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- Convenors:
-
Anne-Gaëlle Beurier
(Sorbonne Nouvelle University)
Victoria Brun (Mines Paris - PSL University)
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- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract:
While project-grant programmation grows for science funding, research projects take diverse forms. The panel examines the transformations this policy instrument induces in terms of organization, division of labor, formation of scientific collectives and political commitment.
Long Abstract:
It is common nowadays to observe the generalization of project-grant programs for public research funding (Larédo and Mustar, 2001). Nonetheless, its concrete effects on labor organization and scientific collectives have been little studied to date. While programming by project tender is a specific and ancient instrument of research public policy and financing mechanism (opposed to recurring funding), entities that are called “projects” considerably differ. From short-term contracts to large-scale programs, acting as a financial extension or temporary institution. This is evident concerning Big science communities (Vermeulen, 2009), organized around long-term equipment projects exceeding individual laboratory scale in contrast to collectives who work on a succession of small projects (in funding and duration). Building on recent research recognizing that funding mechanisms are inseparably policy tools, research structuring, and knowledge production (Gläser and Velarde, 2018), this panel investigates the transformations project-grant programs bring to research along three axes.
A first axis will explore how projects fit into other spaces: some remain budget-dependent on laboratories when others create a temporary institution, blurring boundaries between projects, teams, and laboratories.
A second axis will examine division of labor within research projects, the composition of associated collectives (researchers from diverse status, research administrators, private or public actors), and their role into shaping careers and scientific trajectories.
A third axis will analyze how collectives understand the political motivations behind project funding, produce normative assessments and their role into shaping these policies. The New Public Management doctrine promotes projects as a more accountable form to steer research toward social priorities areas. Researchers may embrace project ambitions for an interdisciplinary and socially relevant research, or reject it, invoking serendipity for instance.
The panel welcomes empirically supported contributions from various countries and diverse entities (university, agencies, ministries, foundations...). They can be cross-axes.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Victoria Brun (Mines Paris - PSL University) Anne-Gaëlle Beurier (Sorbonne Nouvelle University)
Short abstract:
Project-based research funding is presented as allowing better control of expenses and directing science towards a goal of social utility. This proposal examines this statement through two extreme French cases: scientific valorization and environmental interdisciplinary project.
Long abstract:
Project-based funding was essentially created in France in the 1960s to break up mandarinates into universities (Aust, 2014), but nowadays it has become a public policy instrument to govern research in two dimensions: controlling expenditure and directing priorities. This communication will examine the effects of project-based funding in two edge cases where project-based funding is the medium through which science creates social utility.
Firstly, we will look at industrial partnership and technology transfer projects in public research. These situations are diverse, ranging from small and successive projects with individual companies, to long-term collaborations with major industrial groups, to multi-year technology transfer projects whose success is very uncertain. What these projects have in common, however, is their promise to create economic value for society, through technological impact and contributions to national competitiveness.
Secondly, we will focus on Human-Environment Observatories (OHMs), a scientific policy tool of the French National Research Centre dedicated to studying socio-ecosystems heavily influenced by human activity. OHMs support small interdisciplinary research projects in collaboration with various non-scientific stakeholders, with the intention of promoting sustainable development of territories and gaining a better understanding of human-environment interactions to adapt more effectively to global changes.
We will conclude by highlighting the importance of comparing contrasted cases in order to understand the specificities of the project form in public research.
Mégane Fernandez (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines)
Short abstract:
This paper explores the link between the composition of project collectives, the division of labor within research projects and the knowledge production based on field research in ERC funded projects. It focuses on how the fieldwork influence the research collectives and roles and vice versa.
Long abstract:
In this paper, I aim to explore the relationship between the composition of project collectives, the division of labor within research projects and the knowledge production based on field research in ERC funded projects (2014-2020). These projects have short-term fundings but can also be used to fund long-term teams and research. In that sense, they offer many ways to construct research collectives and, as such, different kind of division of labor. They are however mostly hierarchical because ERC fundings are individual grants.
The projects studied are selected for the fact that they study specific spaces. Most of the time, they imply fieldwork, and team members are hired in relation with it. The field site choice and the nature of the fieldwork influence the composition of the research collective and the role assigned to each member and vice versa.
My presentation focuses on this interaction and is based on the analysis of twenty interviews conducted with principal investigators and participant of ERC projects from different countries and disciplines, and working on various spaces.
Firstly I will present the different ways of constructing a research collective among ERC projects, taking into account the status, the unclear boundaries of the research teams and the previous knowledge or not of all the members. Then, I will analyse the mutual influence between the research collectives and the field site and fieldwork, and the modifications that can occur during the project. Finally, I will explore the consequences of these interactions in terms of knowledge production.
MAXIME ZIMMERMANN (INRAE LISIS)
Short abstract:
While projectification of research has indeed reinforced this idea of engaging in projects for specific political and social goals, this communication wishes to highlight how some scientific disciplines like toxicology have been doing so for a long time by collaborating with regulatory agencies.
Long abstract:
Toxicological expertise of chemicals has been largely aimed at regulatory science, meaning that its core objective is the public usage of data and decision making. By using private battery of tests provided by applicants for market authorizations but also academic research data to better understand mechanisms in its risk assessment phase, regulatory toxicology is by design a normative collective activity that consciously deviates from research science.
My contribution for this panel would be to develop the objectives of axis 3, especially values and norms of scientific engagement in research projects. By presenting different modes of producing knowledge in toxicology (private and public research, regulatory science and new alternative methodologies), my communication focuses on regulatory toxicology as an traditional structure for finding purpose in scientific knowledge and data.
The projectification of research has indeed reinforced this idea of engaging through projects for specific political and social goals, but some scientific disciplines like toxicology have been doing so for a long time by collaborating with regulatory agencies. By building on the rise of Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) as a new “tool” for regulatory toxicology, I wish to contribute to this panel by showing how experts try to engage with these methodologies to steer regulatory agencies – sometimes with very mixed results - towards new ways to assess the risk of chemicals. By trying to bridge the gap between research toxicology and regulatory toxicology, AOP promoters encapsulate this new kind of development and show how project-programming logics coincide with regulatory toxicology.