Grundrechtskonflikte im Vertrag

The book offers an interdisciplinary analysis of cooperation agreements between universities and business enterprises. The author develops proposals for the arrangement of the university constitution at the contact points between science and economy. Current concepts of university governance, which as a rule remain under-complex, are countered by a scientifically appropriate procedural contract law. Proposals for an institutional design of scientific organization and management as well as specific regulation prohibitions and requirements for cooperation agreements aim to guarantee scientific autonomy despite dominant economic exploitation interests.

SCIENTISTS IN THE SOVIET ATOMIC PROJECT: BETWEEN COMPULSION AND FREEDOM

Scientists of various specializations, status and citizenship took part in the Soviet atomic project, which required serious scientific research. Their scientific and organizational contribution has been described in scientific and popular publications. This paper considers the project’s social dimension, poorly reflected in the research literature. The chronology includes the period from 1945 to the second half of the 1950s. It was time between the beginning of the project’s active stage after a protracted start and its completion, when the main results had been achieved. Providing information on the scale of employment of scientists in the project, the article focuses on the question of how their work and life were built within the framework of this secret research. The study describes the specifics of scientists’ mobilization, explores restrictions, deprivations, threats and opportunities associated with their participation in the project; it also analyzes features of their dealing with authorities, the ratio between compulsion and trust, regime and freedom, stimulation and internal motivation, dependence and scientific autonomy. These aspects contribute to better understanding of the USSR atomic project phenomenon and its effectiveness, serve as a “magnifying glass” for observing the specifics of the scientific work organization, as well as the Soviet social space as a whole.

Against the Tide. On the Pedagogy of Freedom in Polish Pedagogical Thought

Among the Eastern European countries in the USSR's sphere of influence, Poland enjoyed the greatest freedom, which puts into question the hasty and evaluative assessments of the then educators, describing some of them as being homo sovietus or homo sovietus-like. The situation was very complex and it is in this perspective where one should undertake research on the past, 20th century pedagogical thought. Regardless of how ideologized Polish education was, it should be noted that many scholars who shaped their theoretical concepts in free, pre-war Poland opposed the promotion of Stalinism in science and education. At the time, the church played a certain positive role in this struggle, which also has to be recognized as a sham of opportunism. The pre-war philosophy of upbringing, particularly deviating from the doctrinal assumptions of Marxism-Leninism, became the main target of the attack, and such outstanding scholars as S. Hessen, B. Nawroczyński, L. Chmaj or K. Sośnicki were subject to harassment on the part of the authorities. The remnant of those times, which still lasts in the present day, is a belief in special value, and sometimes even in the foreground of empirical pedagogy with simultaneous negation of philosophical pedagogy. Meanwhile, it was Hessen who proved that empirical pedagogy - valuable in itself - is a great tool to learn how it is, but silent about how it should be. All teleology, which before the war grew out of philosophical currents (Hessen's neo-Kantism, Lviv-Warsaw school of Nawroczyński and Sośnicki) in the era of primacy of one party was a derivative of its ideology depriving pedagogy of its subjectivity and scientific autonomy. What makes Polish pedagogy of freedom different is the fact of practicing it in historical and philosophical orbit, when we look at it from the substantive side and positive disintegration, when we want to understand it from the personality of its creators.

The National Center for Scientific Research as the basis for the fundamental science development in France: specificity and contemporary problems

The article is devoted to the analysis of the formation and development of the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) — a key state research organization in France, which stands among the world's leading national research centers in terms of its scale and effectiveness. The specifics and major problems the CNRS faced over the 80th period of its existence are shown, as well as the main reasons for its institutional viability. Special attention was paid to the advantages of CNRS and to the unsolved contemporary problems. The dynamics of the confrontation between the desire of researchers for scientific autonomy and the intention of the state to control scientific research is investigated. It was revealed that the problem of academic freedom remains one of the most acute and intractable problems for the scientific community of modern France.

Participatory Designs and Epistemic Authority in Knowledge Platforms for Sustainability

Expert organizations increasingly adopt participatory strategies to strengthen their knowledge claims. We introduce the notion of knowledge platforms for sustainability to conceptualize expert organizations that not only rhetorically embrace but also actively attempt to institutionalize the norm of stakeholder participation in seeking authority in sustainability governance. In doing so, they encounter a tension between the ambition of stakeholder participation and conventional foundations of epistemic authority, such as scientific autonomy and consensus. Taking this tension as a starting point, we utilize a dynamic perspective on epistemic authority to investigate the contestations over institutional designs. We compare the institutionalization of participation in two knowledge platforms for sustainability—the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, and Future Earth. Our comparison reveals that institutional designs for participation open up the process of knowledge creation and evaluation. Yet, in seeking epistemic authority, knowledge platforms also reinforce existing power structures by redrawing boundaries that protect scientific autonomy and privilege relationships with elite actors.

