- To reflect and debate on the academic and social status of the disciplines included in the division of the Humanities.
- To assess to what extent the processes of European convergence in higher education and research raise new challenges and open new opportunities of advancement for the Spanish scientific community.
- To analyze the instances of contestation and resistance to the reforms and changes which the European convergence processes entail. Well founded and spurious arguments in such disputations.
- To explore and debate on the new frontiers of higher education and research in the humanities: in Spain, Europe and worldwilde.
- To evaluate what is the degree of involvement of Spanish researchers from the Humanities in European programmes: European Science Foundation, Framework Programme, European Research Council.
- To analyze the changing scenarios of higher education and research, their continuities and discontinuities, emphasizing the pertinence and relevance of humanistic and sociological knowledge and scholarship in today's world.
Thematic issues:
a) The status of the Arts and the Humanities in the general concert of science and knowledge. Old and new debates on the scientific character of the different disciplines: arts, scholarship, science. The particular status of disciplines within the Humanities and Social Sciences. What defines the scientific endeavour?
b) Beyond the old disciplinary and territorial boundaries: The challenges of a global science and scholarship. Multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, trans-disciplinary approaches. Collaborative and team-oriented research. Research integration.
c) Tools and methods for the evaluation of scientific and scholarly research and output. Specific requirements and needs for disciplines within the Humanities and Social Sciences. The ERIH project (A European Reference Index for the Humanities).
d) Opportunities generated by convergence and collaboration in the European arena. The role of ERA-nets in the European Research Area. The networks HERA and NORFACE.
e) Publication and dissemination of research results in the Humanities (and the Social Sciences). Need for the formulation and implementation of a scientific policy which provides support for the Spanish scientific and scholarly journals, and for the other means of academic publication.
f) The future of education and research in the Humanities. Impact of new technologies in humanities teaching and research: the Digital Humanities. The movement and policies towards open access to sources and publication of research results, implications for the Humanities. The ECHO project: European Culture Heritage Online.
