ESF Appoints Prof. Gün Semin Chair of Standing Committee on Social Sciences

The European Science Foundation (ESF) has appointed Professor Gün Semin as the new Chair of the Standing Committee on Social Sciences  (SCSS), the scientific group composed of approximately thirty members from social science research councils and research institutions from throughout Europe.

Prof. Semin takes over from Prof. Chris Whelan who stepped down as Chair in the summer of 2005 after serving for almost four years.

Appointed an Academy Professor with The Netherlands Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences at the Free University, Amsterdam, in 2004, Prof. Semin previously served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Social Psychology at the Free University (1990-2004), where he also was the Research Director (2000-2003) of the Faculty of Psychology and Education. He was also the founding Scientific Director of the Kurt Lewin Institute (1992-1996), the inter-university graduate school in social psychology and its applications.

His main research interest is in social cognition, communication and language – aside from specific research projects he is currently running on affect and affective processes and action-perception link. He is a widely-published author and editor and has developed a linguistic model which resulted in the study of language and social cognition.

Prof. Semin was selected from a shortlist of several high-level applicants by a selection committee chaired by Prof. Max Kaase, former ESF Vice President and member of the SCSS, and comprising Prof. Bertil Andersson (ESF Chief Executive), Prof. Fredrik Engelstad (Norway), Prof. Marja Järvelä (Finland) and Prof. André Sapir (Belgium).

“Chris Whelan has done tremendous work during his term as Chair, in particular discussing and implementing the recommendations of the review of the Standing Committee by ALLEA (All European Academies) in 2003, taking many new members particularly from Eastern European countries and new non-European observers on board, and leading the further development of the EUROCORES programme in the social sciences,” Prof. Semin said. “We will continue to build on the foundations he has created so that we may focus on developing greater inter-dependence between the social sciences and other scientific disciplines.”

Cutting across boundaries will be a major thrust of Prof. Semin’s tenure as Chair. He believes the future lies in inter-disciplinarity and much more interaction between the different scientific communities. Prof. Semin said. “There is great potential for social sciences to interact with medical sciences and biological sciences, as well as the humanities. There are many topics where cutting across disciplines will better enable us to collectively address them, and where our efforts in this regard may be guided by the SCSS working in close collaboration with the other standing committees.”

Prof. Semin took up his new position in September 2005.

Category: Media Centre, Press Releases 2005