"The Humanities have much to offer society in terms of the great challenges of the 21st century, since issues such as climate change, immigration, the financial crisis... have to do with how we perceive and act as human beings." This was stated by Poul HolmPresident of the European Consortium of Institutes and Centers of research in Humanities (ECHIC), on the occasion of the congress annual of the institution, which is hosted by the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) of the University of Navarra on March 26-27, 2015.

From agreement with Professor Holm, addressing these challenges requires "a better understanding of people's motivations and their ability to change," which is closely related to Humanities. "Values and our understanding of the world are implicated in the current crisis. To understand it better, we need to delve deeper into disciplines such as literature, history, Philosophy or language," he stressed.

He stressed the need to make it clear to politicians and managers that "technological solutions alone do not solve problems, but rather aggravate them. We need research projects led by engineers, but also by humanists, people who understand values".

Taking the leap to address major problems

Regarding the current status of the research at Humanities in the old continent, Poul Holm was optimistic: he stressed that there are new methodologies that allow "tackling old problems in new ways". However, he affirmed that major problems such as post-secularism or climate change have taken on a greater dimension, so that "the Humanities also has to make the leap to address them".

In this regard, he stressed the importance of the partnership between centers and institutes "to learn from each other, detect good practices in different countries and improve the partnership both in Europe and in the rest of the world".

Regarding the challenges they face, he emphasized their role in identifying high-level researchers in universities, facilitating meeting between senior and junior researchers, and identifying funding opportunities. "There is a need for staff that can help researchers submit competitive proposals," he added.

Some thirty experts from centers in the United Kingdom, Holland, Portugal, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Ireland and Spain participated in the 5th annual ECHIC meeting . Among other topics, issues such as Horizon 2020, civic Humanities , public and private funding or the value of Humanities for society have been addressed.