UNESCO releases "World Social Science Report 2013 – Changing Global Environments"

[anup kumar das]

*UNESCO Releases "World Social Science Report 2013 – Changing Global
Environments"*
published: November 15, 2013

UNESCO today announced the launch of its flagship publication *World Social
Science Report 2013 — Changing Global Environments*.
The environmental challenges that confront society are unprecedented and
staggering in their magnitude, scope, pace and complexity. They have
potentially serious consequences for the wellbeing of people all over the
world. The consequences of global environmental change are unfolding now;
individuals and communities are already struggling to manage often
precarious livelihoods; other social, economic and political crises –
including persistent poverty, increasing inequalities and social discontent
– are intricately linked to and exacerbated by environmental change. Global
environmental change changes everything for everyone on this planet – our
life support systems, our livelihoods, our ways of life, our actions and
interactions with each other. It also changes demands for and on the
social, including behavioural and economic sciences.
This is the third edition of the World Social Science Report. Based on a
call for proposals, over 150 authors from all over the world have
contributed articles. The Report issues an urgent call to action to the
international social science community. Social scientists need to
collaborate more effectively with colleagues from the natural, human and
engineering sciences to deliver relevant, credible knowledge that can help
to address the most pressing of today’s environmental problems and
sustainability challenges. And they need to do so in close collaboration
with decision-makers, practitioners and the other users of their research.
A new kind of social science is needed, one that is bolder, better, bigger,
different:

   - Bold enough to reframe and reinterpret global environmental change as
   a fundamentally social process
   - Better in terms of infusing social science insights into real-world
   problem-solving
   - Bigger in terms of the need for more social scientists to address the
   challenges of global environmental change directly
   - Different in the sense of changing the way the social sciences think
   about and do science – its theories, assumptions, methodologies,
   institutions, norms and incentives, to help meet the vexing
   interdisciplinary and cross-sector challenges society faces.

This report aims to engage social scientists working in all disciplines in
academia, research institutes, think tanks, NGOs, and government agencies
all over the world. The ISSC will use the report as a basis for critical
discussion with its members and partners to sharpen the social science
knowledge base on global environmental change and to support social science
leadership in research for sustainability.
Report includes two chapters on* open knowledge*: 11. A new vision of open
knowledge systems for sustainability: Opportunities for social scientists,
by David Tàbara; 12. Viewpoint: Open knowledge and learning for
sustainability, by Tim O’Riordan.
The 2013 World Social Science Report was prepared and edited by the
International Social Science Council (ISSC) with the support of high level
specialists from all the over the world. It is co-published by the ISSC,
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and
UNESCO.

*Read WSSR2013 online now*:
http://www.worldsocialscience.org/activities/world-social-science-report/the-2013-report/read-changing-global-environments/


Further Details<http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/resources/reports/world-social-science-report-2013/>
:
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/resources/reports/world-social-science-report-2013/
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