Afleveringen
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Many educational researchers conduct secondary data analysis using large-scale school assessment studies that usually include various variables based on representative samples. To access such data, researchers must often apply by submitting a research proposal. Our project aims to examine the reproducibility and robustness of secondary data analyses from a research data center that offers over 70 educational studies for secondary analyses. This approach provides us with a unique database of data usage applications. In these applications, researchers describe their central questions, hypotheses, and planned analytic approach. Between 2008 and 2020, around 600 data applications from over 900 researchers resulted in around 180 publications. Based on this data and an additional survey of applicants about their project results, we will examine which data applications result in publications. Second, we will reproduce the published results of a selected subsample of data applications by using the information given by researchers in the publication. This direct reproduction of study results might provide hints on improving transparent descriptions of the research process. Third, we will explore the heterogeneity in effect estimates introduced by different analytical strategies and datasets using robustness checks on a smaller subsample of publications. The talk will overview the project and present the first results.
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For decades, research assessment infrastructure has been shaped by closed, centralized systems that prioritize selectivity, reinforce hierarchies, and define what counts as scholarly impact. This talk traces the historical evolution of bibliometrics, from the first citation analysis in the early 20th century via the revolutionary development of the Science Citation Index to the dominance of commercial data analytics companies like Clarivate and Elsevier today. The talk will highlight how these infrastructures have perpetuated power imbalancesâdetermining who gets to define impact, what types of knowledge are valued, and whose labor is made visible.
Currently research assessment and the underlying bibliometric infrastructure are undergoing a transformation. The increasing availability of open bibliographic sources (e.g., Crossref, OpenAlex, DataCite, DOAJ), metadata accessibility, and alternative models of research evaluation are challenging traditional hierarchies and enabling more inclusive and transparent assessment practices.
Using a data feminist lens, this talk will critically examine both the past and present of research assessment infrastructure, advocating for a shift that embraces pluralism, contextualizes metrics, and recognizes the diverse contributions that shape scholarly knowledge. By reflecting on historical lessons and current developments, we can envision a research assessment system that is more equitable, open, and reflective of the complexities of academic work.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Our contribution is dedicated to the topic of large research collaborations. We frame the issue of large research collaborations in the context of their long history in the study of science, which is closely related to the notion of Big Science (De Solla Price 1963). Beyond the quantitative growth of science in various aspects such as publications, journals, personnel, funding, etc., we focus our attention on the fact that considering the big picture of science implies taking into account the social order of science (Merton 1938, Barber 1953). From the beginnings of the sociology of science (Bernal 1939, Merton 1942, Polanyi, 1962, Pielke 2014, Wray 2023) to the present day, this question has been linked to the much broader question of how science is embedded in society and how it relates to politics (Jasanoff 1990, Pielke 2007, Kitcher 2011). Consequently, we argue that large research collaborations are a suitable object of study for an empirical theory of science because these two central questions of the social order of science and the relationship between science and society coincide in this object.
Against this background, our contribution aims to empirically investigate how the production of scientific knowledge is organised in concrete working contexts of large research collaborations. Our paper is structured as follows: First, we draw on the research literature to explain why the internal organisation and governance of large research collaborations is an increasingly controversial issue. (Hallonsten 2016, Cramer and Hallonsten 2020, Baneke 2020). We then elaborate on routinely identified points of contention in research collaborations, which also represent necessary transition points in the process of developing internal social order and governance. We do so by drawing on theoretical literature, empirical case studies from the literature (RĂŒland 2023, Galison et al 2023, Jerabkova et al 2023, 2024), and two examples from our own ongoing research. In particular, we will look at governance issues such as membership, distribution of power and recognition in the cases of the Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope (ngEHT) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Based on this cursory overview, we will explore the extent to which key challenges in the governance of large research collaborations recur to implicit or explicit normative presuppositions, and how these normative presuppositions relate to forms of political self-governance.
