Social Science Research Council
The scientific community and policy practitioners have increasingly called for greater involvement by social scientists in environmental debates. In response, the SSRC has launched the Social Sciences and the Environment (SSE). The SSE builds on the Council’s long engagement with environmental change, and in particular the robust collaboration of social scientists in the SSRC Committee for Research on Global Environmental Change (GEC, 1989-1998).
SSE seeks to mobilize regional and context-specific knowledge from the social sciences to bear on environmental questions of adaptation, indigenous knowledge, development, health, and the study of policy instruments. The initiative deploys a range of mechanisms, including roundtable discussions, conferences, working group events, and publications. Online resources and tools will also be used to bring social scientists into necessary dialogues with natural scientists and with a wide variety of stakeholders (journalists, policy-makers, engineers and professionals).
SSE is organized around four project areas:
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China Environment and Health (CEH) aims to identify areas in which multi and interdisciplinary research about environmentally-related threats to human health is needed in order to better inform policy and practice in China.
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The Social Science of Climate Change (SSCC) brings knowledge and contributions from the social sciences to contemporary global warming debates, stressing adaptation in a variety of site-specific contexts.
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Environmental Risk and Disaster Management (ERDM) includes efforts to understand the social dimensions and costs of environmental disasters.
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Sustainable Cities (SC), in partnership with Van Alen Institute in New York, supports collaborative research linking architectural practice and the social sciences in the development of sustainable urban spaces.
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