The NSF in 2020: The future of the Social, Behavioral,and Economic Sciences

The NSF/SBE released its executive summary of 252 short white papers on the future of the social, behavioral, and economic sciences. Among other things, the report identifies four focus areas (population change; sources of disparities; communication, language, and linguistics; and technology, new media, and social network) and three properties of future research (data-intensive, multidisciplinary, and collaborative). But read for yourself. The report summarizes what the community (authors that submitted white papers) had to say about what works well and what needs to be improved in terms of the processes that are currently employed by the NSF to distribute its funding. On p. 24 an onward, you can read a summary of the many many linguistic white papers that seem to have been submitted (see p. 39 for a summary of which disciplines the white papers came from). On p.29 an onward the report lays out possible scenarios as to how the NSF might change in order to get to the outlined vision.

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