History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
Franc Mali
University of Ljubljana
Faculty of Social Sciences
1001 Ljubljana, P.O.BOX 2547
Slovenia
Phone: 386-61-1805-100
Fax: 386-61-1805-103
e-mail: franc.mali@uni-lj.si
The new challenges, but the old views - is there possible to come in the countries in transition to new the evaluation models of science and technology?
In the time of the origin of non-linear model of innovation systems, there is no more place for the naïve definition of the relationship between academic science and technology. The complexity of relationships is compounded as contemporary science and technologoy operate in the new contexts, which have been described in »Mode 2« or »Triple Helix« on different way: the orientation of modern science to application, to the transdisciplinarity, to the heterogeneity and organisational diversity, to the social accountability and to the external model of evaluation. The focus of my discussion in the paper will be mainly on the last point. In the paper, I will try to approve the thesis that the policy makers in the post-communist countries in transition are not still aware of the very important distinction between the early stages of development of technology (experimental research) and its more mature stages. Namely, if in the early stages the boundaries of the technological knolwedge can still be drawn along the boundaries of the academic disciplines, that is no more true for the more mature stages of technology. Here, the another definitions and criteria should play the key role, first of all those, which are closely interrelated with society-specific interests. I will point out - on the ground of the results of my systematical longitudinal empirical study about the research performance of different fileds and types of science in Slovenia and the recent questionnare among the Slovenian scientists about the evaluation system of science - that the used criteria of the evaluation of science and technology very strongly determine the cognitive and social status of different part of the national innovation system. Paradoxically, these evaluation criteria are often dictated by the part of scientific sector (the lobby groups of the big state scientific institutes) , which have exerted all the time — also in the old political regimes — exaggerated influence on science policy decision-making. It does mean that the power structure inside the scientific community is distributed unevenly, what has the negative consequences for the more active cooperation of social sciences ( humanities) and technical sciences by the solving the complex societal issues. I will also discuss in the paper, how to overcome this situation, but there is no doubt that the (cognitive and social) place of meeting of the social sciences (humanities) with technology is not the the rigid academic scientific structure, but the areas where is coming to »the blurring of the boundaries«, »hybridisation« etc. The cases concerning the recent situation in Slovenia will not be taken in the paper as some sort of the national »ideosyncracy«. For that reason I will go in my disscusion beyond only the national context and try to come also to more general conclusions.
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006