section_path: Low priority of social science
section_name: Low priority of social science
paragraph_text: Low priority of social science
  
  Social sciences receive less funding than natural sciences. It has been estimated that only 0.12% of all funding for climate-related research is spent on the social science of climate change mitigation. Vastly more funding is spent on natural science studies of climate change and considerable sums are also spent on studies of the impact of and adaptation to climate change. It has been argued that this is a misallocation of resources, as the most urgent puzzle at the current juncture is to work out how to change human behavior to mitigate climate change, whereas the natural science of climate change is already well established and there will be decades and centuries to handle adaptation.
  
  Nevertheless, funding and attention paid to the social sciences varies across countries. For instance, the development of a social scientific community can become a priority entangled with national politics. In the case of Brazil, for example, the institutionalisation of social sciences took place in a political context where the state struggled to assert its territorial power, and the social scientific field was expected to produce investigation but also political inputs towards the construction of a new nation. This need was accentuated after the 1932 revolution, in the wake of which the USP was founded and became the biggest university in South America. Subsequently, these developments led to the deployment of university programs and the institution of national associations in anthropology, sociology and political science.