A Memo on the role of the social sciences at Imperial College
Support paper for Task and Finish Group
Summary
It is unarguable that the social sciences have become a significant part of the work of Imperial College and it seems likely this influence on our research and on our teaching will only grow. The powerful commitment of the College to an enterprise-centred, high impact identity necessitates a sophisticated understanding of the role of scientific knowledge in the public sphere.
If we consider areas very important to Imperial – AI, climate change, security science, public health and infectious disease – all are highly charged with volatile and hard-to-predict social forces. No one now believes that natural scientists, engineers or medical researchers on their own can control the flow of scientific knowledge through society.
Not all of Imperial’s research has an immediate societal dimension. On the whole, though, public utility drives the College philosophy, as we see from the Strategy strapline ‘Science for Humanity’. In navigating the turbulent waters of the knowledge economy, so as to ensure our research is needed and finds favour, policy experts and public engagement professionals are clearly important. But essential also will be the cadre of social science and humanities academics the College possesses. It is social science research that will better position Imperial enterprise and innovation as ready for uptake by society. Yet, we should be wary of the metaphor that sees the social sciences as an ‘interface’ between STEM research and ‘the market’. As the contributors quoted in this Memo explain, the true power and value of the social sciences will be found, here in Imperial College, when they are fully integrated into the choice and design of our research.
In this Memo I talk more of ‘the social sciences’ than I do of ‘the humanities’. It is true that in terms of research funding, and the guarantee of societal impact, the former seem more significant. However these are areas of knowledge that are highly dependent on each other, and in fact the humanities also are a very significant component of the Imperial identity. At the end of this Memo, as a coda, I will trace out the contours of Imperial’s commitment to the humanities.
The immediate cause of this Memo however is a Friday Forum that took place on November 8th 2024. Titled ‘What is the role of the social sciences at Imperial?’ the meeting was an in-person lunchtime session, immediately followed by a two-hour workshop held in the in the Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication (CLCC). Seventy people attended. Three MSc Science Communication students took notes throughout the afternoon, in effect producing a transcription. A homework sheet was issued, encouraging participants to consider their thoughts at leisure and submit them later. The Friday Forum, the workshop and the homework all centred on the following questions:
- What should be the relationship between the social and the natural sciences (and, indeed, the formal sciences!) at Imperial?
- What are the challenges of being a social scientist at Imperial?
- Thinking back to the Geoff Mulgan quote ‘there is little point having furious innovation in science and technology if our societies stagnate’, can we imagine Imperial as a driver of social innovation, as well as S and T innovation?
- Is there any sense in which the social sciences at Imperial College need ‘separateness’ in order to flourish?
Seventy pages of notes were taken from the transcript and the homework returns. This Memo is based therefore on the participants’ comments at the Friday Forum; on the various points raised in the homework sheets; and on numerous conversations and email threads.
The panellists at the Friday Forum were Dr Mike Tennant (Centre for Environmental Policy); Dr Diana Varaden (Environmental Research Group) and Professor Steve Fuller (Comte Professor of Social Epistemology, University of Warwick). The facilitators at the afternoon workshop were Dr Giulia Frezza (Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science), Dr Kayla Schulte (Environmental Research Group) and Lauren Shields (Centre for Higher Education and Scholarship). I am very grateful for these colleagues’ help
All the quotes used in this memo are italicised.
A. How how much social science is there at imperial College?
It was great to meet so many researchers and was an inadvertent confidence builder too.
It was really interesting to hear everyone’s views on science for humanity and the role of the humanities and social sciences at Imperial.
I’ve never seen so many social scientists together at Imperial.
It would be hard to obtain a simple quantification of how many social scientists there are at Imperial. This kind of measurement might anyway be at risk of missing the point. There are members of staff, postdoctoral staff and PhD students, who can be defined as ‘social scientists’, but there are a greater number of STEM-based staff and research students who, as part of their work, take on social science methodologies. A true measure of the reach of the social sciences at Imperial would also have to explore the UG STEM curriculum.
