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Society and Future - Programme

General

Context of the programme

In this new millennium, Belgium is facing a growing complexity of it social, economical and familial reality. The objectives of this programme are precisely to provide more insights in this complexity and develop the scientific knowledge to enable the federal state to tackle the challenges it is confronted with.

The knowledge that should emerge from the research projects of this programme is ordered in 11 generic themes, each one of them composed of several more concrete research questions.

This programme is organised in conformity to the missions of the Belgian Science Policy Office as described in article 6bis, 6 2,1°, of the special law of 8 August 1980 of institutional reforms.

Relevance for the decision making

Research projects within the programme should address one or more generic themes. Researchers are thus not free to choose their own topic following in pursuit of their scientific curiosity. The subject of their proposal should fall within the description of the themes of the programme. Researchers are free however to develop their proposal, but should respect the following specific criteria:

a. Political dimension
Decision makers (in the broad sense of the word, i.e Ministers and federal authorities, representatives of civil organisations, citizens...) are confronted with challenges for which they require scientific-based information. Although the programme is not designed to deliver Taylor-made solutions to specific problems, the projects should give the necessary tools to understand social evolution and thereby motivate the decision-making. Researchers will in this respect be particularly careful to transfer the knowledge produced to potential users by the most appropriate means.

b. Transfer of foreign experiences
Numerous research questions addressed in the programme have somehow been answered in other countries, but not yet in Belgium. It is therefore recommended to the scientific team to organise an international seminar in order to lay out the state of the art and the international context in which their research topic is taking place. This seminar will take place at the beginning of the research activities.

c. Research teams will pay special attention to issues such as social, gender, age, origin, social diversity...
Research projects will explicitly take these issues into consideration in their research topic.

d. Transversal approach
The division of the programme into eleven generic themes should not hinder transversal approaches (i.e. covering more than one theme) in the proposals. On the contrary, research teams are encouraged to promote such approaches.

Projects of a high scientific level

In order to guarantee a high scientific level, the following elements will be considered:

(a) Research teams will issue innovative proposals. This excludes proposals which are the continuation of previous work, or proposals which intends to apply in Belgium the work that has already been carried out elsewhere. The teams will explicitly expose the innovative character of their proposals in the submission form.

(b) International dimension: research projects can no longer consider their research topic without explicitly taking its (international) context into consideration. This can be done in various ways, for instance by given the broad international background of their research topic, by cooperating with foreign research teams, by benchmarking foreign experiences and practices, by analysing the effect of European or international regulations on Belgian legislation...

(c) Evaluation of the proposals: research proposals will be evaluated by a panel of international experts who will assess their scientific quality on the basis of strict criteria. Proposals who fail to satisfy these criteria will be excluded from the remaining of the selection procedure.

Citizen’s implication in the research projects

Citizens take an important part in this programme. Firstly because their needs where taken into account when designing the programme. Consultations have been organised within a large survey to potential users (government, public authorities, universities and research centres, civil organisations, citizens...).

The contribution of citizens goes further since research teams are asked to detail in the submission form the way they will imply them in their activities.
The management of the programme will also make sure, in collaboration with the research teams, to involve civil organisations in the steering committees of each project. This enables the civil society to take part of the projects as they evolve.

Finally, the research teams and the programme management will valorise the end results of the projects to the general public by means of publications, seminars, workshops... These activities are not reserved for a specific audience but intend to disseminate the results to the general public and foster the debate between scientists, decision makers and citizens.

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