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Der Beitrag setzt sich mit Perspektiven der politischen Epistemologie auseinander, die sich mittlerweile zu einem soziologischen, politikwissenschaftlichen, philosophischen und historischen BrĂŒckenkonzept entwickelt hat. Trotz unterschiedlicher disziplinĂ€rer ZugĂ€nge lassen sich gemeinsame Kernelemente und Ă€hnliche Theoriestrategien ausmachen: Immer geht es dabei um die Identifikation jener Mechanismen, die Erkenntnis und Ordnung, Expertise und Entscheiden miteinander vermitteln. Politische Epistemologien fragen nach den Praktiken bzw. Diskursen der Ko-Konstruktion von politischer und epistemischer AutoritĂ€t. Sie vergleichen jene kulturellen und institutionellen Arrangements, in denen Expertise an LegitimitĂ€t und Geltungsmacht gewinnt (oder verliert). WĂ€hrend âobjektivistische Epistemologien' auf eine Rationalisierung der Politik durch die Wissenschaft hoffen, ist die politische Epistemologie skeptischer. Mit der globalen Ausweitung von Kommunikations- und Interaktionshorizonten verbinden sich vielmehr - so eine leitende Vermutung - sehr unterschiedliche, potentiell umstrittene Wege der wechselseitigen Durchdringung von Politik und Wissenschaft und damit auch konkurrierende LegitimitĂ€ts- und RationalitĂ€tsvorstellungen. Der Beitrag skizziert zunĂ€chst Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen den verschiedenen ZugĂ€ngen zur politischen Epistemologie und arbeitet Kernkonzepte und -erkenntnisse heraus. Ein zweiter Teil fokussiert dann anhand von Beispielen auf politisch-epistemische Mechanismen der Ko-Konstruktion. Der Vortrag schlieĂt mit Ăberlegungen zu Konfliktdynamiken im VerhĂ€ltnis von Wissenschaft und Politik unter den Bedingungen der Weltgesellschaft.
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Die akademische Kultur ist eine Kultur, in der GefĂŒhle abwesend sind - eine Kultur des 'Nicht-GefĂŒhls'. [...], aber GefĂŒhle sind in der Wissenschaft reichlich vorhanden" (Bloch, 2012: 140, ĂŒbersetzt aus dem Englischen von JB), schlieĂt Charlotte Bloch ihre ethnografische Studie Passion and Paranoia zu akademischen Emotionskulturen in DĂ€nemark.
Auf der Grundlage meiner ethnographischen Feldforschung (2019-2022) werde ich darlegen, wie eben diese âacademic cultures of no-feelingâ den Alltag von Forscher*innen beeinflussen und die Wissensproduktion auch hier in Deutschland prĂ€gen. Historisch gewachsen zu einem emotionsgebundenen Wertesystem, das GefĂŒhle als das Gegenteil von RationalitĂ€t und Wissenschaftlichkeit versteht, wird die FĂ€higkeit GefĂŒhle zu regulieren oder sogar gĂ€nzlich zu unterdrĂŒcken zu einer Form von Kapital (Bourdieu 1986). Innerhalb dieser akademischen Emotionsregime ist es Kennzeichen der academic cultures of no-feeling Emotionen als nicht-existent anzunehmen. Trotzdem prĂ€gen sie das durch diese Kulturen manövrierende Individuum und die Wissensproduktion in hohem MaĂe.
Im Jour fixe werde ich diese vermeintliche Diskrepanz, mein Promotionsprojekt, die Methoden der Datenerhebung, meine eigene Rolle im Feld und die Ergebnisse und Analysen vorstellen, reflektieren und diskutieren. Anhand meines empirischen Materials (Grounded Theory) werde ich individuelle GefĂŒhlswelten und UmgĂ€nge mit dem âNicht-GefĂŒhlâ darstellen und darlegen, welche Emotionen und Affekte den akademischen Arbeitsalltag meiner GesprĂ€chspartner*innen prĂ€gten und inwiefern FĂŒhlen und affektive (Re)Aktionen als systemisch eingebettet betrachtet werden können. Anhand Mut, Angst, Verzweiflung, Wut und Liebe stelle ich dar, wie eine GefĂŒhlsunterdrĂŒckung zwar als Basis akademischer ProfessionalitĂ€t verstanden wird, Ethnograf*innen aber hierdurch ebenso in einer affective community miteinander verbinden sind; ich zeige gleichermaĂen den Umgang akademischer Institutionen mit Emotionen in Bezug auf mentale Belastungen auf; erlĂ€utere wie Diskriminierungserfahrung und Machtmissbrauch zu einer stetigen moral injury sowie (emotionalen) WiderstĂ€ndigkeiten fĂŒhren können und fĂŒhre aus, wie agencies, IdentitĂ€ten und belongings innerhalb dieser akademischen Emotionsregime ausgehandelt werden.
