CIVICA – The European University of Social Sciences has received funding to strengthen its research dimension from the EU’s programme Horizon 2020, under the chapter “Science with and for Society.” 

The pandemic – analysed in this issue in terms of some of its social aspects – has not eclipsed the more serious and long-lasting issue of environmental degradation, to which several articles are devoted. Other key issues – artificial intelligence, otherness, and savings – are also explored, offering new perspectives on current events. Research with an international scope, combining economics, political science, and sociology, is also presented. The issue culminates in a painful story that resonates today more than ever: that of the end of slavery. Enjoy the read!

5 June 2020 has marked a very sad anniversary: our colleague and friend, Fariba Adelkhah, a researcher at Sciences Po’s Centre for International Studies, has now been imprisoned without motive in Iran for one year.

For one year she has fought with courage, tenacity and unfailing dignity, deserving of our utmost admiration.

It is not the current health crisis that is making us realise the precariousness of women and domestic violence. These problems – like so many others – have long been known. This issue addresses areas that are rarely analysed: the negative consequences of some purportedly egalitarian and scientific policies, the geopolitics of gender, the impact of climate change on women’s lives, the paradoxical aspects of marital relations, and factors of persistence in educational and professional inequalities.

The contribution of social sciences is more than ever essential for citizens, communities and leaders facing the crisis caused by Covid-19. The issues it touches upon - economic, social and health policy, organisation of public authorities and companies, trust in governmental bodies, inequalities, globalisation ... - are familiar to the academic community of Sciences Po. Through their analyses and new research projects, our researchers are responding today to the fundamental need to grasp the political, economic and social impacts of this pandemic in the short and long term.

Sciences Po continues to progress in the 2020 QS World University Rankings by subject (PDF, 9.2Mo), moving from third to second place in the world in "Political Science & International Studies". In this world ranking released on March 4, 2020, Sciences Po is positioned just behind Harvard University, and tied with Princeton University. Sciences Po is for the first time the first university of Europe in this discipline, in front of the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics and Political Studies (LSE). 

For the past seven years the QS World University Rankings by subject which compares more than 1,200 universities around the world, has confirmed Sciences Po as a leading university in the social sciences. In 2020, Sciences Po ranks in the top 50 worldwide in 5 disciplines, with significant leaps in several subjects:

• 2nd in the world in Political Science and International Studies, up one rank from 2019
• 28th in Sociology (as in 2019)
• 40th in Development Studies (top 100 in 2019)
• 50th in the world in Law (top 100 in 2019)
• Sciences Po also made significant progress in Economics and Econometrics, moving from the top 150 to the top 100 worldwide.

More over, Sciences Po ranks 23rd in Social Policy and Administration (22nd in 2019)

The analysis of democracy, its advances, its new forms, as well as threats to it, are the focus of this new Cogito. This issue also examines a series of public policies: higher education, social policies, the environment, and ethics. It also looks at the reception of fake news on social networks and of decision-making. Finally, historical perspectives are provided on colonial cultures and the birth of medical emergencies. Enjoy the read!

Fariba Adelkhah and Roland Marchal, both researchers at the Sciences Po Center for International Studies (CERI), were arrested in Iran in early June 2019. Since then, they have been held in detention without valid legal grounds. On 31 January, 2020, the CERI organised a conference, "Captives Without Cause", aimed at contributing to the mobilisation for their release and raising awareness on the various issues (diplomatic, political, intellectual and human) linked to their detention.