THE CHALLENGES OF SCIENCE AND RESEARCH IN THE 21ST CENTURY: BETWEEN TRADITIONAL METHODOLOGY AND SOPHISTICATED RESEARCH METHODS
THE CHALLENGES OF SCIENCE AND RESEARCH IN THE 21ST CENTURY: BETWEEN TRADITIONAL METHODOLOGY AND SOPHISTICATED RESEARCH METHODS

Summary/Abstract: The modern world has been facing great challenges for a long time, with a tendency to increase them with each new time dimension. It is a question of the number, but also the complexity of the problem, to which society does not have adequate and quick answers. The last decade has been characterized by the three biggest crises that have occurred: the economic and financial crisis that occurred in the period 2008-2010, the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019 and the war in Ukraine. These crises have reduced the quality of life for people globally, but have also resulted in a large number of human casualties, as well as material destruction. To these crises should be added natural crises and catastrophes, which are increasingly the result of climate change. The novelty is that natural and social crises often arise at the same time, which makes it difficult to provide a quick and quality response. The consequences of these crises are permanent and it is difficult, or almost impossible, to compensate for. These are mental problems that will arise due to the closure of entire countries, bans and restrictions, and the consequences caused by C-19, i.e. the destruction of critical infrastructure in Ukraine, which will take a long time to rebuild. Although science is responsible for numerous achievements of modern man, such as extending life expectancy, improving the quality of life, introducing numerous technological and other innovations, shortening working hours, conquering space, it is largely responsible for contemporary problems that occur at the national or global level. In other words, part of the reason for modern problems can be found in education, science, research, ethics and the application of scientific achievements for wrong and insufficiently quality purposes. We start from the fact that everything that exists in previous, present and future societies is the result of science, and that everything that is not good or harmful is largely the lack of science, which has failed to prevent natural and social crises from prevention. The paper indicates some of the problems in science and research, primarily when it comes to the specifics of science as an activity with an emphasis on scientific literacy, with an effort to separate the educational level from scientific literacy, the necessity of eliminating or marginalizing the application of classical methods and holistic techniques in research, and a somewhat more detailed processing of research as a key element of the scientific process. Numerous questions have been raised in the field of science and research and the introduction of new approaches and ways of thinking when it comes to: scientific abuses, scientific errors, the problem of growing doubt in science, and the problem of interpretation of research results, authenticity and citation as a measure of the scientific value of scientists. These issues in modern science and research are not sufficiently addressed in the scientific and professional literature, or are partially addressed within certain scientific disciplines. The aim of this paper is to point out the scientific and practical problems that arise in modern science and scientific research, in order to improve this important activity of every society and be in the function of the progress of mankind. It turns out that contemporary problems cannot be solved by concepts from the past, because the problems themselves have arisen due to the wrong application of concepts from the past. Future problems will also not be able to be solved by current knowledge and approaches in science, which imposes the need to change education, science and research in the changed geopolitical circumstances, in order to respond to contemporary challenges of the natural and social order.

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