Die Zukunft der Sozialwissenschaft

Science is changing — simultaneously in many sectors and at many levels. Social science in particular is being challenged by the increasing pressure of global issues. Where can social science develop at the interface between the local and the global, i.e. under the term ‘glocal’, which characterises our current lifeworld?

Five dimensions are important in answering this question:

1. The structural changes to science,
2. the transformation in academic ways of working,
3. the growing importance of global issues in applied regional and local research,
4. the data revolution (New Big Science) and
5. the increasing attention paid by science to practical questions of society.

Overall, the think-tank character of social science has to be strengthened. The interconnection between local and global topics has to be addressed with a stronger focus on — and application of — interdisciplinarity. For this purpose, we have to understand better what interdisciplinarity is and what it should be in the coming years.