SSH Research

1.03  Social science research can be considered investigation, according to established rules for performing observations and testing the soundness of conclusions, regarding the behavior and interactions of people and social institutions.  Humanities research can be considered as critical study, interpretation or inquiry, according to generally accepted practice, regarding modes of expression and interpretation of human thought and emotion.  The substantive results of SSH research take the form of ideas and insights

1.04   Implicit in the SSH research process is an integral time dimension.  At any point in time, researchers generate new or collate old facts.  However, over time, such facts coalesce into the assumptions and theories of established disciplinary knowledge.  In turn, it is this growing body of disciplinary knowledge which universities, in their teaching function, pass on to students.  Thus, there are distinct flow and stock dimensions to SSH research .

1.05   Unlike the natural sciences and engineering, where facts, techniques and/or assumptions can be more readily subjected to rigorous empirical testing, SSH research results tend to be fundamentally conditioned by Space/Time (3). Relativity is reflected in a conservation of existing intellectual capital (4). Further, controversy exists, in a number of disciplines, concerning the relevance of research on one culture, or sub-system of it, by social scientists and humanists of another (5).

1.06   The form of SSH research results relates to the substance of SSH research through the publication process.  Thus the substantive results of SSH research, i.e. new ideas and insights, tend to become embodied in publications, i.e. articles and books on paper, electronic or other media.  It is through production, distribution and consumption of research publications, i.e. the flow of SSH research results, that new ideas and insights accrue to the stock of SSH knowledge.

1.07   The substance of a research publication is an idea or set of ideas, i.e. an abstract, archetypical, ephemeral, ethereal (6) product of the mind, which forms part of the Quaternary Sector (7) of the modern economy.  In Marxists economies, the National Accounts record only the activities of Primary and Secondary Industries.  Unlike Market economies, Marxist nations do not directly record all activities of Tertiary Industries, e.g.  banking and finance.  Increasingly, however, both types of economies are, de facto, recognizing the contribution of the Quaternary Sector, i.e. innovative artistic, cultural, scientific, social and technological products, processes and services.  The Quaternary Sector embraces the whole spectrum of creation, production, distribution, consumption and conservation of abstract goods and services.  These include Scientific and Technical Inventiveness, Excellence in the Arts, Quality of Life, Community Development, National Unity, Natural Rights of the Environment (8), Excellence in Physical Culture and other abstract, but highly valued and motivating aspects of contemporary life.

1.08   Quaternary commodities are highly valued by society.  However, they are not marketed in the conventional sense of the word.  Rather, they must be transformed through public mechanisms before value-in-exchange (9) can be created, and thereby, free-riders excluded.  In the time of Shakespeare, for example, the Bard could not stop publication of his work by publishers who paid nothing for the product of his genius.  In modern society, creative effort is transformed, and, to a greater or lesser degree, protected from piracy through Intellectual Property Legislation.  In the natural sciences and engineering, legislation creates patents and registered industrial designs.  In the arts, social sciences and humanities, legislation creates copyright and trade marks.

1.09   Intellectual Property Legislation can be justified as a protection, and, incentive to human creativity.  In return for this protection, society expects creators will make their work available to the society as a whole, and, that a market will be created in which such work can be bought and sold.  But while society wishes to encourage creativity, it does not wish to foster harmful market power.  Accordingly, society builds in limitations to the rights granted to the creator.  Such limitations embrace both Time and Space.  Rights are granted for a fixed period of time, and, protect only the fixation of works of human creativity in material form, i.e. copyright protects the form in which an idea is expressed, not the idea itself.

1.10   Like other cultural industries, however, it is not just the revenue flows implicit in copyright which acts as the primary or, often, even a major incentive, to publication of research in the social sciences and humanities.  Rather, social scientists and humanists are generally concerned with the question of authorship, i.e. credit for their contribution to the stock and flow of knowledge, and, thereby academic or professional status.  Accordingly, copyright, which, in some nations, embodies the moral rights of the author, provides legal and moral protection from plagiarism.

1.11   International copyright conventions, and their ancillary protocols, commit most Western, and many Third World countries, to equal treatment of foreign and domestic authors.  There are two international conventions.  These are the Berne Union and the International Copyright Convention.  Each has a number of ancillary agreements or protocols.  Historical abstention from the Berne Convention by the United States permitted exercise of a Manufacturing Clause within the U.S. Copyright Act.  This clause restricts the importation of manufactured books by American authors, or permanent residents.  Eastern Bloc countries have failed to ratify any international convention, and, accordingly, can copy and reproduce books by foreign authors without paying royalties.  Canada’s recent accession to the Florence Agreement (10), sponsored by UNESCO, will eliminate duties and other impediments to the international flow of educational, cultural and scientific commodities, including books.