Towards a Definition of Socio-Economic Research for the ...

1 RESPECT discussion paper by Ursula Huws, 15 June 20021 Towards a Definition of Socio-Economic Researchfor the RESPECT ProjectA draft working paper by Ursula Huws, RESPECT Project DirectorIntroductionThe term Socio-Economic Research is in widespread use in theEuropean Commission s work programmes and elsewhere. In theFourth Framework Programme, for instance, there was aprogramme entitled Targeted Socio-Economic Research (TSER)and in the Fifth Framework Programme there were numerouscalls for proposals to carry out Socio-Economic Research related toInformation Society Technologies (in the IST Programme) and toother issues of relevance to EU policy.

2 At national level, there arealso economic and social Research funding councils in mostEuropean Countries. However, nowhere in this documentation, asfar as I can tell, is any Definition offered of socio -economicresearch .For the purposes of the RESPECT project, however, it is necessaryto have some sort of functional Definition . This short discussionpaper is designed as the first step Towards the development ofsuch a Definition . As the project develops, this Definition will betested in relation to the actual practices of socio -economicresearchers, whose activities, qualifications and professionalaffiliations will be profiled as part of the project s the meantime, a brief survey of projects described as Socio-Economic Research projects indicates that they cover a very broadrange in relation to the backgrounds and qualifications of theresearchers, the methodologies used and the subject matteraddressed.

3 It is clear that drawing a clear boundary around theseprojects that will distinguish them from other fields of endeavour,is likely to be extremely difficult, if not impossible. The word society (and hence the prefix socio - ) applies in its broadestsense to all human activity. There will therefore inevitably beareas of overlap with many other types of Research , for instancewith medical Research , with mathematical modelling, or withdocumentary art. The outputs of Socio-Economic Research mayalso be difficult to distinguish from other types of publication, forinstance from journalism, biography or technical drawing up a Definition it seems important to avoid at oneextreme constructing something which is so broad as to bemeaningless, and at the other, something which is so narrow thatit fails to capture the full reality of the practices which arecurrently designated as Socio-Economic Research by the EU-funded Research discussion paper by Ursula Huws.

4 15 June 20022 Because the RESPECT project has been funded by the EuropeanCommission s IST Programme, and because of the specialchallenges which have been raised for the Research community bythe concept of an information society , it is proposed that thestarting point for this Definition should be these existing practiceswithin the framework of the IST Programme. We hope, however,that this does not mean that they will be irrelevant in other increasingly inter-disciplinary nature of socio -economicresearch across all fields in the current rapidly-changing globallandscape suggests that IST-related Socio-Economic Research maywell represent a more extreme example of more general issuesand that our results will have broader approaches to the problem of definitionIn attempting to construct a Definition , five possible approachessuggest themselves.

5 These are:1. discipline-based2. methodology-based3. policy-based4. issue-based5. hybrid1. A discipline-based approachA discipline-based approach to defining Socio-Economic researchwould define it as any Research carried out by people who arequalified in one of the recognised Socio-Economic are, of course a very broad range of such disciplines andtheir number is continuously increasing as a result of thedevelopment of new sub-disciplines and areas of applied researchwhich all too often form the basis of new University are also important differences in national approaches to thedefinition of disciplines.

6 The grouping of university departmentsand the development of and Kuper, in their monumental social Science Encyclopedia1,group the social science disciplines as shown in the left-handcolumn of Table 1. No doubt these categories correspond withmajor divisions in the literature but they lack coherence,appearing to combine those which can be genuinely said to be discipline-based (such as economics, or philosophy) with somewhich are more focussed on particular issues or fields of study(such as family and kinship ). 1 Kuper A and Kuper J, social Science Encyclopedia, Second edition,Routledge, London and New York, 1996 RESPECT discussion paper by Ursula Huws, 15 June 20023I would therefore like to propose that, for the purposes ofRESPECT, we amalgamate some of these categories, for instanceby integrating government, politics and public policy with political theory into a combined category called politicalscience.

7 And by including social administration, social work, social problems with sociology. Although it is a separatediscipline, I have also proposed that anthropology should also beamalgamated with sociology. Insofar as it is relevant to the studyof advanced industrial societies, it is arguable that the maincontribution of anthropology is the use of ethnographicmethodologies, which are in practice increasingly used bysociologists carrying out qualitative suggestions are presented in the right-hand column ofTable 1. Other proposals include the elimination of somedisciplines that, whilst of course making an important generalcontribution to any kind of Research in any field, do not appearTable 1: Disciplines involved in Socio-Economic ResearchKuper and Kuper categoriesSuggestions for RESPECTA nthropology!

8 But integrate with sociology?Business Studies, Industrial Relations andManagement Studies!Demography! and include statistics?Economics!Education!Family and KinshipInclude with anthropology/sociology?Feminism, gender and women s studiesShould perhaps be seen as integral part of otherdisciplines, not as separate discipline?Geography! (but limit to human and economic geography?)Government, politics and public policyInclude with political theory as political science ?HistoryExclude?Law, criminology and penology!LinguisticsExclude?Methods of social ResearchExclude?(implicit in other disciplines)PhilosophyExclude?Political theory!

9 Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and clinical psychologyInclude with psychology?Psychology! social administration, social work, social problems Include with sociology?Sociology!Add new category: socio -technical studies toinclude ergonomics, human-machine interfacestudies, technology impact studies and what isknown in Sweden as work science RESPECT discussion paper by Ursula Huws, 15 June 20024central to the kinds of applied social Research most likely to becarried out with Commission funding. These include history,philosophy, and linguistics. The exclusion of linguistics mayappear controversial to those who are aware of the newimportance of linguistics in the development of many advancedcomputer applications, such as those involving artificialintelligence.

10 I have nevertheless proposed that we exclude it, onthe grounds that when it is integrated into technology-relatedresearch in this way, its role is that of developing the content of thenew technologies, rather than looking at how the technology issocially shaped or its social and economic addition to eliminating several categories, I have also madeadditions. One, relatively minor one is to include statistics with demography . Although many statisticians are economists thereare also many who practice in other fields; and it is clear that thereis a major role for statisticians to play in Socio-Economic researchrelated to public other addition is the creation of a new category to cover therange of socio -technical disciplines that have arisen in relation tothe study of human-machine interfaces.