Dr Alex Berry, Zero Pollution Initiative Manager for the Faculty of Engineering, has – independently of this Memo – been working on this question:
On the Imperial Profiles system I looked at academics with tags related to social sciences for the following research areas (some academics will have more than one tag): sociology (22), human geography (24), policy and administration (22), anthropology (2), psychology (29, when linked to other search terms as there are hundreds of people on Imperial Profiles system with this research tag), political science (18), public policy (4), environmental policy (4).
I found 202 academics at Imperial who have done some social science related research; this includes PIs from the funding snapshot I looked at (research projects which seem to be related to social sciences 2013-2023 based on keywords, funder and project title), people with a PhD student in the LISS DTP, people engaged with the social science networks of excellence, those who identify their expertise as social science, etc.
B. What is the scope and nature of the social sciences at imperial?
At the Friday Forum workshop attendees spoke of the advantages of being a social scientist at Imperial. Attendees were also clear about the importance of social science and humanities content in the UG curriculum
I think Imperial is exactly the place that can play a role in encouraging radical social and behavioral science research. [It’s] because we don’t have a dedicated social/behavioral science space.
Engineering students who are studying risk and risk assessment cannot effectively do so without a social sciences approach.
I think what is special about Imperial is that we chose as social scientists to be here, not in an anthropology department or wherever, but instead came here specifically for interdisciplinary work.
Professor Nick Jennings, Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise) from 2016-2021 provided a valuable compilation in his report How do we ensure science works for all in society?
As indicators, below, three members of staff – social scientists – write about their work.
Dr Daniella Watson is a Research Associate at the Climate Cares Centre, Faculty of Medicine:
We work on climate change and mental health. Most of our research is co-designed with those with lived experiences, such as young people and also experts. We work with surveys but mostly with qualitative and participatory methods such as group discussions, interviews, audio diaries. We also work with community partners on evaluating their interventions.
Dr Nejra Van Zalk is Senior Lecturer in psychology and human factors at the Dyson School of Design Engineering, and is Director of the Design Psychology Lab:
I lead the Design Psychology Lab with the aim of conducting research combining psychological insights with design thinking to understand how products, services, interventions can help maintain and/or promote mental health and well-being of users.
Professor Camille Howson is Professor of Higher Education within the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship (CHERS) and is a member of the working group overseeing the London Interdisciplinary Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership, or LISS DTP. This is a partnership between Kings College London, Queen Mary, University of London and Imperial College London:
The LISS DTP trains the next generation of research leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs who will transform the way social scientists tackle complex problems and global challenges. The vision for the DTP is informed by three interwoven core principles, which we see as essential to delivering on Imperial’s Strategy:
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- Interdisciplinarity: students will develop the competencies to engage with challenge-led doctoral research across topics and disciplinary boundaries, both within and beyond the social sciences;
- Data-driven research: students will be equipped with enhanced data analytics and digital competences to exploit increasingly large-scale and complex data for research purposes whether their foundation is quantitative or qualitative;
- Impact: students will develop the competences to engage with extensive networks of non-academic collaborators, and co-design research and training with users, practitioners, and potential future employers.
LISS DTP is not the only social science network in the College. For example, the 2024 ‘Network of Excellence Update Document’ update for the Human Behavior and Experience Network (HuBEx) reports that:
…researchers with social and behavioral science interests are present across most College departments … our steering group currently includes members from Brain Sciences, the Business School, Chemical Engineering, Dyson School of Design Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Faculty of Medicine … our ever-growing membership is representative of the College broadly speaking.
These researchers stress the utility and impact of the social science work. They also note that an Imperial environment where the social sciences flourish will also be one where social science training is deeply-rooted in the institution.
We should be actively organising workshops, conferences, and collaborative platforms that bring together scholars from diverse disciplines to exchange radical ideas. Debates could help to break down existing silos and serve as a forum to encourage contrarian views.
At the Friday Forum many attendees expressed the view that it would be better for College leaders to put work into recognising our own social science talent, and our own social science potential, than in too quickly seeking outside collaboration.
I reckon any further projects should aim to draw on extant expertise rather than exterior advice.
C. What are the challenges in being a social scientist at Imperial College?
There were many people at the Friday Forum that suggested the research environment for social scientists needs more stewardship.
Firstly, there are issues over how Imperial sees its social scientists.
