UNESCO's distinction between natural and social/human sciences (response to Katherina) --- Dear Katherina, yes, UNESCO has been facing some challenges with the separation of Natural Sciences (SC) from Social and Human Sciences (SHS). On one side, it makes sense to separate them, especially because SC and SHS imply the involvement of distinct individual and institutional stakeholders. On a day-to-day basis, for example, people of the SC sector (like me) do not deal with the stakeholders who are more commonly associated with SHS – such as sociologists, philosophers, anthropologists, psychologists and ethicists (individual stakeholders) and the ministries/agencies responsible for youth, gender, religion and sports (institutional stakeholders). On the other side, the SC sector might need to deal with such SHS stakeholders (for example, in the aftermath of a natural disaster), and, in these cases, it would ask the SHS sector to mediate/facilitate such contact. However, many times the target groups / beneficiaries of SC and SHS could be the same across different programs/projects in the same country or region – for example, youth and indigenous peoples. In these cases, the functional boundaries are much blurry, and the lack of coordination between the SC and SHS sectors might generate problems. However, working together ‘on the ground’ depends very much on how well the SC and SHS specialists communicate and collaborate with each other. In my office, for example, SC has been actively supporting young professionals who are engaged in Climate Change action, for example by organizing capacity-building initiatives for them to acquire/improve relevant technical knowledge. But it was SHS that first brought together many young professionals in the Caribbean region by establishing a youth network on climate change, which involved some of the professionals who also participated in the SC-led program initiatives – nominated by the SC sector. That is why SC and SHS colleagues need to be constantly up to date about what is being done in the two sectors, especially when the design, development and/or implementation of some program/project initiatives could involve the same stakeholders or target/beneficiary groups. Therefore, the functional separation can be a problem especially when there isn’t enough communication between the two sectors and when there is no coordination and cooperation between the SC and SHS specialists working in the same region. In these cases, overlapping and duplication of similar/relevant initiatives involving common stakeholders or target groups can generate problems to both sectors.

Source author: Massimiliano Lombardo m.lombardo@unesco.org