Behaviour

The contribution of the humanities and social sciences to our understanding of the world is undeniably relative to a great extent to how much they bring to the study of individual and collective human behaviour. Technology without behaviour can rightly be viewed as likely to ruin science but the contribution of the humanities and social sciences is clearly essential if we are to understand how the forms of behaviour that simultaneously adopt and transform technological innovations and revolutions actually lead to changes in societies. Different disciplines may name the associated concepts differently, for example preferring to refer to uses and practices rather than behaviour but these remain core issues in the humanities and social sciences. The research carried out at the CNRS does not just focus on forms of behaviour alone– it also covers the determinants of these from the standpoint of cognition, perceptions, representations and imaginations. A great deal of research thus brings the question of behaviour into profound issues linked to environmental and technological transitions and the opportunities and associated risks involved with these. Cognition researchers also study the wide range of public actions and policies developed as a set of solutions to respond to the challenges linked to these transitions.

Research centers and networks