Today's world faces major societal challenges.
Globalization and growing interdependencies cause complex interactions
There are growing disparities in, for instance:
- climate change impacts
- natural resources: who have got access to them, control them, use them?
- political power
- economic poverty and prosperity
There are uncertainties related to:
- knowledge and information
- the fluid boundaries between science and politics
- diverging perspectives and interpretation schemes
Growing complexities make that old schemes are no longer valid:
- no simple cause-effect relations
- no universal solutions
- no rough dichotomies of victims and victors
WASS analyses today's challenges and contributes to problem solving to improve the quality of life.
WASS research is international, comparative, a combination disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches, and a diversity of theoretical perspectives.
WASS has formulated four major research themes:
- Disparities (Poverty, Wealth and Distribution)
- Responsible Production and Consumption (Sustainability, Health and Quality)
- Natural Resources and the Environments (Conflicts, Competition and Collaboration)
- Knowledge in Society (Contestation, Boundaries and Bridges)
|
|
Mission
The Wageningen School of Social Sciences (WASS) promotes research that increases our understanding of social processes and design practices around challenges in the domains of food, agriculture, environment, health and development. WASS provides an enabling environment for internationally oriented scholars from a diversity of disciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research traditions. The School strives to make high-quality academic contributions, to critically engage in social debates and to contribute to societal problem solving and innovation. It offers in-depth training that provides PhD candidates with a suitable background for a career in academic and applied research, or other leading societal positions. |
|
WASS focuses on these domains:
- food quality and food safety
- environmental protection and sustainable resource use
- healthy lifestyles and sustainable livelihoods
- equal access to development opportunities
|
|