Integration of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in Horizon 2020: participants, budgets and disciplines

The European Commission issued a monitoring and evaluation report on the integration of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in Horizon 2020, by focusing on participants, budgets and disciplines. The report shows an uneven and unequal integration of SSH in projects and provides a series of recommendations.

The integration of Social Sciences and Humanities in the European framework programme for research and innovation Horizon 2020 is part of the priorities of the European Commission (EC). The SSH comprise various disciplines such as anthropology, economics, history, humanities and the arts (archaeology, ethics, literature, theology, etc), political science, law, sociology and psychology. Contributions from these fields are needed "to generate new knowledge, support evidence-based policymaking, develop key competences and produce interdisciplinary solutions to both societal and technological issues."

While in the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) SSH had their own dedicated programme, Horizon 2020 'embeds' SSH researchers in areas and topics under the Societal Challenges and Industrial Leadership priorities. EC has recently issued a monitoring and evaluation report on the intergration of SSH in these two areas. Its aim is to evaluate the quality of the integration by focusing on participation, budget allowed and the variety of SSH disciplines in the 2014 calls for proposals.

A summary of the report conclusions can be found on theSWISSCORE website and the full report is available from the EC.

Work Programme 2016 - 2017

The European Commission published today the Horizon 2020 Work Programme for 2016 and 2017. The Work Programme (WP) makes available €16 billion for research and innovation for 2016 and 2017.

The current main Horizon 2020 work programme comprises an introduction, 18 thematic sections and the general annexes describing general rules such as standard admissibility conditions and eligibility criteria, types of action, selection and award criteria, etc. Each thematic section is self-contained, and describes the overall objectives, the respective calls for proposals, and the topics within each call.

More section-oriented information on the input to the preparation of the current work programmes can be found for the following topics:

- Future and Emerging Technologies
- Information and Communication Technologies
- Societal Challenge 1 (Health, demographic change and wellbeing)
- Societal Challenge 2 (Food Security, Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry, Marine, Maritime and Inland Water Research and the Bioeconomy)
- Societal Challenge 4 (Smart, Green and Integrated Transport)
- Societal Challenge 5 (Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials)
- Innovation in SMEs
- Access to Risk Finance

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