About Us

IN ONE SENTENCE

Social Sciences Works gUG, a social enterprise in Potsdam, makes use of social scientific knowledge to improve civil society and democratic decision making.

WHO WE ARE

We are a heterogeneous, international group of social scientists, most of whom were educated in Germany and live in Berlin and Brandenburg. Our disciplinary backgrounds include sociology, political science, anthropology, economics, philosophy and communication science. More about our team here.

WHAT WE CAN DO

Our core competencies include deliberative integration and democracy projects, democracy research, second opinions of existing research as well as scientific criticism and communication.

Our Goals

Social Science Works gUG aims to strengthen civil society and democratic decision-making by developing relevant social research and implementing projects informed by academic insights. It develops deliberative projects to strengthen democratic competences. It helps stakeholders that are affected by research to assess the quality and reliability of this research. It helps people to understand and evaluate research and policy making. And it critically follows academic research and practices.

Our Motivation

In the last 20 years, within the social and political sciences more and more doubts have developed on the prevailing search for objective, causal regularities and universal theories. This highly expensive but largely fruitless search is almost universally imposed on academic scholars. The social sciences persist in imitating the natural sciences at the cost of public relevance. According to a growing number of critics, social and political scholars should instead develop empirically-grounded normative arguments aimed at improving the deliberations in the public sphere about the futures of our societies.

We strive to bring together what erroneously has become more and more separated: social and political philosophy on the one hand, and social and political science on the other hand. This has often led to philosophies without empirical support and empirical relevance and to sciences ignorant of fundamental social and political questions and issues. Related to this, we advocate more problem-driven and less theory or method-driven research as has become common in social and political science and philosophy. Consequently, we search for what Charles Lindblom called “Usable Knowledge”.

To further understand our general principles please read our academic position paper.

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Our Competencies

DELIBERATION WORKSHOPS

We conduct deliberative workshops with a wide range of target groups – refugees, volunteers, populists, pupils – in which we deliberate common principles such as democracy, tolerance, freedom, gender equality or homosexuality. Find out more…

SOCIAL RESEARCH

Based on our Deliberations workshops, we conduct our own research, which should provide practical answers to the question of how we can shape modern participatory democracies. Find out more…

SECOND OPINIONS

Actors bringing in research in the public decision-making process, as well as actors affected by this research, can ask Social Science Works to give an independent opinion on the quality of the research. Find out more…

SCIENCE TRAINING

We provide training to decision makers, journalists and representatives of social organizations, that help them to better understand and evaluate social research. Find out more…

SCIENCE WATCH

We regularly comment on research results and research practices at universities as well as societal challenges from a public point of view via our blog. Find out more…

RESEARCH ADVISORY

We advise external research projects in the conduction of their research and interpretation of their results.

Our Story

Social Science Works gUG was founded in 2014 by us, a group of social scientists from the Humboldt University Berlin. Like many other social and political scientists, we have been increasingly dissatisfied with the development of our disciplines within the last decades. While social research outside the universities has become instrumentalized and exploited, academics within universities too often do not research on essential social problems.

 That’s why we decided to not only complain to each other in academic circles, but to act on words and to do something ourselves against the neglect of our subjects – we founded Social Science Works gUG. Since then we have been growing and are increasingly successful. In recent years, following the most pressing issues in our society, we have concentrated on deliberative projects aiming at promoting integration and civic participation and counteracting populism and radicalization. We are developing new ways of meaningful citizen participation and new strategies to strengthen civil society and political competences.

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Social Science Works gUG aims to strengthen civil society and democratic decision-making by developing relevant social research and implementing projects informed by academic insights. It develops deliberative projects to strengthen democratic competences. It helps stakeholders that are affected by research to assess the quality and reliability of this research. It helps people to understand and evaluate research and policy making. And it critically follows academic research and practices.

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In the last 20 years, within the social and political sciences more and more doubts have developed on the prevailing search for objective, causal regularities and universal theories. This highly expensive but largely fruitless search is almost universally imposed on academic scholars. The social sciences persist in imitating the natural sciences at the cost of public relevance. According to a growing number of critics, social and political scholars should instead develop empirically-grounded normative arguments aimed at improving the deliberations in the public sphere about the futures of our societies.

We strive to bring together what erroneously has become more and more separated: social and political philosophy on the one hand, and social and political science on the other hand. This has often led to philosophies without empirical support and empirical relevance and to sciences ignorant of fundamental social and political questions and issues. Related to this, we advocate more problem-driven and less theory or method-driven research as has become common in social and political science and philosophy. Consequently, we search for what Charles Lindblom called “Usable Knowledge”.

To further understand our general principles please read our academic position paper.

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Social Science Works gUG was founded in 2014 by us, a group of social scientists from the Humboldt University Berlin. Like many other social and political scientists, we have been increasingly dissatisfied with the development of our disciplines within the last decades. While social research outside the universities has become instrumentalized and exploited, academics within universities too often do not research on essential social problems.

That’s why we decided to not only complain to each other in academic circles, but to act on words and to do something ourselves against the neglect of our subjects – we founded Social Science Works gUG. Since then we have been growing and are increasingly successful. In recent years, following the most pressing issues in our society, we have concentrated on deliberative projects aiming at promoting integration and civic participation and counteracting populism and radicalization. We are developing new ways of meaningful citizen participation and new strategies to strengthen civil society and political competences.[/su_service]