Reference: Bloch, C. (2012). Passion and Paranoia. Emotions and the Culture of Emotion in Academia, New York/London: Routledge.
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The last twenty years of open science advocacy and the more recent proliferation of programs and funding have shown that open science has become a veritable mantra. In this communication we deliberately adopt a perspective of the sociology of work and of professions: rather than examining discourses on openness, we focus on the missions, experiences and profiles, as well as the practices, of professionals whose daily work is devoted to âopening upâ science. We propose to analyse the opening up of science as a vector of contemporary scientific credibility, implemented by professional communities which are invisible in their daily environment. Drawing on the cases of two groups studied in our respective theses, the one responsible for opening up their institution to society, and the other responsible for opening up publication, our proposal follows the hypothesis of the emergence of a professional category. In total, our empirical material consists of interviews (n=41), and analyses of institutional archives. The data covers a broad period of institutional intervention in France and Sweden (from the early 2000s to late in 2020).
The exercise of comparing the work of âopening upâ science involved two groups of professionals of different sizes and with different professional and institutional histories. The comparison has informed us about common competencies and work characteristics (professional profiles, previous professional experience, missions, extensive socialisation spaces, etc). It also highlights differences between the two groups, notably in the extensive use of quantification by open access publishing professionals. âQualculatoryâ logics and methods are clearly vectors of credibility for the group of Open Access publishing professionals, but at the time of writing we do not observe the extension of qualculatory, or even commercial, logics in openness to society.
At the time of the survey, the work of opening up remained invisible in institutions. This invisibility allowed both professional groups to develop quietly and to benefit from a considerable autonomy of action within the institutions, therefore be a resource for the work of opening up. While this invisibility was at the service of their profession, in the medium term it nevertheless calls into question the means implemented to ensure the long-term survival of the opening up. Faced with the effects of professionalisation and managerialisation (growing workforce, younger and less experienced professionnals), openness professionals also run the risk of losing the motivation and meaning of their actions, especially when it comes to the âsewingâ work that is essential for linking up with the communities they serve. The work of opening up lies somewhere between management, critical analysis, and (measuring) performance, whether in terms of opening up the publication or opening up to society.
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Der Vortrag stellt erste Ăberlegungen zu einer Soziologie der Dummheit vor. Dummheit wird dabei als systematisch vernachlĂ€ssigte, aber konstitutive AuĂenseite der Wissensgesellschaft interpretiert. Im Vortrag sollen daher die Akteure, Arenen, Mechanismen und Funktionen bei der sozialen Zuschreibung von Dummheit genauer beleuchtet werden.
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Zu den interessantesten Entwicklungen im gegenwĂ€rtigen globalen Wissenschaftsystem gehört der rasante Aufstieg der Volksrepublik China. Als kollektiver Akteur hat es das Land innerhalb von drei Jahrzehnten geschafft, in allen gĂ€ngigen wissenschaftlichen Leistungs- und Reputations-Rankings SpitzenplĂ€tze einzunehmen. Internationale Reaktionen auf diese Entwicklung sind geprĂ€gt von Faszination und - zunehmend - Sorge und Ablehnung. Nicht zuletzt fordert das autoritĂ€re Wissenschaftsmodel der VR China offensichtlich viele landlĂ€ufige Annahmen und Normen in der OECD-Welt heraus. Auch aus wissenschaftlich-analytischer Perspektive ist der chinesische Fall deshalb Ă€uĂerst spannend, aber dies hat sich bisher weder in der Sinologie noch in der Wissenschaftsforschung signifikant niedergeschlagen. Der Vortrag stellt die ersten Ergebnisse einer interdisziplinĂ€ren Forschungsgruppe vor, die sich - inspiriert von relativ klassischen AnsĂ€tzen der Wissenschaftssoziologie - seit 2020 mit der Dynamik des chinesischen Wissenschaftssystems und seiner globalen Integration beschĂ€ftigt. Dies regt abschlieĂend idealerweise eine gemeinsame Diskussion ĂŒber die Potentiale und die Grenzen von Konzept- und Theoriebildung im komplexen Spannungsfeld von Isomorphismus und Variation (oder Divergenz) in einer derart interdisziplinĂ€ren empirischen Wissenschaftsforschung an.
