INTRODUCTION:

The foundation of social sciences in the West implies conditioned relationships between progressive and traditional spheres of knowledge. In some contexts, such as the Italian one, sociology slowly affirms itself and experiences the difficulty of affirming a strategic knowledge beyond philosophy and theology. Day by day social sciences and humanities have taken back seat and physical sciences started occupying top slot in the hierarchy of departments in the Universities. In the last few decades the scenario has further deteriorated due to students’ demand for professional courses in Physical Sciences, Technology and Management. With the presence of private players in Higher Education the situation has further worsened. They corporatized and commercialized the education and education has become a commodity in the market. Thus the education is opened and left solely for market forces. Though not listed in the top 200 universities in the world, many science and technology institutions in India are known globally but institutions of social sciences and humanities are not. In western world social sciences, popularly called as soft sciences are given due recognition along with physical sciences. Harvard and Cambridge Universities are still very popular for social sciences. In India not even a single University including the Jawaharlal Nehru University cannot boast of such recognition. The social science disciplines are branches of knowledge taught and researched at the college or university level. Social science disciplines are defined and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned social science societies and academic departments or faculties to which their practitioners belong. Social science fields of study usually have several sub-disciplines or branches, and the distinguishing lines between these are often both arbitrary and ambiguous.

Anthropology, Area studies, Civics, Criminology, Demography, Development studies, Economics, Education, Environmental studies, Gender studies, Geography, History, Industrial relations, International relations, Law, Library science, Linguistics, Media studies, Communication studies, Political science, Psychology, Public administration, Public relations, Social work, Sociology, Sustainable development

OBJECTIVE:

The aim of every research inquiry is the discovery of truth for the enhancement of scientific knowledge and social sciences are also experiencing many paradigm shifts since the beginning of the 20th century thereby paving way for quality research in emerging areas. Kuhn brought about a paradigm shift of its own, in the way that philosophers thought about science and was successfully able to shift focus of scientific enquiry from the context of justification to the context of discovery.

This paper related to adding the Social Science Research: Agricultural

Perspective and reflects the role of research in promoting agribusiness activities. The research in

agriculture sector has enabled agribusiness sector to gain considerably in their operations (Mor

& Sharma, 2012) besides the education level of farming community The research

should focus on supplementing the agrarian sector’s income owing to the climate change (Singh,

2017c) as the production in India and ratification of treaties

Causes for declining research culture in social sciences:

During the 60s and 70s, social sciences and humanities research was given due attention. However, over the time there was a qualitative and quantitative decline in productivity and the standards of departments (The Hindu, 2014). According to Chaudhary, there are three reasons for declining culture in social sciences - structural, financial and managerial (Chaudhary, 2009). World Social Science Report (ISSC/UNESCO, 2013) identifies four important factors among other things for declining interest in social science research. They are: lack of funding, lack of institutional support, lack of incentives to do research, lack of interest among social scientists themselves. In addition to these factors social sciences have received a death blow by factors like brain drain, retirement of senior qualified social scientists, reduced opportunities to social scientists, lack of training for young faculty, commercialization and corporatization of education, hierarchy among disciplines and providing incentives to the branches of science and technology.

Funding to social science research:

Government spends nearly 300 crores of rupees annually on an IIT. This is in addition to the donations received from alumni and grants from foreign agencies, business houses, industry and NGOs. Whereas universities and specialized institutes in social sciences have to depend only on government funds. Central universities may be well funded, but suffer from a crisis of governance. Even the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), which was ranked second best university on the HRD Ministry’s National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) has cut the seats for research programmes for the academic year 2017-18 (Uma Vishnu, 2017). Whatever may be the reasons this type of measures by the universities will adversely impact the productivity of the research. In majority of universities over 40 per cent of faculty positions lie vacant (Raj Kumar, 2014). The problem is even more serious when it comes to state universities. They solely depend upon the funding from state government with which they will manage to meet the salaries of the staff, forget about funding for research. Grants from UGC are not at all sufficient to meet the research needs. It is a fact that that day by day cost of journals is going up, while the budget for the same has not increased, resulting in the non-availability of important international journals in university libraries.

