June 2010: The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has co-published the World Science Report 2010, which underscores that while natural sciences are imperative, they are insufficent to address challenges such as AIDS, children’s health, hunger and climate change.
The report adds that social sciences are needed to understand and influence how humans act, and highlights their role in implementing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and facing the challenges of climate change. The report contains a section on interdisciplinary challenges that emphasizes that the obstacles to multidisciplinary research collaboration to confront a global challenge such as climate change are numerous, because they call for fundamental changes in the habits of social scientists and other scientists. [World Science Report 2010 Website]