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Although science has been a formidably successful force of social and technological development in the modern era, and a main reason for the wealth and well-being of current societies compared to previous times, a fundamental distrust characterizes its current status in society. According to prevalent discourse, science is insufficiently productive and in need of stricter governance and bureaucratic management, with performance evaluation by the means of quantitative metrics as a key tool to increase efficiency. The basis of this notion appears to be a belief that the key or only purpose of science is to drive economic growth, or sustainable development in combination with economic growth. I analyze and deconstruct these beliefs with the help of theory from the classic sociology of science, as well as more recent conceptualizations of economization, democratization, and commodification of scientific knowledge and the institution of science. I thereby add a historical-sociological analysis to the current debate over evaluation in science, to conclude that the current ubiquity of performance evaluation in science for the most part is pointless and counterproductive, and that this state of science policy is in dire need of reevaluation in order to secure scienceâs continued productivity and contribution to social and technological innovation.
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The recent shift in evaluation systems to more diverse quality criteria has increased the visibility of lower quality research, incurring a moral panic about the effects of predatory publishing practices (PPP) on the science system. However, this concern currently lacks empirical substantiation and ignores the complex geopolitical relations, researchersâ motivations, and centre-periphery narrative inherent in the predatory publishing debate. Thus, we propose a mixed-methods approach to answering three questions: i) how have (P)PP in different national settings emerged, ii) how do academic communities define and react to PPPs, and iii) how do evaluation systems influence (P)PPs? Our aim is to elucidate the relationship between evaluation systems and (P)PPs, accounting for the contextual processes of labelling practices as questionable. Our approach combines systematic review, quantitative and bibliometric methods to identify (changing) publishing practices associated with evaluation systems, together with qualitative methods to understand the motivations for these practices in six national systems: Germany, Poland, Portugal, Nigeria, India, and Brazil. In this session, we will present the aims of this project, which began in September 2024, and the methodologies to be used in it.
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The talk will offer a comparative review of policy-making in the area of research impact evaluation in UK (REF), Poland (EJDD) and Norway (Humeval and Sameval). Poland and Norway have used an ex-post, expert-review system modeled on the British REF. There are several analogies between the studied impact evaluation systems, including similar definitions of impact, the use of case studies as the basis for evaluation, the structuring of the impact template and English as the language of evaluation. There are also several differences: the mode of introduction of the exercise (gradual vs. shift), whether the exercise is tied to funding, and the level of transparency of the policy-making and evaluation process. The text will present an overview of the three approaches on impact evaluation and attempt to answer the following question: 1) How does the articulation of research impact change depending on the goals of the exercise and the broader academic and social context into which the exercise is introduced; 2) Consequently, how do the effects of the exercise differ from one national context to another?
After longer comparative part of the talk (based on an article submitted for review to Research Evaluation), I will attempt an interpretation of the ongoing process of policy-borrowing in the area of impact evaluation in terms of centre-periphery dynamics (as described by Immanuel Wallerstein) and/or Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony. The goal of the talk will be to test out theoretical theoretical perspectives on the data collected. I welcome any remarks and recommendations from the audience.
