Facing the Future: European Research Infrastructures for the Humanities and Social Sciences

The conference “Facing the Future – European Research Infrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences” in November 2013 in Berlin pursued the objective of strengthening the role of the humanities and social sciences in the future. Social science and humanities experts, representatives from research policy and funding agencies, and research infrastructure coordinators from 19 European countries met in Berlin to discuss the future of the ESFRI process, to identify and discuss emerging research issues and infrastructure needs, and to outline a road-map for strengthening European research infrastructures in the SSH in the years to come. Which issues, domains and developments in SSH will be relevant in the next ten years? What are the requirements and challenges to research infrastructures and what will they be in the future?

A further objective of the conference was to identify common aims and challenges that bridge the gap between the social sciences and the humanities, and ways of facilitating and fostering European synergies and cross-disciplinary cooperation between the two fields, also in connection with other disciplines.