Travels of a Transient Concept: The Conceptual History of "Valorization" in Europe

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

Abstract

Recently, many of the discourses of research of the 20th century have been (historically) situated by STS scholars – from ‘basic science’ to the ‘linear model’ – to demonstrate the political effects on science, policy and society. This paper aims to situate ‘valorization’ as a transient concept in a similar way, by tracing its history in, and effects on, STI policy in Europe. In the early 2000s ‘valorization’ came to be used in the Netherlands to describe (or: prescribe) the liminal process of knowledge exchange between universities and societal partners. The conceptual history of this discourse, tracing its local origins and wider circulations, can show how its past performance impacts Dutch science policy to this day.

The travels of the valorization concept lead from the French ANVAR in the 1960s via European funding programs and Belgian biotechnology to Dutch agenda-setting for genomics research around 2000. Subsequently, its meaning remained elusive for quite some years in the Netherlands, allowing many heated debate to erupt. The conceptual history of valorization in Europe can help elucidate why it became controversial in Dutch science and society.

The concept of valorization performed different functions along the way, connecting various actors and organizations, and affecting national as well as European identity-formation in the last few decades of the 20th century. The recent past of this STI policy discourse demonstrates the context-dependency of conceptual language. The political-epistemological meaning of valorization varied depending on the place where, and the epistemic communities by whom, it was used.

Author

• Jorrit Smit, Leiden University