STS in Switzerland

Science and Technology Studies are an emergent recent research field in Switzerland. ETH Zurich, i.e. the Collegium Helveticum and its chair in Philosophy and Social Studies of Science, and the Observatoire Science, Politique et Société in Lausanne have until recently been the only centres with researchers involved in STS since the end of the 1990s. The establishment of a chair for Science Studies at the University of Basel in 2002 involved the formation of still another research group in this field.

If an increase of interest in STS in recent years can be observed, this is not least due to the activities of STS-CH – the Swiss Association for the Studies of Science, Technology, and Society. The association had been founded by junior scholars as a network to promote Science and Technology Studies in Switzerland. Since its establishment in 2001, STS-CH has been very active. It has organized numerous lectures, workshops, and other events, including three international summer schools in cooperation with scholars from local universities. These activities have been acknowledged in 2005: the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (SAGW-ASSH) has accepted STS-CH as a new member. This was a major step for the still young STS-CH. The association is now in a much better position concerning the increased access to information, contacts, and financial means. The membership also provides better visibility and contributes to the institutionalization of Science and Technology Studies in Switzerland. Finally, the membership is a very good starting point for the association’s further activities and events.

One such event will take place at EASST conference in Lausanne. STS-CH will organize a plenary session entitled: “Re-Thinking Science, Policy and STS in the 21st century: Analytic insights from an outsider within?”. The session will discuss some features of current EU science policy. Keynote speaker Helga Nowotny is a member and vice-chair of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council (ERC). Being a social scientist and a science studies scholar aimed at bridging the gap between different disciplines and between science, society, and politics, and an outsider among her scientist colleagues in the ERC’s Scientific Council, Helga Nowotny will share her experiences and political insights in how the future research policy is being shaped in the EU. EASST president Christine Hine will be the commentator.

A starting point for the discussion, is provided by and will evolve around a new term used in EU science policy: frontier research.

“Frontier research”: a new notion in EU science policy Recently, the newly established Scientific Council of the European Research Council (ERC) introduced a new concept called frontier research. The term ‘frontier research’ reflects a new understanding of basic research. On one hand it denotes that basic research in science and technology is of critical importance to economic and social welfare, and on the other that research at and beyond the frontiers of understanding is an intrinsically risky venture, progressing on new and most exciting research areas and is characterized by an absence of disciplinary boundaries.[1]

However, the notion of frontier research is not new and draws on a historical metaphor, which is well known in transatlantic science policy as well as in the collective memory of academics throughout the Unites States. Shortly after the end of World War II in 1945, Vannevar Bush submitted his famous report ‘Science: The Endless Frontier’ on behalf of the then president Franklin D. Roosevelt. Amongst his recommendations Bush suggested the government’s responsibility to fund what he called ‘basic research’. The report became a basis for a project of long-term national investment in scientific research and education, and contributed fundamentally to the creation of the National Science Foundation in 1950. It is striking that Bush’s report is mentioned neither on the ERC’s website nor in the European Commission’s report, issued in 2005, ‘Frontier Research: The European Challenge’ where the term was used first in the contemporary European context.[2] The analogies between Bush’s and the EC’s report, however, are remarkable and they apply to both their content and their context.

First of all, both reports envision science as a means to improve the economic and social welfare of the according nations. In his letter to President Roosevelt, Vannevar Bush wrote: “Scientific progress is one essential key to our security as a nation, to our better health, to more jobs, to a higher standard of living, and to our cultural progress” (V. Bush, Letter of Transmittal, 25 July 1945). Similarly, the EC report underlines the critical importance of frontier research in science and technology for economic and social welfare in the member states of the European Union. The European Commissioner for Science and Research, Janez Potocnik, is also convinced that the ERC “provides a means to further improve the quality and impact of European research, with long-term benefits for the competitiveness of our economies and our well-being” (EC report: 7). In the understandings of both reports, basic research (in Bush’s term), or frontier research (in the EU vocabulary) are thus vital to the future well-being of states and individuals and their promotion by governmental authorities is an absolute necessity. Yet, while the notion of progress had always been deeply embedded in the U.S. outlook and attitude towards technology and science, the European case reveals for the first time in the history of the European Framework Programmes a need to reconcile fundamental scientific advances with not only national, but European interests.

In addition, a second analogy is noticeable. Vannevar Bush’s statement that “Science offers a largely unexplored hinterland for the pioneer who has the tools for his task”, points towards the role attributed to the individual researcher in this venture. In the strategic documents published by the EC, we see the pioneer rising again. The grant schemes of the ERC are oriented towards “researchers on their own initiatives, focusing on scientific opportunities they themselves have identified” (EC report, 7). It is furthermore pronounced that these will be the most excellent researchers ready to take risks in the name of science.

