
Finally, Michael Davis, Chief Executive of the National Centre for Social Research, discussed how the social sciences can help build a better narrative that extends beyond economic value, so that the public can more easily understand the positive contribution of the social sciences to our daily lives and society. He argued for a change in how we measure progress in our society not in terms of GDP but of health and safety.
Michael said, “I would love to be part of a society where in place of that conversation about trade deficit is something much more important, which is some sense of, what is our societal health?”
A Q&A followed our panel’s reflections and the full recording is available to watch below.