Establishement of the European Platform for the integration of Social Sciences and Humanities. (SSH) in research related to Ionising Radiation (IR). A bad practice is: not conducting natural science research related to ionising radiation disconnected to people and society. Research and practice, as well as policy are not efficient if human; social and psychological aspects are not involved. A bad practice is also a disconnected social science research community in the field of ionising radiation and not using state of the art knowledge related to psychological, sociological, political, safety, behavioural and other aspects directly and indirectly related to ionising radiation. A good practice is: integrated social sciences and humanities into research and practice that traditionally relies on natural sciences and technology development. “ There are three reasons to integrate social sciences and humanities into research that traditionally relies on natural sciences and technology development, and they are all three normative and in that sense also ‘ethical’. The first is that this integration can help to improve the understanding of concrete challenges within specific research fields that have implications for the wider society outside of the research office or laboratory. This is the case with the research fields of concern in CONCERT: research on low dose risk, radioecology, research on emergency preparedness and response, dosimetry, and medical applications. These challenges can be related for instance to the use of specific research hypotheses and methods (rganize, prognosis, etc.), in the sense that one needs to be aware of their potential and limitations for research that aims to inform health and environmental policy. Challenges can also arise from specific ethical issues in which science has a central role and responsibility, for instance the individual sensitivity to radiation or the assessment of health effects for vulnerable groups in post-accident conditions. In practice, the integration of social sciences and humanities should be understood as bringing together natural scientists, engineers, social scientists and researchers in the humanities (e.g. philosophy, history) with the aim to rganize a dialogue that would normally not take place within natural sciences and technology development. Such a ‘transdisciplinary’ dialogue brings together researchers with specific views on the issues at stake who would normally have limited interaction with each other. This would stimulate new research addressing questions of general societal concern th...
