Vrednovanja naučnog rada u društvenim i humanističkim naukama
VALUING SCIENTIFIC WORK IN SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

Author(s): Aleksandar Kostić
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Philosophy, Social Sciences
Published by: Институт друштвених наука
Keywords: social sciences and humanities; evaluation; review
Summary/Abstract: Valuing of scientific efforts in social sciences and humanities is largely conditioned by the nature of these sciences, i.e. their methodology and the manner of interpretation of the gathered findings. In a substantial number of cases, social sciences and humanities fall short of the criteria we encounter in natural sciences, such as generalisation, replicability, prediction and falsifiability. On the other hand, the range of fields and methods in social sciences and humanities is extremely wide and varied. Within certain social sciences, we identify approaches the results of which are interpreted by means of mathematical and statistical apparatuses, and in this sense, these do not differ greatly from natural sciences (e.g. research in econometrics and experimental psychology). On the other hand, we have interpretations which could hardly satisfy the criteria of scientific research (e.g. certain approaches to philosophy and anthropology). Bearing in mind the aforementioned characteristics of the outputs of social sciences and humanities, the question put here concerns the criteria based on which products of these sciences are accepted or rejected, and this question have been causing extensive arguments on the global level, still without a clear consensus being reached. When it comes to Serbia, an additional problem is that scientific communities are generally quite small, while the majority of papers are written in Serbian, which prevents them from being internationally reviewed. Finally, a part of the problems that these sciences deal with is narrowly local, yet, as a rule, extremely significant when it comes to culture and identity. One of the ways to overcome the aforementioned issues could be the introduction of international reviewing process, which implies that papers need to be written in English. Many social sciences and humanities, e.g. philosophy and psychology, could fulfil this condition. In that way, Serbian scientific production in social sciences and humanities would get relevant insights in the quality and wide accepted criteria in certain fields, regardless of their comparability with the criteria used in natural sciences. However, for the part of the production concerning issues which are local in character, there is a small probability that they would be published in prestigious international journals. The valuing thereof would still be limited to national review which should, if possible, establish more strict standards.

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