Internationalization of Science Policy Expertise and Czechoslovakia in the 1960s: Western Knowledge Undermining the Image of Socialist Science?

• In Event: Experts as Agents of Liberation?: Expert Cultures and Transnational Knowledge Networks in the Cold War Era I

Abstract

The 1960s opening up of Czechoslovak science to the West also included the field of science policy studies, which at that time was internationalized under the aegis of UNESCO. Czechoslovak experts were involved in international research and Czechoslovakia also hosted several important conferences, such as the meeting of coordinators of the science policy studies in Karlovy Vary in June 1966. While the more frequent contacts with Western scientists were certainly a sign of the liberalization of Czechoslovak science, did they also make it possible to question the socialist model of science itself?

Author

• Michaela Šmidrkalová, Masaryk Institute and Archives CAS (Czech Republic)