230143 SE Practices and policies of 'Science in Society' (2013S)

The focus on science and society relationships forms an analytic core of science and technology studies (STS). They emerged as a polemic with the notion of modern sciences as in principle autonomous from social, political and economic interests, values or contexts, and epistemologically incommensurable with non-expert ways of knowing. Numerous studies have inquired into the ways the science-society relations are configured and reconfigured in practice.

The course will be concerned with four clusters of themes. We will discuss in which ways and with what effects: 1) science and society are always already entangled (through the dynamics of hybridization and purification); 2) science-society relations are reconfigured and governed by policy initiatives, on the European and national levels (through communication campaigns, deliberative procedures as well as evaluations of the social impact of research); 3) public academic research and education are being implicated into the 'knowledge economy'; 4) non-academic actors such as NGOs or patient organizations mobilize to partake in the production of knowledge and (social) innovation.