Relationship between science & society
Science has a tense relationship with society. As academic research is largely publicly funded, it is under constant pressure to justify its achievements to society (Kaldeway 2013, Weingart 2001). However, this narrative is not only viewed critically, but is sometimes even pushed by science managers, with the risk of weakening the autonomy of science, which in turn is the basis for high-quality findings and innovations.
On the one hand, the demand for knowledge transfer is a good way of reminding scientists that they are ultimately working for society. On the other hand, there is a danger of aligning research too closely with current social problems and exploitation logics and thus missing out on innovations that are more likely to be sustainable in the longer term. This is a balancing act that must be balanced at the system level (by science policy) and the organizational level (university management). The responsibility for this cannot lie with the individual scientists. Nevertheless, the debates and discourses on the social utility of scientific results are also reaching scientists, and not only when the call for knowledge transfer has found its way into performance indicators. Even beyond implemented control and incentive mechanisms, scientists react sensitively to science policy imperatives. They may choose to respond because they hope to gain advantages in project acquisition or in their careers if they address new demands - such as societal impact - in their applications, and also because they themselves find some of the requirements useful and want to align their research with them.
It is therefore essential for us to survey the attitudes of scientists in addition to their practices. Attitudes reveal how scientists perceive and position themselves and their work in society. The survey of scientists is complementary to surveys of the population about their view of science (Wissenschaft im Dialog 2022).
In order to capture the attitudes of scientists towards the interrelationship between science and society, we focused on the following 3 central areas: the autonomy of science in relation to the social benefits of science, the participation of scientists in political debates, and the scientific-philosophical question of the status of scientific knowledge.
For the implementation of the questions in the questionnaire, we opted for two-sided, end-verbalized scales - so-called semantic differentials. These compare two discourse positions and allow respondents to be assigned to one or the other position. At the same time, agreement with the positions can be ascertained in graduated stages.
Autonomy of science
Figure 19 illustrates the attitudes of the scientists surveyed with regard to the question of whether science should "maintain a high degree of autonomy from societal demands" or "place itself at the service of society". While a total of 45% (tend to) support a high degree of autonomy from society, slightly fewer respondents (38.7%) agree that science should place itself at the service of society (see Figure 19). The scientific community is therefore divided on this issue. One sixth of respondents have a neutral position here and have not assigned themselves to either of the two positions.
Figures 20 and 21 show the comparison of status and subject groups with regard to attitudes towards autonomy in science. According to this, professors, natural scientists and humanities scholars tend a little more towards the autonomy position, while the other status and subject groups are more in the middle category and therefore cannot or do not want to position themselves more clearly here.
Figure 19 Attitudes towards autonomy in science
Figure 20 Attitudes towards autonomy in science, by status group
Figure 21 Attitudes towards autonomy in science, by subject group
The role of scientists in public debates
The second attitude survey focuses on the behavior of the scientists themselves and the question of their involvement in public debates. For this purpose, we formulated two positions with respective counter-positions on which the respondents were asked to take a stand (see Figure 22).
While respondents were divided on the topic of autonomy in science, there was a greater consensus here: at 82.5%, the absolute majority of respondents believe that scientists should be actively involved in public debates, while only just under 8% believe that scientists should stay out of them. Only 9% of respondents did not take a position or were undecided. This picture clearly shows how much scientists believe in the importance of the knowledge they produce for politics and society. Furthermore, it could also be an expression of the perception that although politics and society have a need for scientific knowledge, this is currently not sufficiently considered.
When scientists appear in public as "experts", it makes a big difference whether they limit themselves exclusively to their research and professional expertise or whether they - similar to public intellectuals - also comment on topics that go beyond their research. The media and, to some extent, politicians respond positively when individual scientists take on a broader expert role. We want to find out what the scientists themselves think about this. That is why we also asked: should scientists limit themselves to statements about their own research or should they also contribute to topics that go beyond this?
The response pattern is again relatively clear, although not quite as clear as before. Overall, 62.7% of respondents believe that scientists should limit themselves to their research topics. Of the respondents, 27.2% believe that scientists should get involved in public debates on topics beyond their own research and just under 10% had no or a neutral position on this.
Scientists therefore want science to have a strong voice in public debates. However, the expertise of the respective scientist and the resulting appreciation by politics and society should not be unnecessarily strained by statements that are not based on their own expertise.
There are no relevant differences between the status groups (see Figure 23). The subject groups also did not differ when it came to the question of involvement in public debates. With regard to the question of limiting their own statements, social scientists and engineers tend to be more inclined than the other subject groups to believe that they should limit themselves to statements on their own research topics (see Figure 24).
Figure 22 Attitudes towards scientists in public debates
Figure 23 Attitudes towards scientists in public debates, by status group
Figure 24 Attitudes towards academics in public debates, by subject group
The status of scientific knowledge (value & objectivity)
In April 2017, hundreds of thousands of scientists around the world took part in the March for Science to make the case that scientific knowledge is non-negotiable (see, for example, https://marchforscienceberlin.de). This was preceded by numerous political debates in which scientific knowledge was questioned and contrasted with alternative facts. As a result, the question of the status of scientific knowledge gained greater attention and became a subject of discussion. Even within the scientific community, there is no uniform understanding of the status and methodological characteristics of scientific knowledge. Against the background of recent debates, we have selected two classic points of contention in the theory of science regarding the status of knowledge: on the one hand, the question of the value-free nature of scientific knowledge, following Max Weber, and on the other, the question of its objectivity (Weber 1968). The positions are as follows:
A: Scientific knowledge is in itself value-free, it depends on what politics and society make of it.
B: Scientific knowledge is not in itself value-free, but suggests certain courses of action.
Empirical evidence shows that the scientists surveyed actually disagree on this question (see Figure 25). For example, 35% of scientists (tend to) agree with the position that knowledge is intrinsically value-free and that it depends on what politics and society make of it. In contrast, 55.4% do not consider scientific knowledge to be value-free, but rather to guide action. Just under 10% did not take a position here.
The positions on objectivity were as follows:
A: Scientific knowledge is open to interpretation and always provisional.
B: Scientific knowledge is objective and universally valid.
Empirically, this shows that a majority of 56.7% do not support the classic idea of objectivity and universality of scientific knowledge, but (rather) agree with the statement that scientific knowledge is always provisional and open to interpretation. Nevertheless, 27.3% are still committed to the objectivity and universality of scientific knowledge. A fairly large proportion of 16% did not take a position on either side of this question.
The status group comparison (Figure 26) shows that there are no differences between professors, postdocs and pre-docs in the two methodological questions on the status of academic knowledge. On the contrary, classic subject boundaries are visible in this question (see Figure 27). For example, humanities scholars and social scientists are less likely to agree with freedom of value and view knowledge as less objective and much more often as open to interpretation and provisional. This reflects the classic contrast between the "two cultures" (Snow 1959) - the natural sciences on the one hand and the humanities on the other - and shows that individual judgments are strongly derived from the respective professional perspective.
Figure 25 Attitudes towards scientific knowledge
Figure 26 Attitudes towards scientific knowledge, by status group
Figure 27 Attitude towards scientific knowledge, by subject group