Wearing a mask of social science

In the UK, research funding for psychology projects can come from a number of sources.  There are several charities, trusts and other venerable bodies with the funds to give large and small grants to research projects as they see fit.  If you don't mind the bureaucratically-heavy application procedure, the European Union offers research awards.  But there are also the prestigious national government-funded research councils and this is where things get tricky.

Research with a medical bent (cognitive neuroscience with clinical applications, for example) can go to the Medical Research Council (MRC).  Computational angles (cognitive modelling, in particular) can seek funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).  Psychological research that is significantly informed by fields such as linguistics or philosophy can be funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).  Everything else remotely psychology-based - from investigations of how children learn syntax to whether people reason differently about past and future events to which bits of the brain are involved in face perception (none of these projects mine, before you ask) - is expected to go to the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Why?  I am not a social scientist.

The ESRC website is full of media-friendly snippets like "What is Social Science" and "How Social Science Affects Our Lives".  One section, "What Social Scientists Do", even lists four representative examples of social scientists (Anthropologist, Economist, International Relations Expert, Sociologist) before stating that:

What distinguishes social scientists in particular is that the drive is underlined by a social conscience - seldom is it research for its own academic sake.

I hardly know where to begin dismantling that statement.  I have quite an active social conscience, thank you very much, which is manifest in my private life to anyone who knows me. My work life, however, is not underlined by this conscience, except for my decision to refuse to cite research that uses animal subjects in what I consider to be unacceptable and unnecessary testing techniques.  (This is based on my own informed judgement, which is apparently more conservative than many ethical boards.)

My biggest issue is with the last clause in the statement: what is wrong with "research for its own academic sake"?  I might expect to see this kind of anti-intellectualism in tabloid opinion columns or point-scoring political debates but I am shocked to encounter it from a body with national responsibility for funding research. Blue sky research - or research that asks big questions of how and why things are the way they are without concern for the immediate application of the results - is central to the spirit of scientific enquiry.  To step up on my soapbox for a moment, the freedom to conduct blue sky research is an important part of the continuing development of a civilisation.

I am proud to be in the "seldom" subgroup that does research for its own academic sake.  My idealistic research motive - the reason I do what I do - is to push the boundaries of the science of the mind.  We, as a species, have a better understanding of the physical functioning of space/time than we do of the brains that allow us to reach this understanding.  We know more about what makes the universe tick than what makes us aware of the answering tock in our own minds.

The ESRC does not appear to feel bound by its own self-description as it regularly funds research projects that are definitely empirical psychology "for its own academic sake".  It is an unwritten rule amongst the academic psychology community in the UK that the "social science" remit of the ESRC is not to be taken seriously and that, since grant applications are usually reviewed within our own community of psychological scientists, blue sky projects will be funded if they represent good science.

But still... to the media, general public, anyone outside the field that encounters an ESRC-funded research project, there is a deliberately-fostered expectation that the research has immediate applications.  An ESRC-funded researcher is always prone to be asked "what's the point?", "who benefits?", "what use is that?"  Do physicists get asked those questions?  Do CERN researchers have to defend (continuously) the validity of their research programmes?  I can't think of an immediate application of the finding that the Higgs boson is not just a theoretical construct, but I'll defend to the death the importance of seeking evidence of its existence.

I am not a social scientist, but I'll continue to wear the mask in public in order to get funding for my work.  Then go back to my secret identity as a scientist.