Social Science Research Council

The objective of the Social Science Research Council’s project on fostering international collaboration in social science research is to determine what types of collaborative investigations are being pursued and supported, what methodological and analytic challenges social scientists encounter in these efforts, and what steps national funding agencies can be take to strengthen the intellectual and organizational basis for future international collaborative research. This project will examine such collaboration generally and in relation to two research themes – inequality and exclusion/inclusion – both being topics and vehicles for social science collaboration. Social scientists and national agencies supporting social science are increasingly interested in international collaborations as a way to understand the global interconnection of economic, social, political, and cultural life. Ironically, however, while scholars are focusing more on global forces and processes in their research, the majority continue to work in international isolation from one another save a relatively small and mobile sub-group. Responding to similar global concerns, national funding agencies are considering how they can enhance their scholars’ contacts with counterparts abroad. Yet, for the most part, these agencies are just beginning to explore how their interests and activities might be made complementary.

This project will consider global processes and social science research from two perspectives: that of social scientists and national funding agency administrators. We will begin with an assessment of current scholarship – both methods and funding – and draw into our deliberations voices and perspectives of social scientists and national funding agencies from different regions of the world including North and South America, Europe, Africa, and East and West Asia. The project will organize discussions among and between social scientists and representatives of funding agencies to consider the goals and challenges of organizing international collaborative research and issues of methodology, infrastructure, training and capacity building necessary for its successful promotion and future development.

This project is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Economic and Social Research Council of Great Britain.