UNESCO’s role in the field of social and human sciences is to promote knowledge, development of standards and intellectual cooperation in order to facilitate social transformation based on the values of justice, freedom and human dignity.

To this end the UNESCO Sector for Social and Human Sciences has set itself a number of tasks that should help reduce the gap between what is and what should be: Study what is (empirical social science research), Anticipate what could be (philosophy and advance research) and Determine what should be (ethics and human rights).

In order to achieve these objectives, the UNESCO Moscow Office assists the cluster countries to implement the following programmes: «Bioethics», «Ethics of Science and Technology», «Human Rights», «Gender Equality and Development» and «International Migration and Social Integration»