Roadmap for Humanities and Social Sciences in STEM Higher Education: An Introduction

The emerging limelight on technical and professional subjects has changed many facets of Higher Education. On a global scale, nations have established mechanisms to satisfy the demand for specialized skills that correspond directly to the needs of the labour force. Consequently, the demand for disciplines and subjects providing direct linkages with the world of work, including Technical and Professional higher education, skyrocketed, and HEIs providing degrees and diplomas in such disciplines mushroomed all over. The influx also questioned the conventionally perceived importance of different academic streams, thereby differentiating them based on the cost–benefit analysis. The prevalent narrative, which is fuelled by a utilitarian viewpoint that prioritizes immediate economic returns, tends to downplay the inherent value of HSS subjects. The importance of traditional liberal arts subjects, particularly humanities and social sciences (HSS) subjects, seems to be shrinking in favour of their more vocationally oriented counterparts. Consequently, in practice, HSS remains in the periphery and seldom gets integrated into the STEM HEIs in the true sense. Therefore, a fresh look at the field is required, where it becomes essential to re-discover how HSS can be and remain complementary in STEM higher education without being subordinate to it. In light of these complexities, it is necessary to set out on a voyage of rediscovery, one that not only restores HSS to its rightful place in higher education but also imagines its future within the framework of STEM.