Concepts of Research: Looking Beyond What Is Published and Measurable

• In Event: The Language of STI Policy in the 21st Century - I

Abstract

Traditionally, "research" has been conceptualized by STS as those practices that happen in the laboratory. In recent decades, however, quantitative studies of science have increasingly re-shaped our idea of what research is. The pervasiveness of evaluation regimes and the emergence of global rankings have focused scholarly attention towards what is measurable. As a consequence, both scientists and policy makers increasingly equate "research" with what is published in SCI-indexed journals.

Instead of simply criticizing the quantification problem I suggest that STS should reflect both theoretically and methodologically about how to deal with the very category of "research". To do so, it makes sense to not only focus on laboratories as places of research, but more generally on research universities, which are perceived as those institutions contributing most to the growth of knowledge today. Again, we find that much of the recent literature focuses those "world class universities" that we know from the rankings. However, therewith we tend to lose sight of some 20.000 institutions of higher education that do not fit this world class research ideal.

Against this background, I propose a research program that focuses on a subject matter that STS have not systematically dealt with so far: Those second tier research universities around the globe which are places of research, even if they are not necessarily visible in the global race for world class status. Ethnographic research at such places may reveal what research means for normal scientists without presupposing some global standards of excellence.

Author

• David Kaldewey, University of Bonn