He said that while science drives discovery, only the social sciences can ensure progress benefits people and societies, especially as the world grapples with the fallout from climate change, widening inequality and rapid technological disruption.
“All of these technologies have potential upsides and downsides. The difference isn’t in the technologies themselves — it’s in how we use them and how we choose to implement them.
“The problems have reached a point where we really need to address them, or we’re not going to make it through the next few decades. The role of the social sciences is to help us capture the benefits of new developments and blunt the downsides,” he said in an interview with FMT.
Kramer said the social sciences are essential to understanding how innovation, policy and human behaviour interact.
Without that, he said, even the best technologies risk deepening mistrust or inequality — instead of improving lives.
He pointed to artificial intelligence (AI) as one example of how breakthroughs can either help or harm, depending on how societies respond.
“AI can do immense good and immense harm. Which one it does depends on economics, politics, sociology and psychology.
“The next few decades are going to have to be social-science decades, or we’re going to have real trouble,” he said.
Marking LSE’s 130th anniversary this year, Kramer said the milestone comes as the world faces five interconnected challenges — sustaining effective government, rebuilding political economies, maintaining ecological balance, reducing systemic inequality and managing new technologies.
He said each of these problems feeds into the others, and solving them will require cooperation across disciplines, borders and sectors.
At LSE, that interdisciplinary approach takes shape through LSE100, a university-wide course introduced in 2010 that brings together students from economics, law, politics and sociology to examine global issues through different lenses.
“Universities have a unique and important role in addressing these problems. We’re places where ideas are developed, where the next generation of leaders are educated, and where people from all walks of life can meet and learn from one another.”
“We also have a responsibility to share those ideas with the wider public, so that research actually connects with policy and people,” he said.
Kramer added that universities like LSE depend on partnerships and alumni networks to turn knowledge into real-world impact.
“Alumni are the foundation on which it all rests. For universities to play their role, they need dedicated alumni communities with which they can interact,” he said.
He said LSE’s mission has remained consistent for more than a century: to use research and education not just to study society, but to improve it.
As LSE looks to its next century, Kramer said universities must continue bridging the gap between science and society, because knowledge on its own is never enough.
“We have to learn how to combine technological and scientific developments with social systems that make them work for everyone.
“The social sciences help us figure that out. They connect knowledge with action,” he said.