With and for Society? Experiences from CICERO Center for International Climate Research with User Involvement in Science

Abstract

In order to ensure that scientific knowledge is made relevant and useful for solving pressing societal challenges such as climate change, science policy actors like the European Union have increasingly advocated for various approaches for including non-academic stakeholders in the production and governance of scientific research. Concepts like “co-production,” “Responsible Research and Innovation” and “user involvement” have rapidly risen onto science policy agendas in Norway and the EU, carrying a demand that scientific researchers step out of the “ivory tower” and work in closer collaboration with different societal actors. This thesis presents a case study of the Norwegian research institute CICERO Center for International Climate Research as it experiences these demands for user involvement in scientific research projects. In particular, I examine how these science policy shifts contribute to re-shaping the relationship and boundaries between science and society. Drawing on the science and technology studies (STS) concepts of cultural cartographies of science and boundary work, I describe how different understandings of user involvement and co-production draw up different “maps” of science-in-society. Are Norwegian science policy efforts toward open science tearing down the ivory tower to build an open and democratic agora of scientific knowledge production – or perhaps a knowledge production factory? The findings of this thesis highlight the role of science policy instruments and research funding mechanisms in shaping the dynamics of user involvement, and raise questions about the claim that current efforts for user involvement make scientific knowledge relevant and useful to society as a whole. They also suggest that obscuring tensions between the different understandings of co-production that underpin research and policy on this topic may lead to black-boxing and de-politicisation of the concepts of “responsibility,” “relevant science” and “useful knowledge.” In particular, this thesis highlights the importance of continuously asking the question: relevant and useful for whom, and to what end?