J. Britt Holbrook

Peer Review and the Ex Ante Assessment of Societal Impacts

Funding agencies and research councils around the world rely on peer review to assess the potential impacts of proposed research. This article compares the procedures of two major public science agencies — the US National Science Foundation and the European Commissions 7th Framework Programme — for evaluating ex ante the potential societal impact of research proposals. In this paper we survey the state of the art and discuss some of the conceptual questions that arise in using ex ante peer review to assess the societal impact of scientific research. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

What is interdisciplinary communication? Reflections on the very idea of disciplinary integration

In this paper I attempt to answer the question: What is interdisciplinary communication? I attempt to answer this question, rather than what some might consider the ontologically prior question—what is interdisciplinarity (ID)?—for two reasons: (1) there is no generally agreed-upon definition of ID; and (2) one’s views regarding interdisciplinary communication have a normative relationship with one’s other views of ID, including one’s views of its very essence. I support these claims with reference to the growing literature on ID, which has a marked tendency to favor the idea that interdisciplinary communication entails some kind of ‘integration’. The literature on ID does not yet include very many philosophers, but we have something valuable to offer in addressing the question of interdisciplinary communication. Playing somewhat fast-and-loose with traditional categories of the subdisciplines of philosophy, I group some philosophers—mostly from the philosophy of science, social–political philosophy, and moral theory—and some non-philosophers together to provide three different, but related, answers to the question of interdisciplinary communication. The groups are as follows: (1) Habermas–Klein, (2) Kuhn–MacIntyre, and (3) Bataille–Lyotard. These groups can also be thought of in terms of the types of answers they give to the question of interdisciplinary communication, especially in terms of the following key words (where the numbers correspond to the groups from the previous sentence): (1) consensus, (2) incommensurability, and (3) invention.

The use of societal impacts considerations in grant proposal peer review: A comparison of five models

This article discusses the use of societal impacts considerations in grant proposal peer review in scientific and technical research.

Knowledge Kills Action: Why Principles Should Play a Limited Role in Policy-making

This essay argues that principles should play a limited role in policy-making. It first illustrates the dilemma of timely action in the face of uncertain unintended consequences. It then introduces the precautionary and proactionary principles as different alignments of knowledge and action within the policy-making process. The essay next considers a cynical and a hopeful reading of the role of these principles in public policy debates. We argue that the two principles, despite initial appearances, are not all that different when it comes to formulating public policy. We also suggest that allowing principles to determine our actions undermines the sense of autonomy necessary for true action.

Philosophy in the Age of Neoliberalism

This essay argues that political, economic, and cultural developments have made the twentieth century disciplinary approach to philosophy unsustainable. It (a) discusses the reasons behind this unsustainability, which also affect the academy at large, (b) describes applied philosophy as an inadequate theoretical reaction to contemporary societal pressures, and (c) proposes a dedisciplined and interstitial approach—“field philosophy”—as a better response to the challenges facing the twenty-first century philosophy.

Research impact: We need negative metrics too

Article discussing different ways to indicate the impact of a researchers scholarly activities.

Understanding Technological Design

In Science and the Modern World (1925), philosopher Alfred North Whitehead identified “the invention of invention” as the greatest invention of the late nineteenth century. Invention ceased to be an accidental or rare event and became a methodologically pursued and economically promoted process. In American Genesis (1989), historian Thomas P. Hughes even went so far as to compare the achievements of such inventors as Thomas Edison and Henry Ford to those of Renaissance artists. During the late twentieth century something similar happened with technological design, a human activity much more directly related to the Renaissance. According to the lead story in an early twenty-first-century issue of Business Week: When people talked about innovation in the ‘90s, they invariably meant technology. When people speak about innovation today, it is more than likely they mean design. Consumers, who are choking on choice, look at design as the new differentiator. In a sea of look-alike products and services, design creates the “Wow!” factor. Managers, facing fierce global competition, look to design for the kind of innovation that generates organic growth, new revenues, and wider profit margins. (Nussbaum, 2005: 62)

Research Ethics Education in the STEM Disciplines: The Promises and Challenges of a Gaming Approach

AbstractWhile education in ethics and the responsible conduct of research (RCR) is widely acknowledged as an essential component of graduate education, particularly in the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and math), little consensus exists on how best to accomplish this goal. Recent years have witnessed a turn toward the use of games in this context. Drawing from two NSF-funded grants (one completed and one on-going), this paper takes a critical look at the use of games in ethics and RCR education. It does so by: (a) setting the development of research and engineering ethics games in wider historical and theoretical contexts, which highlights their promise to solve important pedagogical problems; (b) reporting on some initial results from our own efforts to develop a game; and (c) reflecting on the challenges that arise in using games for ethics education. In our discussion of the challenges, we draw out lessons to improve this nascent approach to ethics education in the STEM disciplines .

The future of the impact agenda depends on the revaluation of academic freedom

Opponents of the impact agenda often base their arguments on the claim that requiring scholarly research to demonstrate broader societal impacts conflicts with academic freedom. This paper argues that this claim entails a narrow interpretation of academic freedom as freedom from interference. A richer interpretation is proposed of academic freedom as freedom to pursue research that may have broader impacts. Adopting a positive view of academic freedom will require disciplines to adjust their standards of academic rigor and universities to amend their criteria for promotion and tenure. It will also provide the foundation for an academic response to the rise of neopopulism.

Designing responsible research and innovation to encourage serendipity could enhance the broader societal impacts of research

This article argues that (i) RRI should be conceived as a tool; (ii) RRI can be used to enhance the broader societal impacts of research; and (iii) designing RRI specifically to encourage serendipi...