Integrating social sciences and humanities in Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020
Horizon Europe
Social sciences and humanities (SSH) are indispensable for better understanding and navigating societal needs and opportunities for societal benefits.
The meaningful integration of SSH expertise and know-how in projects provides a great opportunity to effectively address complex global challenges, serve the well-being of EU citizens and communities, and align with the EU's social policy objectives. This includes in particular large-scale transformations such as adjusting to climate change, addressing public health preparedness and making the transition to digital technologies.
Effective SSH integration is considered an important requirement for fostering better science and increased societal and economic impact of research and innovation. As such, the integration of SSH throughout Horizon Europe, including missions and partnerships, is a key cross-cutting priority.
SSH integration is also embedded in the Horizon Europe Strategic Plans (2021-2024 and 2025-2027), where SSH are a key constituent of research and innovation, especially in regards to the twin green and digital transitions. SSH integration is covered by the monitoring and reporting obligations in Horizon Europe.
Horizon 2020
The integration of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in Horizon 2020 was an important feature of the programme and, for the first time it was done in a systematic and strategic way. At the end of the funding programme, a monitoring report was developed to assess this cross-cutting issue. Various dimensions were examined, such as the budget going to SSH partners (overall and in each part of the programme), qualitative aspects, performance of disciplines and sectors involved, as well as which countries are represented as participants and coordinators.
This report presents the final assessment of the integration of SSH across H2020. It provides insights on how EU-funded research and innovation projects have delivered quantitatively and qualitatively on SSH integration across the 3 pillars of Horizon 2020: Excellent Science, Industrial Leadership, and Societal Challenges.
The findings of the report are a good indication of the role played by SSH in Horizon 2020 and can be seen as one of the tools to help prepare the SSH monitoring methodology for Horizon Europe (2021-2027).
Documents
Participants, budgets and disciplines 2014 - 2020 : final monitoring report
The integration of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in Horizon 2020 is an important feature of the programme. To monitor the development of this cross-cutting issue is an EU commitment. Various dimensions are examined, such as the budget going to SSH partners (overall and in each part of the programme), qualitative aspects, performance of disciplines and sectors involved, as well as which countries are represented as participants and coordinators.