Luk Van Langenhove argues that the social sciences should be made more relevant (Nature 484, 442; 2012). But the problem is rather that society remains largely unaware of the thousands of social-science studies produced every year that are relevant to global challenges such as climate change. Efforts should focus on increasing the societal use of scientific knowledge instead of producing more, starting with better communication of research findings to the public.

Van Langenhove notes that just 1,600 papers out of all social-science publications in 2010 (1.6%) contain the keywords 'environmental change' or 'climate change'. But keywords are not always the best way to rate the impact of different topics. Articles that might be relevant do not always mention the right keywords, and findings depend on keyword choice (for example, when I included 'sustainability' in Van Langenhove's search, a further 1,493 papers appeared). Social-sciences papers still score more hits for these keywords than papers in the natural sciences (0.65%).

Other topics relevant to society include cancer, AIDS and obesity, which I found to score 4,173, 3,341 and 2,365 social-science articles, respectively, for 2010. The social sciences are therefore already contributing substantially to solving societal issues.