TPACTechnology Policy and Assessment Center
 
 

NSF Workshop on Social Organization of Science and Science Policy

Background

Science policy plays a critical role in supporting or blocking scientific discovery and innovation. Effective science policy and the continual interchange between policy and innovation, enhances the standards of living of the world's population. Current calls to the scientific community to develop a new social science of science policy present an exciting opportunity to the social science community to examine current research and thinking about the development and contributions of science policy. In particular, these calls create an opportunity to study the key actors, communities, and organizations involved in crafting and analyzing science policy and the theories, methods, and data that they use.

Scientific discovery and innovation are critical to a competitive economy and productive society. The federal role in scientific research and development is predicated on this central role of science. Yet research investment in studying the development of science policy and the impact of science policy on progress of science and scientific productivity has not benefited from coherent, consistent and sustained analysis. This workshop on the “Social Organization of Science and Science Policy” jointly supported by the Sociology and Science & Society Programs at NSF will address these issues

The “social science of science” includes research on science, science policy, science metrics and their consequences and use. Scholars across the social sciences have investigated the origins, impact and effectiveness of science policy as well as the impact and effectiveness of the social organization of science. Historical and comparative research has examined a wide range of topics that include:

  • Effects of different research and development policies on the distribution and funding of science, as well as pathways into science;

  • Conditions that facilitate or inhibit scientific innovation and collaboration;

  • Dynamics underlying the diffusion and penetration of scientific knowledge into policymaking;

  • Functioning of scientific decision-making and its outputs;

  • Social organization of science and its impact on scientific productivity and decision-making; and

  • Interactions and interdependencies between science policy, higher education policy and industrial policy on scientific productivity and performance.