The analogies can not only be drawn regarding the content of the two reports, their political contexts must also be addressed. Both documents have been initiated in times of political reorientation. In both cases, the initiative came from the scientific community who lobbied their respective governments into action. In the U.S., the scientists, who had been engaged in Los Alamos eagerly wished to return to their universities, but they were keen on maintaining both, the level of generous funding and the high degree of autonomy, that they had enjoyed while engaged in the war effort.[3] In Europe, the scientific community was frustrated by what was seen as a cumbersome bureaucracy in Brussels that left very little space for bottom-up or investigator-driven basic research. President Roosevelt was confronted with the options of a post-war society. His task was to transfer the pace of war research activities for the benefit of the nation during peace time. Scientific progress was associated with the hopes of a glorious future. In the EU, the admission of new member states into the Union, imply a political redirection as well. EU governmental tasks are oriented toward an integration of the diverse and heterogeneous nation states. Science is seen by official authorities as a means for welfare, which might also contribute to political coherence and unity in the EU. But even more pressing, perhaps, are the ongoing processes of globalization of research – exemplified by the rapid rise of China and India as future global players in R&D investment. They make it clear that Europe’s chances of success in this field depend on overcoming the fragmentation of national efforts of its twenty-five member states.

Both reports were therefore written with the belief that science should contribute to a political, economic and social stabilization of a reshaped political landscape.

In conclusion, the political reorientation is mirrored by a redirection of the respective science policies. In the U.S. the creation of the National Science Foundation implemented (with modifications) Vannevar Bush’s suggestion to fund basic research by the Federal government. In the EU, the creation of the ERC as a distinctive funding mechanism devoted to scientific excellence of individual researchers aims to promote investigator-driven frontier research on a pan-European level. Both reports are thus marking out historical moments in their science policies, in the latter case underlined by the EC report’s speech of a “unique historic opportunity” (EC report, 11).

STS as frontier research? Reflecting STS The inclusion of the social sciences and humanities in the development of ‘frontier research’ – in contrast to Bush’s ‘basic research’ – on the one hand, and the emphasis of inter- or transdisciplinary research on the other hand, raises the question if STS can be understood as a paradigmatic realm of ‘frontier research’. Has not STS always been a multi- if not even trans-disciplinary endeavour, working at the margins of and across disciplinary boundaries and thus being a risky venture? Many scholars in this field have tried to analyze current scientific trends and to interpret them as embedded in socio-political contexts, and could thus be understood as standing “at the forefront of creating new knowledge and developing new understanding” (EC report, 18) regarding both the object and the outcome of their investigations.

Comprehending STS as a realm of ‘frontier research’, however, points to another set of questions. Frontier can be understood – following the EC report – in a metaphorical sense as “frontiers of knowledge” (EC report, 11). In a more literal reading of the concept, it can also be interpreted as addressing the geopolitical borders of what is called the ‘European Research Area’.

This raises new questions mainly into two directions, concerning the steering and addressing of science policies:

• Who governs the new European Research Area?

Recently new member states have been welcomed into the European Union, and subsequently issues of how to address the diversity and differences amongst the broad range of member states are becoming a concern. Talking about a European Research Area thus opens discussions on scientific institution building and networking across borders. Questions arise concerning who will be producing knowledge and who is going to govern science policy. Moreover, where is science produced, who owns the means for research, who decides about funds and who benefits?

• Who is addressed by the social and economic welfare science is supposed to produce?

If the aim of this research is to increase social and economic welfare, questions of delivery and equity must be addressed. Citizens inhabiting countries outside the European borders will be affected by the technological and scientific advances of EU-research as well. Problems around immigration and border-securities are increasingly emerging. The questions are: Who will be able to participate in the social achievements and in the rise of wealth? Who will be included/excluded and if so on what terms?

Doing ‘frontier research’ could thus also require us to examine the social and economic distributions and inequalities both within EU member states and between member and non-member countries. Advances in science and technology can be aimed at overcoming such inequalities, but they might contribute unintentionally to increase the divides.

STS is confronted with such questions. Should STS just explore them, or should it also get involved in trying to give answers and find solutions? Should STS intervene in policy making, and if so, how? The plenary session organized by STS-CH at the EASST conference in Lausanne will be discussing such questions.[4]

Further information on STS-CH can be found on http://www.sts.unige.ch

Notes

1. http://ec.europa.eu/erc/ (access 12 june 2006).

2. European Commission (2005): Frontier Research: The European Challenge. High-Level Expert Group Report, February 2005, Brussels. (Here referred to as EC report). This high-level expert group’s report is only one among many other influential ones, but it was the first to use the term ‘frontier research’ which was adopted by the EC.

3. At Los Alamos, New Mexico, the Manhattan Project had been taking place, in which a team of scientists had been working to create the first atomic bomb.

4. We would like to thank Helga Nowotny for her helpful comments on this paper and Megan Clinch for her proof-reading.