Reimagining the Recipe for Research & Innovation - The Secret Sauce of Social Science

It is clear that the impact of the social sciences on scientific practice arises both from engagement in the subject of research (e.g., the role of psychologists in improving the perception, and therefore performance, of robotic health assistants), and from an interrogation of the assumptions and consequences of that research. [...] Tables 2 and 3 show the fields in which the UK’s share of publications was over 8% of the global number of publications in the given field (and where there were more than 65 papers published on the subject in the UK), or where the average citation per publication was over twice the global average number of citations per paper. [...] The alluvial diagram in Figure 4 shows the number of policy documents per grant category (on the left) and per publication category (in the middle), with the fields of health sciences and biomedical and clinical sciences removed.3 What we see is that policy documents in every category draw upon grants and publications produced in the others. [...] One of the greatest of global challenges is sustainable development, and it is often the case that both STEM and social science need to work collectively, and collaboratively, in seeking acceptable, sustainable futures, combining scientific and technical know-how with the understanding of human systems, interactions and interdependencies. [...] The examples we have given demonstrate the essential role of the social sciences in areas that are often regarded as inhabiting the STEM sphere, such as new technologies, and the amplifying effect of collaborative work across the STEM and social science fields.