Indeed, when we think of social sciences and humanities, we like to think of the importance of research to people, cultures, institutions and social relations.
You also heard from Chad Gaffield at the start of this study, and he likes to simplify it by saying that it's the study of human thought and human behaviour. What were they thinking? Why did they do that?
Now, we can go about asking ourselves those questions on a daily basis, and we come up with quick answers to be able to move on, but when these researchers dig deep into these issues, they do so with rigour in their methods so that, even though they may take non-obvious topics, in a way, it's to hone those skills of finding the right documents that are going to be pertinent, or, if you're doing qualitative study, talking to the right people who are going to be representative of the issue, or, if you're doing a survey quantitatively, making sure you're asking the right questions.
As much as you may have very precise, complicated and perhaps non-obvious research questions, the skills sets, certainly in the graduate students involved in the research, become really relevant.
In the context of mission-driven research, I think I've just highlighted what will be important. What is the mission looking at? What is the information they will look at? Who will be engaged in that mission research? What questions will be asked?
In a way, the framing of mission-driven research should come from a social science humanity framing in many instances. Not in all, but in many instances, there is a leading role, I believe, for social sciences humanities research to take on some of the pressing problems that we're trying to tackle or even the emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and that interface with humanity. Those are some examples.