Department of Social Sciences

Former Department of History had been reconstructed for several times.
In 1939 it was established as a Department of Marxism-Leninism Basics.
In 1957 it was renamed Department of History of the Communist Party of the USSR, during 1989-1990- Department of Political History of 20th century, during 1991-1994-Department of Political History of Armenian Nation in 19-20th centuries. Since 2006 it was renamed Department of History.
The Department was headed by T. Aleksanyan (1939-1941), G. Shaghgamyan (1942-1944), A. H. Melkonyan (1944-1947), A. Baghmanyan (1947-1984), H. Melikyan (1984-1994), F. Karapetyan (1994-2004), A. Melkonyan (2004-2006), A. Ghambaryan (2006-2013).
In 1994 the Department of Social studies was established on the basis of independent operating Department of Political History of Armenian Nation in 19-20th centuries, Department of theory of Economics, Theory of politics and Socialism, Department of Philosophy.
The Department was fundamentally changed in September 1989, when Professor H. Melikyan started teaching of “Basics of history of Armenian nation” at non professional universities in Armenia.
Department of Philosophy was established in 1957. The Department was headed by M. Kocharyan (1957-1959), T. Aleksanyan (1959-1976), V. Darbinyan (1976-1987), R. Jijyan (1987-1994), Departmented Department of Social Sciences was headed by F. Karapetyan (1994-2004), S. Davtyan (2006-2007 Depratment of Social Sciences, 2007-01.12.2009- Department of Philosophy and Bioethics), R. Tigranyan (2009-2013).
The discipline of “History of Medicine” (Faculty of Pharmacy- “History of Pharmacy) has been taught since 1946 at the Department of Social medicine and organization of Health care. Since 1988 the discipline was included in educational plan of Forensic Medicine and since 2008 it was included in the educational plan of Department of history. Since 2013 it has been taught in the Department of Social Studies.
Since 2000 Bioethics has been taught in the Department.
The Armenian Unit of the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics (Hayfa) is situated in Yerevan State Medical University.
In 2008 the Department of Philosophy and Bioethics, headed by S. Davtyan, having the results of her scientific and pedagogical hard activities was included in the International Network of UNESCO Chair in Bioethics.
On May 24 2009 Susanna Davtyan was appointed as the Head of the Armenian Unit of UNESCO Chair in Bioethics by the Chairholder of UNESCO Chair in Bioethics prof. Amnon Carmi.
On 23.11.2010 Memorandum was signed between UNESCO (Dendev Badarch) and YSMU (Susanna Davtyan), having the aim to test the Basic Educational Program of UNESCO in Bioethics.
In 2011 in Singapore the report of S. Davtyan on “Experimental course of Bioethics upon the Bioethics curriculum of UNESCO: Methodology and result of investigation” was the only one that was sent to Paris (Headquarter of UNESCO) and Israel for publication as a leading article in the International Journal “Medicine and law”, V. 31, N4, December 2012, pp. 495-512.
Since 2011 Davtyan S. was included in International Scientific Committee on Bioethics.

The Department is associated with
• The Institute of History of NAS RA
• Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University,
• Matenadaran after M. Mashtots
• Departments of Philosophy and Psychology, Sociology of Yerevan State University.
Within the framework of Bioethics S.H. Davtyan cooperates with the Bioethics Departments of Medical Universities in Moscow, Volgograd, Minsk, Haifa, Sofia, Macedonia, China, India, Austria, Australia and other countries.

Within the framework of the History of Medicine, the Chair cooperates with Aistis Zalnor, a lecturer in the history of medicine at the Vilnius University.