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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.