Dr Marc Renaud

Some Hard Facts on “Soft Sciences”

By Dr Marc Renaud

When young people seek advice on what to study at university, the “fact-based” comments they get back are often like these: “The smartest people are going into the “hard” sciences.”

“The natural sciences are doing all the exciting stuff. That’s where the future is.” “The liberal arts are Mickey Mouse. Most of their research is frivolous or irrelevant.” “When you graduate from the social sciences or humanities, you’ll have a hard time finding a job.”

Yet, according to the most recently available data (1998-99), about 309,000 students — 55% of those studying full-time in Canadian universities — are enrolled in the social sciences and humanities. That includes 55.3% of the 470,039 Bachelor’s degrees, 61.4% of the 44,794 Master’s degrees and 51.5% of the 41,734 PhD degrees. This pattern has been pretty constant for the last 30 years. So why do so many young people go on ignoring the “facts”?

One of the most profound reasons is metaphysical: they have a passion for understanding human beings, their culture and experience, their modes of social, political and economic organization.

But there are other strong reasons to choose the social sciences and humanities.

First, research in these disciplines is developing real knowledge:

* Canada is a leader in comparative literary history, building understanding and trust across the cultures of the world;

* Canada invented Geographical Information Systems (GIS), used for economic and social forecasting and planning, and for developing our world-renowned historical atlases;

* Canada is a world leader in labour economics, based on longitudinal surveys by Statistics Canada;

* Canada has world-recognized expertise in population health research, thanks to our uniquely rich health data;

* Canada has created the best research methodology for understanding how election campaigns shape the way people vote;

* Canada is internationally recognised for the body of knowledge it has built on immersion and second language learning;

* Canada is on the cutting edge of knowledge on how the mind processes language (enabling new therapy for speech pathologies) and on the underlying grammar of languages (work that is positioning us to develop new, more powerful search engines for the Web).

Second, employment prospects for social science and humanities graduates are probably better than ever. The research abilities, communication skills and subject expertise they acquire are hot properties on the job market. These graduates may take a bit longer finding their first jobs and may start at lower salaries than those in the natural sciences and engineering, but they rapidly catch up.

Third, in the midst of rapidly changing socio-economic and intellectual challenges around the world, social sciences and humanities research methods have evolved dramatically:

* All indicators show a huge expansion in team research and networking. This is giving rise to new critical masses of talent around particular topics, an intense new spirit of collaboration and wonderful new training grounds for the workforce of tomorrow.

* Research is increasingly problem- versus discipline-driven. More and more disciplines are working together — even pulling in the natural sciences — to get at the many aspects of these problems. Even economics, traditionally less inclined in this direction, is starting to engage in interdisciplinary work, especially in business schools.

* A new collective “entrepreneurial” culture is emerging. New Research Data Centres have opened on nine Canadian campuses. New collective projects are underway to archive and retrieve research data at the national level. New community-university research partnerships are emerging to build social and economic development.

In sum, thanks to ground-breaking research, new ways of collaborating, and strong market demand for graduates, the social sciences and humanities in Canada are making inroads that are every bit as exciting, innovative and important as those in the “harder” sciences.

The Government of Canada was ahead of its time in making a single agency — the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) — responsible for funding peer-reviewed research that spans the social sciences, administrative sciences (commerce), education science, humanities and fine arts. This has proven to be a hugely challenging role for SSHRC, but also one that drives a kind of innovation less likely in agencies focusing on fewer disciplines.

The federal government invests, proportionally, about the same amount in social sciences and humanities research as its US counterpart. But our social science and humanities researchers are actually many times poorer because unlike their American colleagues, they don’t get huge additional financial support from private foundations. In Canada, only the Québec government has recognised the need for more financial support for the social sciences and humanities. SSHRC receives 12.9% of federal granting council funding while its Québec equivalent receives 29% of the provincial total.

And yet, “human” science knowledge is needed more than ever. Numerous world leaders, including several Nobel Prize winners, argue that the explosive growth in knowledge and technology is profoundly changing the economic, social and cultural fabric of our societies, locally and globally. The problems that lie ahead are socio-cultural more than anything else. September 11 has taught us that the lasting “antidote” to terrorism is a continually renewed understanding of the complex world we live in. These events have re-emphasized fundamental questions at the heart of the “human” sciences throughout the 20th Century: What makes for a vibrant civil society where people trust each other? What allows institutions to adapt well? How can global citizenship and cultural tolerance become entrenched in human values everywhere?

In my opinion, Canadian researchers in the social sciences and humanities have reached the limits of what they can do with the current resources. Without a sizeable increase, it is impossible for them to maintain their current strengths, let alone build the new ones that our interdependent future demands.

Dr Marc Renaud is president of SSHRC