Challenges and priorities
Sector priorities
This report presents five overarching priorities identified by stakeholders as critical for the social sciences to operate and deliver at their full potential. It also identifies 26 area-specific priorities, addressed in the sector snapshots, that relate to different parts of the social science ecosystem. Addressing these priorities through strategic and coordinated activity will be critical to help shape Australia’s social science sector going forward
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Genuine reconciliation
Past and ongoing harms from social science to be acknowledged and righted, and under-representation of Indigenous people throughout the social science ecosystem to be addressed.
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A more connected sector
A more integrated social science ecosystem, with strategic alliances between schools, VET, universities, research organisations, business and governments will provide new opportunities for impact and a stronger Australian social science sector.
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Demonstrating value
The disparate nature of the social sciences makes it challenging to demonstrate their collective value. The sector has an important task to craft clear narratives that elevate awareness and understanding about our value to the Australian public, from high-school students and their parents, to industry and government leaders.
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Accelerating impact
Concerted efforts to connect with other disciplines and key decision makers on major social challenges is critical. From climate change, to emerging threats to democratic systems, to pandemics, social science perspectives are vital to Australia’s future.
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Sustaining universities
The COVID-related loss of international students coupled with the Job-Ready Graduates Act left numerous casualties in the university sector, with some social science areas hit particularly hard. As institutions recover and adapt, the future scope, structure and funding of university social science education and research are being decided today.
Grand challenges
The social sciences have a vital role to play in addressing the defining social challenges of our times. But they cannot do so alone. Effective research and solutions require expertise from across the disciplines (social sciences, STEM, health and medical, and the humanities), and from all parts of society. These seven interconnected issues have been identified through our consultations as a top-level challenge agenda for the social sciences.
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The Democratic Deficit
The steady erosion of democratic principles and processes impedes social scientific and democratic deliberation and coordinated action in the collective interest of our common humanity. How we overcome obstacles to act collectively when different actors’ short-term interests don’t align is a defining core issue that sits at the heart of our inability to solve many problems, large and small. Understanding how the “democratic deficit” comes about, and how to prevent or overcome its effects is one of the world’s most pressing challenges, and one that sits squarely in the province of the social sciences.
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Genuine Reconciliation
Australia’s First Nations have suffered 233 years of colonisation, oppression, discrimination and racism. The social sciences own part of this legacy. As such, they have a moral obligation to right wrongs and work actively for genuine reconciliation. This requires involvement and inclusion, direct action (entailing cost and effort) and critical research and scholarship aimed at progressing the reconciliation movement on a national scale.
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Post-COVID Recovery
In the decades following WWII, Australia benefited from unprecedented economic growth and improvements in wellbeing. These resulted directly from a raft of reconstruction policies and programs designed and guided in large part by the leading social scientists of the day. The post-COVID recovery presents the same opportunity: society has broken with its norm, our governments have demonstrated to themselves and to their constituents the viability and benefits of sweeping social and economic policies, and Australia has fared better than just about any country as a consequence. As was the case 70 years ago, social sciences once again have the opportunity to inform and guide the post-COVID reconstruction of a more resilient, equitable and prosperous society.
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Digital Transitions
The accelerating development, uptake and incorporation of digital, connected and autonomous technologies is accompanied by enormous social transformation. How we work, learn and engage with others, as well as the scope and nature of services and information collected by governments and businesses are all in flux to varying degrees. Social sciences are centrally placed to understand, advise and forecast these social changes through traditional knowledge and methods, and through the new techniques and technologies being enabled by linked data and digital technologies themselves. The converse–a failure to proactively engage with the digital transition–will see the capabilities and relevance of social science steadily fade.
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Climate & Sustainability
Science and technology have shown us the causes, consequences and risks of climate change, and they have a critical role in developing needed technologies to reduce emissions and manage harms in the future. The key challenges at present, however, are social: How di we overcome the failings of planetary governance and the domestic political impasse of capital and will? How do we mobilise grassroots social change? How do we cost-effectively incentivise change in business behaviours? And how do we best distribute the burdens associated with adaptation across varying communities? These are all questions that social scientists must answer.
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Social Inequality
Never before in Australia’s history have there been greater differences in opportunity, health, wealth and wellbeing between the millions of educated and prosperous Australians, and the almost one million experiencing long-term poverty and disadvantage. Social science has a pivotal role to play in understanding, addressing and guiding us towards a narrowing of a two-tier society; although, as a sector of educated professionals, the social sciences themselves have to overcome the bias of privilege to do so.
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The Future of Work
Technology-enabled change in services and consumption is likely to accelerate the existing changes in employment. Freelance and gig-based economies will become pervasive; scale and efficiencies in robotics, machine learning and Artificial Intelligence will transform many occupations and industries; and continued globalisation will transform others. Understanding, forecasting and helping to guide and prepare our society for the adaptations that will be required is a grand challenge for the social sciences, and one which will shape the future of the social sciences themselves.
Where to from here?
This report has identified a number of challenges and opportunities for the social sciences over the coming years. The extent to which sector stakeholders can work collaboratively and collectively to overcome these challenges and embrace the opportunities will determine in large part the future of the social sciences in Australia.
An open change agenda
The Academy proposes to continue the process of stakeholder consultations that fed into this report, commencing in 2022. It will invite stakeholders to think carefully and engage critically with the findings of this report and the priorities identified, and to consider what concrete actions could be undertaken organisationally, within disciplines or collectively to advance the social sciences in Australia.
Biennial updates
The State of the Social Sciences report is a benchmarking exercise that the Academy hopes will be valuable to individuals and organisations across the social sciences.
The Academy plans to update this report periodically over the coming years with a view to tracking process, identifying what’s changed, and highlighting issues where further attention is required.
Engage and collaborate
We invite our readers and stakeholders to join the Academy in this process and to contribute according to their means and interests to ensure the Australian social sciences are robust, recognised, resilient and inclusive. More importantly: to ensure that social sciences can continue delivering valuable knowledge, insights and solutions to practitioners and professionals, students and alumni, to government and business decision makers and, ultimately, to society at large.