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Scientific societies or associations are quite an under-researched issue.
Science studies have historically paid much more attention to nonformalised
collectives in science: the “republic of science” of Polanyi
(1962), the “scientific community” of Hagstrom (1965) and Merton
(1973), the “invisible colleges” of Crane (1972), the “scientific field” of
Bourdieu (1975), or the “transepistemic arenas” of Knorr-Cetina (1982).
Theories of the Mode 2 production of knowledge (Gibbons et al. 1995;
Nowotny, Scott and Gibbons 2001) postulate that in contemporary science
there is a wider array of institutions taking part in the construction of
scientific knowledge, but scientific associations are barely mentioned.
Recent literature has devoted considerable attention to the “triple helix”
formed by universities, government and industry (Leydesdorff and
Etzkowitz 1996; Shinn 2002), but leaving out all other actors involved in
science.
Most of the existing literature on scientific associations focuses mainly
on the historical dimension of scientific societies, such as their role in the
birth of modern science (see Merton 1938 or Shapin 1996, for instance) or
the genealogy of individual institutions, such as the Royal Society (Hunter
1989). Just a few noteworthy exceptions can be found: for instance, an indepth
case study of the Society of German Chemists authored by Rilling
(1986), Schimank’s (1988) survey of German scientific associations, the
studies on the development of international scientific associations by
Shofer (1999, 2003). Some published research also deals with particular
aspects of scientific associations’ activities, such as publishing (Levitan
1979), policy advice (Teich 2002), ethical regulation (Levine and
Iutcovich 2003), award giving (Crosland and Galvez 1989), public
understanding of science (Rogers 1981), or membership profiles (Mackie
2000).
And yet, scientific societies in Europe seem to be gaining momentum
both in individual countries (see, for instance, Guinovart 2009 on the
Spanish Federation of Scientific Societies) and on a transnational level.
This is apparent, for instance, in the Initiative for Science in Europe - ISE,a platform of European learned societies and scientific organisations
created in 2004, which led to the creation of the European Research
Council (Zaragoza 2007).
Overall, there seemed to be a gap in the social studies of science
concerning the role of scientific societies in contemporary science. In
2008, a team of social scientists sought to bridge this gap with a research
project,1 focusing on the case of the Portuguese scientific system, which
intended to explore both the functions and activities of scientific societies
and the associative behaviour and representations of scientists.
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Palavras-chave
Associações científicas Cientistas - Portugal Ciência - Portugal
Contexto Educativo
Citação
Delicado, A. (org) (2013). Associations and other groups in Science: an historical and contemporary perspective. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing