The British Academy has recommended that quotas be introduced for representatives of social sciences and the humanities in Horizon 2020.
These recommendations were made in the academy’s roadmap for embedding social sciences and humanities in Horizon 2020, published by All European Academies (ALLEA) on 1 March. ALLEA is a group of 52 academies across more than 40 countries, and the British Academy chairs its social sciences and humanities working group.
The roadmap recommends specific quotas for those representing social sciences and humanities within the Expert Advisory Groups and Programme Committees across all the pillars and societal challenges of Horizon 2020.
It also recommends that individual quotas should be allocated to the social sciences and to the humanities, saying that both areas cover a large range of disciplines and cannot substitute for each other.
Developed from a meeting of the social sciences and humanities working group on 6 February, the roadmap also calls for adequate representation for these disciplines amongst the Horizon 2020 bid evaluators.