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The talk explores the epistemic dynamics catalysed by researchers advocating for the clinical relevance of environmental epigenetics in psychiatry. I do so based on an in-depth literature analysis of peer-reviewed research articles and interviews with researchers who conduct epigenetic research in psychiatry. In demonstrating how relevance builds a crucial yet ambivalent bridge between basic research and clinical application, I explore tensions arising in relation to the acceptable level of uncertainty for epigenetic knowledge to be considered relevant. I further trace how epigeneticists aim to counteract emerging problems to their claims about the clinical relevance of epigenetics through performing interdisciplinary, big-data research. Finally, I show that, nonetheless, certain epistemic problems persist and discuss both their roots in the specific epistemic history of psychiatric epigenetics as well as in the systemic pressures to promote relevance early on in emergent research fields. With this talk, I contribute to STS scholarship that explores how modes of relevance feature in different scientific domains. At the same time, my talk contributes to a better understanding of how environmental epigenetics is adopted and adapted in different research fields within biomedicine and how field-specific norms, infrastructures, and societal expectations affect its uptake, articulation, and epistemic development.
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Recent scholarship has described the âreproducibility crisisâ and its associated reform movement as a social movement or a scientific-intellectual movement. This talk will argue for an alternative framing of these events which de-emphasizes high-status intellectual actors and their agendas for change, and emphasizes instead structural aspects and how they shape which reforms come to be seen as possible and desirable.
Taking this alternative lens, we could see the reproducibility movement not as a successful network of methodologists stitched together by Twitter and investment from private foundations, but as one instantiation of a broader diffusion of a âregulatory ethosâ from highly regulated contexts into academic settings. Together with Lara Keuck, we describe the regulatory ethos as a specific type of scientific ethos (following Merton) that relies on documentation practices and favors plans over situated actions, uniformity over heterogeneity, and validation over external validity.
Through a detailed history of the emergence of the reproducibility crisis in American biomedicine, I will show how pharmaceutical drug development and clinical medicine â two highly regulated spheres of practice â were key to providing the evidence and solutions that first generated support from key figures at the National Institutes of Health for reproducibility reform. From this I argue that this reform movement should be understood analytically as not merely an expression of the open science ideals of its most charismatic leaders, but as part of ongoing efforts to ensure the interoperability of experimental systems across distributed research spaces.
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Research guidelines and the scientific literature in general are full of ideas and recommendations of how proper science should look like. However, it remains an open question how the actual reality of research in the sciences relates to notions of proper or responsible science in, for instance, European research integrity guidelines? To answer this question, I conducted an ethnography of cognitive sciences in five cognitive science labs in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. The aim is to understand how and under what conditions knowledge is produced and whether ideas of proper conduct that can be found in guidelines and the literature actually have a place in research reality. Hence, it is about capturing the perspectives of the researchers who are supposed to live in compliance with such guidelines and recommendations. To this end I further inquired what researchers think about how and whether current recommendations for the improvement of science fit into their everyday lives as researchers by conducting semi-structured interviews. Put shortly, I observed a complex mixture of alignment and mismatch between notions of good science and the research realities.
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In the case of artificial intelligence, hyperbolic predictions of the emergence of intelligent machines, even âsuper intelligencesâ, consist of both dystopian fears of human suppression and extinction, and utopian hopes of human flourishing through freedom from labor and illness as well as unparalleled economic growth and prosperity. At the heart of the controversies between these two, we argue, are emergent and conflicting assumptions about what it means to be human, or rather, what defines humanness.
To address this topic, of how the understanding of humaness is constructed in relation to AI and how the (future) agency of AI and Humans are imagined, we turn to the genre of popular science and the imaginaries of the possibilities and effects of a future in which intelligent machines have bypassed many human capacities. Popular science as a genre is interesting in its ambition to translate inter-academic knowledge production about AI development while at the same time dramatizing it and making it relevant for business, politics, and the public.
First, the chapter deconstructs the imaginaries of a future shaped by super intelligent AIs and discusses how this imagined future builds on particular and narrow definitions of humanness - as essentially biological cognitive processors, but also as distinguishable as creative/non-creative and neuro-typical and neuro-diverse/passive and active. Secondly, we turn to the construction of AI as a âfloating signifierâ an object, a thing, that is devoid of meaning.
This paper is accepted as a chapter to the upcoming Routledge book: The inner World of Artificial Intelligence, and the section âHidden and Subsumed Humans in Artificial Intelligence.
