World Social Science Forum

ONE PLANET – WORLDS APART?

The International Social Science Council (ISSC) chose Bergen and the Grieg Hall to be the venue of the first World Social Science Forum.

THE OVERALL PERSPECTIVES OF THE WORLD SOCIAL SCIENCE FORUM:
A: The changing world and the challenges it presents to social science
B: The interface between social science and the changing world
C: The state of social science itself, as it seeks to confront the challenges

Click here to see pictures from the conference.

Click on the image to download (an extract of) the Final Program:

Announcment of changes since the printing of the program:

New addition to session S2:
Kaoko Takahashi, Waseda University and Yuki Ooi, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, "Consumtion of "Foreignness" in Xenophobic Tokyo".
Plenary session Monday 1630: will be chaired by Asunción Lera St. Clair, CROP, Bergen
S6: will be chaired by Bertil Tungodden
M5: Munyaradzi Felix Murove has cancelled
M10: New title : Land-use conflicts: The competition between Food, Bioenergy, Biodiversity, and Urbanisation

The plenary sessions:

May 10 2009

Opening Ceremony

Speakers:
Gudmund Hernes, President, International Social Science Council
Tora Aasland, Norwegian Minister of Higher Education and Research
Arvid Hallén, Director General of the Research Council of Norway
Sigmund Grønmo, Rector, University of Bergen
Pierre Sané, Assistant Director General for the Social and Human Science, UNESCO
Helga Nowotny, Vice President, European Research Council:
"Out of science? Out of Sync?" Is the social science we need available? If science is available, is it linked to policy in ways that make for rational decision-making and at the same time informs the public and enhances legitimacy?

OPENING KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Challenges for the Social Sciences in the New Century, Lamont University Professor at Harvard University, Amartya Sen

May 11 2009

One Social Science - or Many?, Professor Jon Elster, Columbia University and Collège de France.
Discussant: Rainer Silbereisen, President, International Union of Psychological Sciences (IUPsyS).
Chair: Luk van Langenhove, Vice-President of the International Social Science Council (ISSC) and Director of the Comparative Regional Integration Studies Programme of the United Nations University (UNU-CRIS)

Towards Novel Assemblages of Territory, Authority, and Rights, Saskia Sassen, Columbia University and LSE
Discussant: Yan Ming, Professor, Institute of Sociology and Center for Social Policy Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Iliana Mignaqui, and Pablo Ciccolella, both professors at the University of Bueno Aires.
Chair: Asunción Lera St. Clair, Scientific Director of Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP), Bergen.

Knowing Better - and Doing Worse? What Social Science can provide for Policy Makers, Peter Piot, Director, Institute for Global Health, Imperial College London; Former Executive Director of UNAIDS
Discussant: Dr. Adebayo OLUKOSHI, The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA)

May 12 2009

Can Science Save Us? Challenges for the Social Sciences from Climate Change.

Speakers:
Rajendra K. Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Roberta Balstad, Senior Fellow and former director of The Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University, Co-Director of the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia, and editor-in-chief of Weather, Climate, and Society of the American Meteorological Society.
Chair: Barbara Göbel, Director of the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, Germany, and former Executive Director of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP).

Closing Ceremony

Theme: "Yes we can? In a time of unprecedented demands for pertinent, relevant and potent input from the social sciences, can they deliver?"

Chair: Emir Sader, Executive Secretary, Consejo Latino-Americano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO)

Speakers:
Adam Mohamed Habib, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research, Innovation & Advancement, University of Johannesburg, South Africa: "Advancing social sciences that make a difference: Understanding context and problematising the application of knowledge”
Michel Wieviorka, President, International Sociological Association and Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France: Social sciences are not in crisis.
Berit Olsson, Member of the Interim Scientific Advisory Board of the UNESCO Forum on Higher Education, Research and Knowledge: The Challenge of Sustaining an Independent Research Community.

Technical Organizer/PCO: Kongress & Kultur AS.