· Geography as a discipline can be split broadly into two main sub fields: human geography and physical geography. The former focuses largely on the built environment and how space is created, viewed and managed by humans as well as the influence humans have on the space they occupy. This may involve cultural geography, transportation, health, military operations, and cities. The latter examines the natural environment and how the climate, vegetation and life, soil, oceans, water and landforms are produced and interact (is also commonly regarded as a Earth Science).^[19] Physical geography examines phenomena related to the measurement of earth. As a result of the two subfields using different approaches a third field has emerged, which is environmental geography. Environmental geography combines physical and human geography and looks at the interactions between the environment and humans.^[20] Other branches of geography include social geography, regional geography, and geomatics.

· Geographers attempt to understand the Earth in terms of physical and spatial relationships. The first geographers focused on the science of mapmaking and finding ways to precisely project the surface of the earth. In this sense, geography bridges some gaps between the natural sciences and social sciences. Historical geography is often taught in a college in a unified Department of Geography.

· Modern geography is an all-encompassing discipline, closely related to Geographic Information Science, that seeks to understand humanity and its natural environment. The fields of urban planning, regional science, and planetology are closely related to geography. Practitioners of geography use many technologies and methods to collect data such as Geographic Information Systems, remote sensing, aerial photography, statistics, and global positioning systems.

Additional applied or interdisciplinary fields related to the social sciences or are applied social sciences include:

Archaeology is the science that studies human cultures through the recovery, documentation, analysis, and interpretation of material remains and environmental data, including architecture, artifacts, features, biofacts, and landscapes. Area studies are interdisciplinary fields of research and scholarship pertaining to particular geographical, national/federal, or cultural regions.

Behavioural science is a term that encompasses all the disciplines that explore the activities of and interactions among organisms in the natural world. Computational social science is an umbrella field encompassing computational approaches within the social sciences. Demography is the statistical study of all human populations. Development studies a multidisciplinary branch of social science that addresses issues of concern to developing countries. Environmental social science is the broad, transdisciplinary study of interrelations between humans and the natural environment. Environmental studies integrate social, humanistic, and natural science perspectives on the relation between humans and the natural environment. Gender studies integrates several social and natural sciences to study gender identity, masculinity, femininity, transgender issues, and sexuality. Information science is an interdisciplinary science primarily concerned with the collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information. International studies covers both International relations (the study of foreign affairs and global issues among states within the international system) and International education (the comprehensive approach that intentionally prepares people to be active and engaged participants in an interconnected world).

Legal management is a social sciences discipline that is designed for students interested in the study of state and legal elements. Library science is an interdisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, and other areas to libraries; the collection, organization, preservation and dissemination of information resources; and the political economy of information. Management consists of various levels of leadership and administration of an organization in all business and human organizations. It is the effective execution of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives through adequate planning, executing and controlling activities. Marketing the identification of human needs and wants, defines and measures their magnitude for demand and understanding the process of consumer buying behaviour to formulate products and services, pricing, promotion and distribution to satisfy these needs and wants through exchange processes and building long-term relationships. Political economy is the study of production, buying and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government. Public administration is one of the main branches of political science, and can be broadly described as the development, implementation and study of branches of government policy. The pursuit of the public good by enhancing civil society and social justice is the ultimate goal of the field. Though public administration has been historically referred to as government management, it increasingly encompasses non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that also operate with a similar, primary dedication to the betterment of humanity. Religious studies and Western esoteric studies incorporate and inform social-scientific research on phenomena broadly deemed religious. Religious studies, Western esoteric studies, and the social sciences developed in dialogue with one another.

Remedies and recommendations:

It is disturbing that the number of students opting for under graduate courses in social sciences is decreasing day by day. This is because of the attitude of the parents that their ward shall become either technocrat or doctor. This attitude has to change. Education shall not be viewed from the commercial view point alone. The education system shall have a space for ethical principles, sports and games right from the high school level. One must realise that higher education is the major contributing factor to the social, cultural and intellectual life of society by improving the quality of human life.

Multidisciplinary approach:

Of the eight winners of the top awards in mathematics given away at the International congress of Mathematicians in Seol on August 13, 2014, Dr. Manjul Bhargava had his mathematician-musician mother to mentor him develop his skills in mathematics, music and linguistics. Can a parent be that liberal in India?

Indian universities need to be dynamic and adoptive to the changing needs and priorities of the society and should provide an arena of freedom to young innovative minds (Shetty, 2010). Choice based credit system must be evolved, so that a history student can study chemistry or a political science student can study physics or an economics student can pursue mathematics together.

