taalunieversum

The 2010 conference of the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature and Media (Internationale Gesellschaft für Empirische Literaturwissenschaft, IGEL) will be hosted by Utrecht University from 7 to 11 July. The central theme is valorisation. How can the usefulness of Humanities and Social Sciences research results be further increased for organisations and individuals outside academia, and how should the desired impact of alpha and gamma research be defined?

Debate about the relevance of both the Social Sciences and the Humanities is getting more pragmatic and businesslike. The Dutch government, for instance, stresses that these faculties should focus on making their research more useful and that they should work on making research findings available to society. In the United Kingdom we hear similar voices calling for valorisation. In its response, the British Academy has warned against evaluating Humanities and the Social Sciences purely on the basis of direct and economic profit. But there is much deliberation about how to define the desired (direct or indirect) impact of alpha and gamma research.