Domsa Károlyné, Fekete Gézáné, Kovács Mária (szerk.): Gondolatok a könyvtárban / Thoughts in the Library (A MTAK közleményei 30. Budapest, 1992)

KÖNYVTÁR ÉS KORSZERŰSÉG – LIBRARY AND MODERNITY

Comparative research in Europe: the Vienna Centre The substance of research The Vienna Centre is already involved in a number of highly topicai projects which have been developed and organised by members of its scientific staff or were initiated in cooperation with UNESCO or other organisations. The projects are outlined in the research programme of the Centre. In addition to these, the Centre is considering making certain small-scale qualitatively high contributions in the area of management training. The Vienna Centre has traditionally been engaged in this substantial research and we intend alsó in the fiiture to contribute to generál research on processes of change and the problems of industrial societies. It stimulates the analysis of the impact of science and technology on social life, but not the analysis of the social and cultural bases of such a development. To correct this bias, the Vienna Centre will pay more attention to the meaning of cultural and political differences in Europe in order to create more adequate developmental models, of course based on interdisciplinarity. In this respect the interdisciplinarity in producing new developmental approaches, in multi-level research, could relatively quickly become one of the Centre's comparative advantages. However there are alsó a number of important contributions that the Centre can make at the level of research infrastructure. But after detailed discussions on the research agenda during the recent months, the Board of Directors of the Vienna Centre found it both feasible and in line with the present and predictable resources of the Vienna Centre to ask the staff to give specification to the development of such long-term programmes as (1) Uneven economic, political and social development in the present European ' context, including consequences for demography and cultural identity. (2) Environmental issues and their social and political impact. An infrastructure for international comparative research The Vienna Centre should perform two important functions: a support and a catalysis function. The support function includes the provision of the following services: — methodology, i.e. contributing to the development and spread of the methodology of international comparative research, both on the generál level and within particular areas of research; „ Gondolatok a könyvtárban " 161