Applying social sciences and humanities topics to life

(Baonghean) -Up to now, public opinion as well as the research community have all agreed that: The effectiveness of applying social science and humanities topics to life is very limited. The situation of finishing research and then "putting it in the cupboard" is quite common. Therefore, for many years now, the Department of Science and Technology of Nghe An has tried to find solutions to create conditions for social science and humanities topics to be applied in practice.

The application of topics into life effectively but not highly, from a certain perspective, is also a waste of budget and brainpower of both individuals and the state. Therefore, the Department of Science and Technology has discussed and gradually found a suitable method to apply social science and humanities topics into life. Since 2007, the Center for Social Sciences and Humanities has researched the topic "Investigation and evaluation of the effectiveness of Nghe An Social Sciences and Humanities in practice in the period 1991 - 2005". Through investigation and survey of 180 topics in 7 different fields of Social Sciences and Humanities, the results: 15.3% of topics were assessed as highly effective; 40.5% of topics were assessed as applicable to practice; the rest had low application or could not be applied, so more than 50% of topics were applicable. In particular, the topic group on security and order, policy consulting has high practical application efficiency.

Workshop on 5 years of implementing Project 899 on social sciences and humanities research.

To find out why in the same field, some topics can be applied, while others cannot, the Center also conducted an investigation and survey of 50 topics in the field of security and order in the period 1991-2005, of which 11 topics were effective. Delving into the research of those 11 topics, it shows that the reason the applied topics are effective is because right from the time of proposing the topics, they are associated with locations, objects, agencies, places where they can be applied, including in the field of crime prevention, especially drug prevention. These topics have appropriate processes from topic selection, research to implementation.

From practice and experience, the following issues can be initially raised:

Firstly, in terms of viewpoint, it is necessary to affirm that a social science and humanities topic that wants to be effectively applied to life, first of all, in the orientation of choosing the topic, it must aim at the application goal. Of course, not every topic can be applied directly. For example, the historical and geographical sets that we have made cost billions of dong, but we cannot apply history and geographical records like other fields, which will make us richer in knowledge, more nourished in soul, so that we can have better actions. That is also a way of application. But other topics, when determining the task, need to aim at direct application, considering it a priority orientation.

However, to have such topics, the task determination stage needs to be strongly innovated. Current topics are mainly determined from proposals of organizations and individuals. They propose mainly based on what they have, or what they need, not necessarily what society needs. Therefore, the state needs to increase orders for social sciences and humanities, considering this as the main source to determine the tasks of social sciences and humanities.

Second, in the process of selecting the host unit and the individual to carry out the topic, it is also necessary to consider the favorable factors for future application. Science and technology topics can be separated between research and application. As for social science and humanities topics, in reality, whoever both researches and applies, that topic will be most effective, especially effective in application. Therefore, since the organization of research has been linked to practice, it is no longer general theoretical research, but must survey and organize experiments on some ideas and some arguments in the research process. After completion, the acceptance process also needs to consider practical application to accept that topic. Application effectiveness is only promoted through a chain from beginning to end like that, not just evaluated at a single stage.

Third, about the process of putting a topic into application:

- First of all, except for confidential topics, all other topics related to economics and society should be disseminated as widely and deeply as possible. Not only to the whole society, but also to those who have the ability and need to apply it, we need to find ways to disseminate it deeply. Therefore, we need to pay more attention to disseminating research results through articles, summaries, original scientific reports, published books, television reports...

We must put our results into the policies of the Party Committee, into the programs, projects, plans of the government, into the action programs of the departments to hope that the topic will be highly effective. For example, the topic on preventing intentional injury crimes of Vinh City Police, when deployed in Hung Dung and Cua Nam wards, the city police advised the Party Committees of these two wards to issue two resolutions on strengthening the direction of fighting that crime in these two areas. Another concrete step is to put the research results into the professional process or into the state's policy mechanism, then it will have a more direct effect.

We must organize to raise awareness for leaders and people about the field we are researching and need to apply. The usual work is to organize training for cadres and employees on the issues that the research topic and need to apply. Going into more specifics, it is also necessary to perfect the organization to implement that topic. We must train specialized staff in that field. Training materials, in addition to being based on specialized documents, need to be based on the research results of that topic. Then, build a model to apply that topic in practice and summarize that model to find ways to replicate it.

The basic process to bring a topic into life is like that, but depending on the nature and application requirements, the way to apply this process can be different, can be more flexible, more agile. The Department of Science and Technology, the Science and Technology Management Office, the Center for Social Sciences and Humanities need to continue to research from successful phase 2 implementation models, from application models in building mechanisms, policies, or changing the professional processes of the armed forces... to further perfect this process. On that basis, propose management solutions, so as to better connect research and application, even unify research and application. Only then can the application efficiency of social sciences and humanities topics be improved.

Article and photos: Pham Xuan Can

(Department of Science and Technology)