Martin Lengwiler

Practices of transdisciplinary research: close(r) encounters of science and society

ET ANOTHER SPECIAL ISSUE regarding interand transdisciplinarity may seem annoying to those readers who have followed the discussions about these issues in science policy circles. Interand transdisciplinarity have become buzzwords: their political prestige and ongoing fascination among researchers, notably in the domain of environmental or health issues, seem to rest on the impression that going interor transdisciplinary is ‘the right thing to do’. They strike such chords as ‘engage in responsible research’, ‘realize mutual learning’ and ‘orient science towards real-world problems and solutions’. Accordingly, transdisciplinary research has generated a host of projects and programs at all levels of funding (local, national, EU). Yet, little do we know as to how those research projects or programs, which explicitly claim to be part of such a new mode of knowledge production, actually operate. Previous research on transdisciplinarity has often concentrated on programmatic, epistemological and conceptual questions. Studies on the practices of transdisciplinary research are few and mostly directed toward interdisciplinary research (eg Weingart and Stehr, 2000). The articles collected in this special issue cover both interand transdisciplinary research projects or programs. Based on empirical research, we set out to provide a first overview of a range of projects pursued in this new mode of knowledge production and ask what the specific features of these projects really are. The introduction thus opens the floor for detailed case studies by first providing some definitions. Next, we give an overview of the themes of the articles and the methods employed. The main part of this introduction is devoted to a discussion of the findings of the articles assembled in this special issue: What are the different ways in which knowledge in transdisciplinary research is produced and evaluated? We will show that transdisciplinary research employs a wide range of institutional arrangements, procedures and methods in order to realize transdisciplinary knowledge production and evaluation. It will become evident that new modes of cooperative practices give rise to novel forms of organizing research which, in turn, structure cooperative research in novel ways. In addition to this, interand transdisciplinary research is about to have repercussions on university-based science at large. From this perspective, these cooperative forms of knowledge production are not only interesting in themselves; they are also a case for a new order of academic knowledge production. The call for producing ‘socially robust knowledge’ that is not only scientifically sound but also socially acceptable exerts all kinds of disciplining effects on persons (eg on researchers, citizens, administrators, etc), organizations (eg funding agencies, cooperating firms), Y

Between charisma and heuristics: four styles of interdisciplinarity

The paper examines the practices of interdisciplinary research projects in nine extra-university research institutions in Germany. The research fields of these institutions include representative fields of current interdisciplinary research, such as climate change research, environmental studies, organizational research, and area studies. The analysis shows that the outcome of interdisciplinary research cooperation depends upon the micro-organization of research practices. There is, however, no singular recipe for a successful cooperation. Instead, the case studies show a multiplicity of adequate “styles of interdisciplinarity”: methodological, charismatic, heuristic and pragmatic interdisciplinarity. The differences between them depend upon the organizational and epistemic conditions of research practices. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Token endeavors: The significance of academic spin-offs in technology transfer and research policy in Germany

Based on the principal-agent theory, this paper analyses the historical emergence of policies supporting spin-off activities since the end of the Second World War, focusing on Germany as an exemplary case study. It argues that the significance of spin-offs in research policy is not an effect of their hard-and-fast number or their direct economic impacts but rather of their symbolic meaning, providing legitimacy for academic institutions and funding agencies in controversial public debates about science and technological policies. Spin-offs, like technology transfer at large, are important to the rationale and legitimacy of science and research policy. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Insurance and civil society : elements of an ambivalent relationship

This article examines the history of the relationship between insurance and civil society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It tests the conventional narrative that this relationship followed an anticlimactic course, marked by the burgeoning of self-organised mutual societies in the nineteenth century and the decline and marginalisation of this sector of civil society owing to the rise of corporate insurance companies and statutory social insurance in the twentieth century. The article offers first a comparative analysis of nineteenth-century mutual insurance in different European countries (Britain, Germany, France and Switzerland), calling attention to limitations to the democratic and self-organised character of mutual associations. The second part of the article concentrates on a case study of twentieth-century corporate insurance in Switzerland, examining how life insurance companies dealt with customers and their personal data. The study indicates that insurance corporations adopted norms of extended privacy protection in the 1980s, a process that reflected new legal demands, customer claims and policies of civil rights organisations. The conclusion summarises the contradictory effects of insurance on the history of civil society and discusses the implications for the concept of civil society.

Technologies of trust: actuarial theory, insurance sciences, and the establishment of the welfare state in Germany and Switzerland around 1900

Abstract The article analyzes the relation between transformations in information systems and changing forms of organization. Drawing on a historical case study, it examines the rise of actuarial theory in Germany and Switzerland around 1900 and its significance for the emergence of the first modern social insurances. So far, the history of actuarial theory has been written as the social history of the actuarial profession or the epistemic history of probability calculus. By examining the political and economic contexts of the history of actuarial theory, the article also discusses the notion of an “insurance society”. The argument concludes that Foucauldian interpretations of actuarial theory as a technology of power and a condition of modern governmentality are too monistic and should be specified. The article suggests to use the concept of a “technology of trust” to interpret the integrative power of actuarial theory in a political field marked by deep antagonisms.

Kontinuitäten und Umbrüche in der deutschen Wissenschaftspolitik (1900–1990)

Der Beitrag untersucht die Entwicklung der deutschen Wissenschaftspolitik seit dem ausgehenden 19. Jahrhundert, wobei die Jahrzehnte nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg und die beiden deutschen Teilstaaten bis zur Wiedervereinigung im Vordergrund stehen. Im Verlauf der Nachkriegszeit hat die staatliche Wissenschaftspolitik sowohl in West- wie in Ostdeutschland einen fundamentalen Paradigmenwechsel erlebt und sich von einer traditionell bildungspolitischen zu einer forschungs- und wirtschaftspolitischen Ausrichtung mit steigenden zentralstaatlichen Verantwortlichkeiten entwickelt.

Vom Übervölkerungs- zum Überalterungsparadigma

Die Plausibilitat demographischer Aussagen, die sich in aktuellen familien- und sozialpolitischen Debatten anschaulich manifestiert, ist kein neues Phanomen. Seit dem ausgehenden 18. Jahrhundert dient demographische Expertise in steigendem Mase zur Legitimation sozial- und bevolkerungspolitischen Handelns. Die zweihundertjahrige Fachgeschichte ware ohne die Impulse aus burokratischen und politischen Anwendungsfeldern gar nicht erklarbar. Dieses Bedingungsverhaltnis von Demographie und Bevolkerungspolitik soll im folgenden Beitrag in historischer Perspektive untersucht werden. Wie haben sich die demographischen Paradigmen und die bevolkerungspolitischen Strategien seit dem 18. Jahrhundert entwickelt? Welchen Einfluss ubte demographische Expertise auf die Bevolkerungspolitik aus? Und auf welchen historischen Faktoren beruhte die steigende gesellschaftliche Deutungsmacht der Demographie; genauer: Welche wirtschafts- und sozialpolitischen Bedeutungen wurden der demographischen Entwicklung zugeschrieben — vom befurchteten Engpass im Nahrungsspielraum uber den Druck auf das Lohnniveau bis hin zur demographisch bedingten Kostensteigerung in der Rentenversicherung?