Collaboration:

Indian universities are generally timid in seeking collaborations which are necessary for the development of new ideas and perspectives (Raj Kumar, 2014). Existing policies relating to research exploration both within and outside India need to be re-examined and made more progressive and inclusive. Government shall make efforts to identify innovative research methodologies in frontier areas of knowledge and assist in building a network for carry forward the research interests of institutions, scholars and teachers

Planned expansion of higher educational institutions:

Building world-class research-oriented universities involves a serious commitment to knowledge creation in the sciences, arts, social sciences and humanities. With unplanned expansion of higher education institutions aiming to enhance gross enrolment ratio (GER) is leading to mediocrity. Even in the surplus funded central universities more than 40 per cent of faculty positions lie vacant. This is not only affecting teaching learning process but research as well. Universities must be torch bearers of the society. They shall continuously observe the society, study the problems associated and shall come out with possible multiple solutions. At present there is no organised study either by the government or any higher education institution in the country on the needs of the stratified educational needs of the society. It is left to the society. That is the reason why mushrooming engineering colleges all over, particularly in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. There shall be a balance growth of universities and colleges without compromising quality. Until the crisis of lack of faculty and infrastructure is addressed, there should be a short moratorium on establishing new universities including.

Funding and prioritisation of research areas:

There is a need for high level of funding for research, including contractual research (Shetty, 2010). An indicative and guided research needs to be promoted by phasing out ‘old wine in new bottle’ type obsolete and stereotype research. It’s time to shift from traditional incremental budgeting to a performance based one to arrest the erosion in quality and resource crunch.

CONCLUSION:

One must realise that it is the social sciences that will tell us of our roots. It is the social sciences which will drive us for the values within whose parameters we can use the newly acquired knowledge judiciously. Social problems are directly felt by the people. Research by offering solutions to such problems will provide us necessary guidance to live a meaningful and peaceful life. Both public and Government are responsible for declining research in social sciences. On the government side, the problem of under financing and under staffing of universities must be addressed. Like Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) that promote scientific and technological research in the country, the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) shall become pro-active in promoting guided research in social sciences and humanities and incentivise the best performers. Hierarchical low importance given to social sciences right from school days is a big blow to the development of social sciences. This attitude has to be changed for which increased opportunities are needed. Public opinion has to be mobilised to redefine the priorities of higher educational institutions. The social scientists must realise that they address the issues that affect the wellbeing of nations and global society. In the name of improving the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of higher education, quality shall not be compromised. And finally, the culture of research is to be cultivated in colleges and universities. Most importantly, the research shall not be isolated from living realities and policy making. The focus must be on the issues and problems of national and regional importance. Research to be relevant and meaningful, the social scientists have to identify the problems of people of that region and come out with probable solutions.

REFERENCES:

1. Bharat, B.D., (2008), Higher Education System, A.P.H. Publishing Corporation, Delhi.

2. Chaudhary, S., (2009), Why neglect humanities and social sciences?, The Hindu, 12 July, 2009

3. Choudhary, S.K., (2008), J Educational Enquiry, Vol.8, No.1.

4. ISSC/UNESCO (2013), World Social Science Report 2013: Changing Global Environments. OECD Publishing and UNESCO Publishing, Paris.

5. Krishna, V.V., A disappointment for scientific community, The Hindu, 26 July, 2014.

6. Kurup, M.R., (2013), University News, Vol.51, No.46.

7. Raj Kumar, C., (2014), Fresh ideas, not more institutions, The Hindu, 16 June, 2014.

8. Reena, M., (2013), Promotion of a Sustainable Research Culture in Higher Education Instituttions: Role of Statutory Bodies like ICSSR, University News, Vol. 51, no.17, Apr 29- May 05, 2013.

9. Shetty, P.K., Hiremath, M.B., Murugan, M., Sreeja, K.G., (2010), Research and higher education scenario in select Indian state Universities: an analysis, Indian J Sci. Technol., Vol.3, No.3.

10. Editorial, The Hindu, 19 August, 2014.

11. Uma Vishnu, The Indian Express, 11 April, 2017

12. Dr. B. Ramesh, Social Science Research in India: Issues and Challenges, International Journal Of Research Culture Society, Volume - 2, Issue - 5, May – 2018

13. "Social science: History, Disciplines, Future Development, & Facts". Britannica. April 27, 2023.

14. Kuper, Adam (1996). The Social Science Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-415-10829-4.

Received on 22.06.2023 Modified on 10.07.2023

Int. J. Rev. and Res. Social Sci. 2023; 11(3):163-167.

DOI: 10.52711/2454-2687.2023.00026