Open Letter to the European Commission on Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities research in the new FP, 2014-2020

Riceviamo e volentieri pubblichiamo, sollecitando tutti i lettori del blog a firmare la lettera aperta di cui al link.



Dear colleagues,


With this message we would like to invite you to sign an Open Letter addressed to the European Commissioner for Research and Innovation, which highlights some of the vital insights that Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities (SSH) can contribute to addressing Europe's and the world's Grand Societal Challenges. If you agree, that a substantial and independent SSH-centered research programme should be included in all future European Framework Programmes, kindly sign the Open Letter online: http://www.eash.eu/openletter2011/.

In view of legislative decisions to be taken soon on the next 80-Billion-worth EU Framework Programme Horizon 2020 (2014-2020), the letter stresses the necessity for a varied and strong research programme in SSH. It would be tantamount to undermining the EU strategy to develop innovative, inclusive and sustainable societies, were there insufficient funding in Horizon 2020 for research areas such as cultural change, demography, education, the economy and globalisation, identity politics and social cohesion, poverty relief and global governance as well as many others.

Kindly circulate this invitation to sign the letter also across your institutions, as well as through your networks, FP and other projects and subject associations.

First results of this initiative were presented to Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn on 10 November 2011 during a ½ day symposium on the role of SSH in Horizon 2020 in London. The Commissioner expressed her appreciation for the mobilisation of the community towards strengthening the SSH domain in the new programme and acknowledged the need for such a strong SSH component (http://www.allea.org/Content/ALLEA/SSH/Speech-Commissioner-09-11-11.pdf ). Yet, the proposal submitted for ?Horizon 2020? by the European Commission does not yet fully reflect this understanding.

Following these initial exchanges, we shall now interact with lawmakers in the European Parliament and national political authorities. For we must bear in mind that in the past the SSH-related Framework Programme component has been, time and again, in danger of being eliminated at the end of negotiations between national governments, the European Parliament and the Commission; also, the size of the budget accessible for SSH-researchers is as yet far from being secured. We therefore continue collecting further support from a large cross-section of the SSH- and SSH-related research communities.

The Open Letter initiative has grown out of deliberations among a number of European umbrella organisations in the area of SSH, and seeks to bring to the attention of the European Commission and national governments the concerns of the largest research community in Europe. For more information see: http://www.eash.eu/openletter2011/

Thank you in advance for supporting this initiative. Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions:  <mailto:openletter2011@eash.eu> openletter2011@eash.eu


On behalf of the Inter-agency Task Group on SSH in Europe (ALLEA - ALL European Academies; ESF - European Science Foundation: Standing Committees for the Humanities and Social Sciences; ECHIC - European Consortium of Humanities Institutes and Centres; Net4Society - Network of SSH National Contact Points), with endorsements from the SSH ERA-Nets and others