Asymmetric Promises in Public Support for Science and Innovation

• In Event: STS Perspectives on Isomorphism in National Science and Innovation Policies

Abstract

Analyses of the development and implementation of science and innovation policy in terms of the sociology of promise have typically followed a model of simple performativity in which particular visions or discourses enrol various actors and shape outcomes. This paper considers the complex games surrounding both the generation and reception of promissory propositions.

Agenda formation: Science and innovation communities seek to mobilise promising research agendas around their interests and capacities and project these into public research funding programmes, articulating their ability to fulfil overarching government policy goals.

Implementation: Specific research groups present their claims to be able to deliver these agendas. Those funded need to demonstrate actual achievements that provide policymakers some kind of evidence that the investment was productive and in some ways contributed to these broader goals being fulfilled. However assessments are typically made before the eventual outcomes can materialise. As a result, assessment revolves around proxy outcomes (plausibly achievable within project lifetimes). Both sides are aware that promises and outcomes are only loosely coupled. There are thus complex relationships between what Bakke et al. (2011) call ‘enactors’ and ‘selectors’ in arenas of expectations with complex and sophisticated games at play in terms of assessing te fulfillment of claims. Project members may also ‘learn to be successful’ – to fulfil the metrics and pragmatic priorities of funders, rather than their publicly stated goals.

These asymmetric promissory exchanges may help us go beyond normative accounts of agenda formation and implementation in public (S&I) policy and understand their often paradoxical (non)outcomes.

Author

• Robin Williams, The University of Edinburgh