Paper short abstract:

Against the background of debates about ‘care-logics’ and ‘responsible research and innovation’ this talk focuses on an Austrian sustainability research funding program and asks how the envisioned changes in science-society relations are enacted in concrete transdisciplinary research practices.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past decades we witnessed a growing concern with changing modes of knowledge production and numerous debates have directed attention to changing relations between science and society. Most recently these questions have been addressed in discussions about 'care-logics' and 'responsible research and innovation'. This recent shift adds yet another layer to discussions about science-society relations by calling for the creation of spaces that allow for more responsive science-society engagements.

Against this background my presentation focuses on the Austrian sustainability research funding program proVISION , which explicitly required projects to apply transdisciplinary research methods in order to 'make knowledge available' and foster a 'new science culture'. Thus this program can be understood as an attempt to create spaces of collective experimentation.

The talk will first describe the program's imagination of re-ordering science-society relations and trace the development of this imagination in Austrian sustainability research. In the second and main part of the talk I will focus on concrete research practices and ask how the envisioned re-distribution of responsibility is enacted by researchers and their collaborators. By describing particular instances of transdisciplinary collaboration I will show how multiple responsibilities emerge together with different forms participation, subject positions and futures. The talk will conclude by directing attention to various tensions that become visible in these collaborations when attempts of long-time engagement and societal relevance clash with ideas of scientific excellence.