Although it is good to be embedded in an Imperial College department, social science funders aren’t oriented towards STEM-based projects. This is really where the College could help us, establishing connections with the social science funders.
In my opinion […] there are entrenched power dynamics that position STEM as a “harder” discipline and social sciences as “softer” counterparts. While this position may be shifting, STEM continues to hold greater inherent value in many contexts across the College. Achieving truly equal collaborations demands mutual respect for the distinct and valuable contributions of every field.
I think the social sciences should not be seen as just a supporting discipline or a ‘nice-to-have’ add on… I have noticed the perception have of the social sciences from, in their perspective the ‘harder sciences’… I find one of the challenges of being a social scientist at Imperial is being proud to showcase oneself as a social scientist … I feel that as a ‘STEM’ university, many academics at Imperial have an identity that sits certain domains above others. In particular I have been told by colleagues that “social science isn’t a proper science”.
The criticism I often hear from natural scientists is that social science projects feel like they lack rigor or authority and are “wishy-washy”.
The idea of an intellectual hierarchy is common in academia, and for the natural sciences the sense of favourable status dates back to Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626). This superiority, when analysed, depends on the idea that the methodology of the natural sciences is more robust, more likely to deliver enduring truths, more replicable, and more likely to enable useful interventions, than are the social sciences. In this debate Imperial may be a special case. At other universities, social science academics will be in their own department of economics, sociology, and so on, surrounded by a community of like-minded researchers. Although social scientists at the Friday Forum reported many advantages to working at Imperial, they were vocal on the question of their institutional esteem. While social scientists at Imperial will clearly benefit from being ‘embedded’ in successful and funding-secure departments, where practical and high-impact research challenges are plentiful, the fact they work within a STEM environment will make these social scientists more intimately aware of any tacit suspicion of their craft.
There might be two prejudices here, in fact. If the first is the issue of epistemological privilege, the second related misconception is the idea that the social sciences, at a place like Imperial, are an ‘interface’, helping scientists deal with a tricky public.
Currently [at Imperial the social sciences are] more of an afterthought, eg “we created this beautiful solution (in engineering, medicine, AI, etc) now let’s convince people to use it”.
Many attendees at the Friday Forum voiced concern about promotion prospects, and grant-winning prospects, for social science researchers at Imperial College. We heard examples where it was felt that social science funders were unused to STEM-oriented proposals, diminishing the chances of an award. This in time feeds into metrics, and the promotion round, putting Imperial social scientists at a disadvantage also when seeking to move institution.
D. How can we frame the social sciences in relation to the College Strategy?
The Imperial Strategy document is dominated by its commitment to societal development. A ‘Future Leaders’ campaign and an ‘Institute of Extended Learning’ are just two of many initiatives whose success is highly dependent on a shrewd understanding of society. Similarly, the four new ‘Schools of Convergence Science’ stabilise themes, for example ‘Human and Artificial Intelligence’ and ‘Security’ that comprise social as well as technical challenges.
As the Strategy itself puts it, ‘…before we can usefully change the world, we must first seek to understand it’ (p2). Notably the Strategy ends its introduction with the phrase ‘Imagine that’. Also in that introduction is a note about the importance of humility.
Although the Strategy mentions ‘society’ frequently, the phrase ‘social sciences’ does not appear. Similarly, the word ‘humanity’ appears often but not the term ‘humanities’.
Our language will evolve. For this to happen we need considered reflection on our attitude to the social sciences at Imperial. Meanwhile there will be discussion of issues of organisation.
This question of organisation, addressed at the Friday Forum, generated a great deal of comment.
A more integrated approach is required, where the social sciences are recognised as necessary in the conception, design, testing and implementation of any STEM innovation that aims to improve people’s lives.
We need to pool the methodological resources of science and social science, tear down the methodological and intellectual obstacles between them to move forward.
What is worrying, is that sometimes social science methods are used in science research, without including social scientists in the process, which may have implications for how we interpret the results of the research.
Many voices at the Friday Forum were sceptical of more re-organisation, or thought that organisation initiatives on their own cannot address the challenges under discussion.
