[spsp-members] CFP: Assessing economics as a serviceable social science Workshop

[teemu.lari at philos.uni-hannover.de]

Call for papers

ESSK 2025 Workshop 
Assessing economics as a serviceable social science

University of Helsinki, 22-23 August 2025

 

The  <https://blogs.helsinki.fi/essk-project/> ESSK (Economics as
Serviceable Social Knowledge) project is pleased to invite researchers to
submit abstracts for the workshop “Assessing economics as a serviceable
social science” to be held on-site at the University of Helsinki, Finland.

 

Workshop theme: 

Economics has often been criticized for failing to cope effectively with
prominent socioeconomic problems (such as poverty, inequality, and various
sustainability challenges) and crises (such as climate and biodiversity
crises, the 2008 financial crisis, or the socioeconomic imbalances caused by
the Covid-19 pandemic). These issues have led social scientists, the public,
and economists themselves, to contest the policy relevance of economics.

 

The key issue that the workshop addresses is whether economics has the
capacities required to meet such contemporary and emerging challenges, or
whether it at least has the ability to improve those capacities swiftly
enough to avoid perceptions of futility and loss of public trust.

 

We welcome contributions related or relevant to any of the following four
broad lines of research:

 

I. Understanding policy relevance:

 

*	What is policy relevance and how to assess it?
*	Accounts of science-policy interactions.
*	External validity and its relation to policy relevance.
*	Policy problems and policy goals: their types and complexity.
*	The dynamics of the policy process in theory and practice.

 

II. Models and policymaking:

 

*	Models as tools for reliable policy inferences.
*	Models as argumentative devices for policy deliberation.
*	The roles of theoretical and empirical models in policy making.
*	Varying policy goals and their influence on modelling practices.

 

III. Evidence and policymaking:

 

*	Methods for producing, interpreting, and assessing evidence for
policy purposes.
*	What are the trade-offs associated with the use of experimental and
observational methods in public policy deliberations?
*	How well are the evidential requirements of policymaking matched by
the evidence and knowledge produced by scientific economics?
*	Synthesis and amalgamation of evidence to achieve policy goals.

 

IV. Institutional structure of economics:

 

*	Institutional preconditions for a policy relevant economic science.
*	The academic and extra-academic image of economics and its
implications to policymaking.
*	Epistemic justice and responsibility in science-policy interactions.
*	Interdisciplinarity, collaboration, and integration in relation to
dealing more effectively with socioeconomic policy problems.
*	The influence of policy cultures and interests on scientific
practice in economics.

 

The workshop is organized by the  <https://blogs.helsinki.fi/essk-project/>
ESSK -  Economics as Serviceable Social Knowledge project (funded by the
Research Council of Finland), which is based at  <https://tint-helsinki.fi/>
TINT - Centre for Philosophy of Social Science (University of Helsinki). The
workshop will mark the completion of the ESSK project by providing a venue
for intellectual exchange and collaboration, focusing on the serviceability
of economics to society and its role as a policy-relevant science. The
organizers are also planning to edit a special issue on the topic of the
workshop. 

 

Submission Guidelines:

We invite submission of abstracts (maximum 500 words) clearly stating the
research question along with a brief outline of the argument. 

 

The deadline for submissions is 7 March 2025. 

 

To submit your abstract please fill in this form:
https://forms.gle/nqArKwT7tLyJuHcp8 

 

Important Dates:

 

*	Deadline for submission: 7 March 2025
*	Decisions will be announced by: 20 March 2025
*	Workshop Dates: 22-23 August 2025.

 

 

Best regards,

Teemu Lari

 

Postdoctoral Fellow

Centre for Advanced Studies "Social Credibility and Trustworthiness of
Expert Knowledge and Science-Based Information (SOCRATES)"

Leibniz Universität Hannover

 

TINT Centre for Philosophy of Social Science

University of Helsinki

 

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Lari

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ResearchGate:  <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Teemu-Lari>
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Teemu-Lari

 

 

 

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