RESEARCH AND QUALITY OF LIFE

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to reflect about the role of biological research on improving the quality of life for the whole population. The quality of life goes beyond the limits of the economic development, which is traditionally measured by indicators such as income, employment rate, buying power and so on. Quality of life, therefore, is understood as a process in which interdisciplinary theoretical approaches transpose the limits and the frontiers among the nature, the social, the cultural and the political fields. Research is understood as a process to produce new knowledge about complex issues not necessarily embedded in the current science. The paper concludes that researchers should open new perspectives, to challenge the cold mathematical logic used to understand the complex sociocultural reality. In this way they should contribute for significative improvements in the quality of life of the citizen.