Some staff did argue for a degree of separateness. These views had nothing to do with a need to retreat behind a wall. Rather, they stem from the need for social scientists to discuss their work, debate methodology, and learn from each other. In other words, along with the need to be recognised as integral to Imperial College innovation and enterprise, Friday Forum voices saw value too in the concept of a ‘social science community’, with some autonomy, and some sense of belonging.
We do need some sort of space for mixed methods [and methodology discussion], as the research will benefit from that. [Also] our students have brought this up.
We need to encourage social scientists to evolve their methodology, we need to grow our thinking and support those who want to work in this space.
[I see] a value in separation. By distinctly being ‘a scientist’ or ‘social scientist’ (and distinctly in a discipline within that) allows us to use the strengths of each discipline more fully.
In discussions of this sort, input from the centres, institutes, centres of excellence and schools of convergence will be important. They have disciplinary foundations, but are champions of interdisciplinarity, and know its challenges. And they consider themselves places where careers, as well as science, can flourish.
The overall mood of the Friday Forum however was that ‘separation’ will not be the solution here. Yet simply setting up email lists, and Teams encounters, to get some interaction between far-flung social scientists, may not be enough: at the Forum mention was made of ‘network-fatigue’. Rather, it was the concept of ‘community-strengthening’, that gained attention. Whatever might be the mechanism of such strengthening, some of its elements were identified: the vigorous and imaginative deployment of social sciences within departments, an institutional commitment to the ecosystem of social science research funding, through College seed funds as well as through national and international agencies; and through academic promotion.
E. Coda: the role of the humanities at Imperial College
There are many reasons why, if we are to discuss the social sciences at Imperial, we should also, in the same breath as it were, discuss the humanities. We are currently planning a Friday Forum, and afternoon workshop, on ‘The Role of the Humanities at Imperial’.
Imperial has a strong contingent of humanities academics. Naturally they are teachers: as Thomas Mann’s character Settembrini said, ‘We humanists have always the pedagogic itch’. Imperial’s work in the humanities is a partnership therefore with its students. Students’ demand for the humanities, fulfilled by the CLCC teaching, is very significant for the questions discussed in this Memo. It is not that our broadest perspectives we simply farm out to our young, for CLCC staff are active in their book writing, their papers, and their research seminars – theirs is a ‘humanities community’. Rather, a student body wanting to supplement a STEM perspective with other knowledge, will want to know that their departments are working in that direction also. By analogy, if the social sciences enrich and challenge STEM research, so humanities teaching challenges and enriches the STEM education. And in this, our humanities research is important too.
It would be vulgar to only seek quick and simple links between the humanities and STEM innovation. However a good story, centring on the humanities’ interest in discussion and language, comes from Charles Darwin. The great man, back from the Beagle, filled already with ideas about evolution, but hard-pressed to find any like-minded scientist, was much influenced by dinners with his cousin, Hensleigh Wedgwood, a barrister and an historian of language. Joining conversation about the way languages shift and bifurcate – continuous but different – he could find a way to talk about the natural world too.
This Memo urges a degree of inward-looking. By contrast, wouldn’t it be enough to rely on our links with industry leaders and politicians, for Imperial to secure its way in society? In the end, will not our trust in right-minded and pragmatic industrialists, and our access to them, ground the ambitions expressed in the College Strategy?
Possibly not. We hear that Mark Zuckerberg is getting rid of his fact-checking department, Elon Musk is getting rid of decorum, and that Silicon Valley will soon be rid of its EDI programmes. Dogmatists – people who feel no doubt – are now the executive branch in the USA.
Very obviously, ‘scientific knowledge’, if we allow ourselves the category, cannot on its own pick its way through these complex matters. Whether it is ‘history’, ‘ethics’, ‘philosophy’ or ‘the social sciences’, or all of them that provides the guidance, the College needs to make the mix.
Our social scientists – the people which this Memo discusses – themselves face an intellectual challenge here, and perhaps a responsibility. The more the College recognises their value, the more freedom our social scientists will have to advance their thinking and come to represent the extraordinary breadth of their field. Social scientists can be as quantitative and reductionist as any physicist; as imaginative and searching as any novelist; as radical as any social theorist. Imperial needs all sorts.
Stephen Webster
Senior Lecturer in Science Communication
Office of the Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise)/Science Communication Unit
14th January 2025