Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Farkas, Eva

Titel

The Characteristics of Social Researches and Researchers

Ist Teil von

• Társadalomkutatás, 2010-09, Vol.28 (3), p.343-355

Erscheinungsjahr

2010

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Sociological Abstracts

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In the previous decades macro level changes have created such a social & economic environment that the restructuring of the sector of higher education, among others, was inevitable. Science has also changed; new problems have arisen, the methods have been modernized & new ones have appeared, & there are structural changes as well. This paper summarizes some results of a research in terms of innovations in higher education. This research investigates the individual level of innovation & the researchers' fields of interests. This study concentrates on the characteristics of social sciences & explores how the process of research can be described. According to the international trends science has lost its autonomy & has been controlled by the subsidizers: they determine the subjects & conditions as well. This situation can be described by the term 'big science' which has replaced 'small science.' While the first term means a project with a manager, the second one suggests individual interest & a scientist first described by Weber. We assume that this phenomenon is not totally apparent in Hungary yet, & at the same time this process is in a different state in every branch of science. According to our results 'big science' has been developing in social sciences, thanks to the fact that the aims & subjects are quite similar in the project-led 'big social science' & in the 'small social science.' The changes affect the scientists' life & work, as in some cases the income from the projects cover the costs of individual researches. To summarize: we cannot talk about the existence of a 'big science,' although social researches seem to change. Adapted from the source document.