Open Science and Its Enemies: Challenges for a Sustainable Science–Society Social Contract

Science as a social institution has evolved as the most powerful, highly influential, and sought out institution after the conflicts between science and religion following Galileo. Knowledge as a public good, scientific peer review of science, the prominence of open publications, and the emphasis on professional recognition and scientific autonomy have been the hallmark of science in the past three centuries. According to this scientific spirit, the scientific social system and society formed a unique social contract. This social contract drew considerable institutional and state legitimacy for the openness and public good of science in the service of state and society, all through the post-war period. Openness and public good of science are recognized and legitimized by the scientific community and science agencies at the global level. This paradigm of open science, in varying forms and manifestations, contributed to the progress of systematic knowledge at the service of humankind over the last three centuries. Entering the third decade of the 21st century, the social contract between science and society is undergoing major changes. In fact, the whole paradigm of open science and its social contract is being challenged by various “enemies” or adversaries such as (a) market-based privatized commercial science, (b) industry 4.0 advanced technologies, and (c) a “new iron curtain” on the free flow of science data and information. What is at stake? Are there major changes? Is the very social institution of science transforming? What impact will this have on our contemporary and future sustainable society? These are some important issues that will be addressed in this article.

The Chemical Philosophy of Robert Boyle

This book examines the way in which Robert Boyle seeks to accommodate his complex chemical philosophy within the framework of a mechanistic theory of matter. More specifically, the book proposes that Boyle regards chemical qualities as properties that emerge from the mechanistic structure of chymical atoms. Within Boyle’s chemical ontology, chymical atoms are structured concretions of particles that Boyle regards as chemically elementary entities, that is, as chemical wholes that resist experimental analysis. Although this interpretation of Boyle’s chemical philosophy has already been suggested by other Boyle scholars, the present book provides a sustained philosophical argument to demonstrate that, for Boyle, chemical properties are dispositional, relational, emergent, and supervenient properties. This argument is strengthened by a detailed mereological analysis of Boylean chymical atoms that establishes the kind of theory of wholes and parts that is most consistent with his emergentist conception of chemical properties. The emergentist position that is being attributed to Boyle supports his view that chemical reactions resist direct explanation in terms of the mechanistic properties of fundamental particles, as well as his position regarding the scientific autonomy of chemistry from mechanics and physics.

Sticky Policies, Dysfunctional Systems: Path Dependency and the Problems of Government Funding for Science in the United States

Leaders of the scientific community have declared that American science is in a crisis due to inadequate federal funding. They misconstrue the problem; its roots lie instead in the institutional interactions between federal funding agencies and higher education. After World War II, science policy elites advocated for a system of funding that addressed what they perceived at the time as their most pressing problems of science-government relations: the need for greater federal funding for science, especially to universities, while maintaining scientific autonomy in the distribution and use of those funds. The agencies that fund university research developed institutional rules, norms, and procedures that created unintended consequences when they interacted with those of American higher education. The project system for funding, justified by peer-review and coupled with rapidly increasing R&D budgets, created incentives for universities to expand their research programs massively, which led to unsustainable growth in the demand for federal research money. That system produced spectacular successes but also created the unintended longer-term problem that demand for science funding has grown more quickly than government funding ever could. Most analysts neglect potentially painful reforms that might address these problems. This case demonstrates that successful political coalitions can create intractable long-term problems for themselves.

A Pnyx of Research Fields

This article conveys the objectives and results of an international and multidisciplinary − or interdisciplinary − research project still in operation, until the end of 2018. Based in the University of Cádiz (Spain), this project deals with ancient, modern and contemporary discussions, representations and narratives of Democracy, focusing on the contrast and comparison between a democratic system based on sortition, namely − broadly speaking − selection by lot to public offices and representative democracy. The article discusses the relevance of the investigation, the applicability of the results and the real effects of the actionresearch part. It also argues that − paradoxically − scientific autonomy is indispensable if that kind of research seeks to achieve tangible impact in society and its political fields. In short, this article asks about the inevitable fragility of the interaction between ethics, political commitment, and investigative objectiveness in humanities and social sciences.