History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
Matthias Kaiser
(& collaborators: Kristin Rønning, Micheline Grung, Hilde Nagell, Knut Ruyter)
Oslo, Norway, matthias.kaiser@etikkom.no
Commissioned research in Norway: What money can buy — Results from a nationwide study on the normative implications of commissioned research.
This paper reports on the results of a one-year research project, including a number of in-depth focus-groups interviews and a nationwide questionnaire sent to approx. 3500 researchers in Norway, with approx 1300 responses. The project originated in an expressed concern in the Norwegian parliament that the basic normative foundations of traditional and independent research might be threatened when research is done for powerful contractors. In Norway both the public sector (like e.g. Ministries, directorates, communities etc.) and the private sector (industry, sectorial organisations, NGOs etc.) commission a significant proportion of the research done in the country, comprising all academic fields (science, technology, medicine, social science, humanities etc).
The initial problem of the study was to clarify to what extent this kind of research is faced with dependencies and constraints that work to the detriment of objectivity and independence. The study focuses on basic ethical norms of scientific research (quality, openness, accountability) and provides an analysis of how they fare in commissioned research. The results of the qualitative study are used to supplement the quantitative insights. The results of the study highlight various features of commissioned research, both those that are better than critics often suspect, and those that are problematic. The theoretical discussion part draws on various contributions, e.g. recent discussions about mode 1 and 2 science, post-academic and post-normal science. It also provides a critical perspective on so-called Bernalism and on Merton's norms of science.
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006