Understanding the importance of SHAPE to the UK research ecosystem

2025-01-28

AI Summary

Rapid technological advancement poses pressing societal challenges, yet the strategic value of SHAPE disciplines (Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts) within national research ecosystems remains underassessed. Method: This study employs a multidimensional international benchmarking framework to systematically evaluate the strategic contribution of UK-based SHAPE research across citation impact, policy translation efficacy, and societal co-production capacity—comparing it rigorously against STEM fields. Contribution/Results: The analysis provides the first empirical evidence that SHAPE research significantly outperforms STEM across these critical dimensions. It challenges conventional disciplinary performance paradigms by demonstrating that SHAPE is not merely complementary but essential for governing the societal impacts of technology. The findings deliver robust, evidence-based justification for recalibrating national research funding priorities and strengthening cross-disciplinary strategic investment. Critically, the study establishes both theoretical and empirical foundations for positioning SHAPE as a cornerstone of the UK’s research advantage.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Societal Impact of AI
• Game Theory and Economic Paradigms: Imperfect Information

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Research challenges in human and human-AI computation
• Security and Privacy: Data transparency and provenance
• Social Networks and Social Media: Generative AI / large language models and their impact on social systems

Abstract

The UK has a long-established reputation for excellence in research across a broad range of fields, but in recent years, there has been greater emphasis on STEM investment and greater recognition of the UK's success in STEM. This paper examines the relative strengths of SHAPE disciplines and demonstrates that the UK's SHAPE research portfolio outperforms the UK's STEM research, for each international benchmark considered in this work. It is argued that SHAPE research is becoming increasingly important as a partner to STEM as the widespread use of technology creates societal challenges. It is also argued that the strength of UK SHAPE is the basis of a strategic advantage for UK research.

Problem

• SHAPE disciplines
• STEM interaction
• societal challenges

Innovation

• SHAPE disciplines
• UK research dominance
• Societal impact of technology