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V. Foreign Higher Education and Education Systems, International Relations, Bilateral Relations
B. Essays, Commentaries, Statements
Author ELZINGA, Aant
Title The rise and demise of the International Council for Science Policy Studies (ICSPS) as a Cold War bridging organization
Publication year 2012
Source/Footnote In: Minerva. - 50 (2012) 3, S. 277 - 305
Inventory number 33338
Keywords Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft ; Wissenschaft und Technik ; Wissenschaft : allgemein
Abstract When the journal Minerva was founded in 1962, science and higher educational issues were high on the agenda, lending impetus to the interdisciplinary field of ?Science Studies? qua ?Science Policy Studies.? As government expenditures for promoting various branches of science increased dramatically on both sides of the East-West Cold War divide, some common issues regarding research management also emerged and with it an interest in closer academic interaction in the areas of history and policy of science. Through a close reading of many early issues of Minerva but also of its later competitor journal Science Studies (now called Social Studies of Science) the paper traces the initial optimism of an academically based Science Studies dialogue across the Cold War divide and the creation in 1971 of the International Commission for Science Policy Studies as a bridging forum, one that Minerva strangely chose to ignore. In this light, attention is drawn to aspects of the often forgotten history of Science Studies in the former Soviet Union and the Eastern European block. Reviewed also are several early discussions that are still relevant today: e.g., regarding differing concepts of Big Science, science and democracy, autonomy in higher education and what conditions are necessary to sustain academic freedom and scientific integrity (some of Edward Shils? primary concerns). Finally, it is noted how the question of quantitative methods to measure scientific productivity lay at the heart of a ?Science of Science? movement of the 1960s has re-emerged in a new form integral to the notion of a ?Science of Science Policy.? (HRK / Abstract übernommen)