Table Of ContentDENATIONALIZING SCIENCE
Sociology of the Sciences
A YEARBOOK - VOLUME XVI - 1992
Managing Editor:
R.D. Whitley, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester
EdilOrial Board:
Y. Ezrahi, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
B. Joerges, WZB, Berlin
E. Mendelsohn, Harvard University
Y. F. Murakami, University of Tokyo
H. Nowotny, Illstitut fur Wissenschaftstheorie und Wissenschaftsforschung, Vienna
T. Shinn, Groupe d' Etude des Methodes de l'Analyse Sociologique, Paris
P. Wagner, WZB, Berlin
P. Weingart, University of Bielefeld
B. Wittrock, SCASSS, Uppsala
The titles published ill lhis series are listed at the end of this volume.
DENATIONALIZING
SCIENCE
The Contexts of International Scientific Practice
Edited by
ELISABETH eRA WFORD
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Strashourf?, France
TERRY SHINN
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifiquc' Paris, France
and
SVERKER SORLIN
Universitv of UmeG, Sweden
..
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Denationalizing sCience the contexts of International scientific
practice I edited by Elisabeth Crawford, Terry Shinn, and Sverker
Sor 1 in.
p. cm. -- (Sociology of the sciences; v. 16)
Papers presented at the Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook
Conference "What is international in SCience?" held in Abisko,
Sweden, May 26-June 1, 1991.
Includes bibl iographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-481-4174-6 ISBN 978-94-017-1221-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-1221-7
1. Science and state--Congresses. 2. SCience--International
cooperation--Congresses. 1. Crawford, El isabeth T. II. Shinn,
Terry. III. Sorlin. Sverker. IV. Series.
Q125.D336 1992
338.9'26--dc20 92-19396
ISBN 978-90-481-4174-6
Printed on acid)i"ee paper
All Rights Reserved
© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1993
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any fonn or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any infonnation storage and
retrieval system, without written pennission from the copyright owner.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE Vll
ELISABETH CRAWFORD, TERRY SHINN and SVERKER
S ORLIN I The Nationalization and Denationalization of the Sciences:
An Introductory Essay
SVERKER SORLIN I National and International Aspects of Cross
boundary Science: Scientific Travel in the 18th Century 43
AANT ELZINGA I Antarctica: The Construction of a Continent by and
for Science 73
KAAT SCHULTE-FISCHEDICK and TERRY SHINN I
International Phytogeographical Excursions, 1911-1923:
Intellectual Convergence in Vegetation Science 107
PAUL HOCH and JENNIFER PLA TT I Migration and the
Denationalization of Science 133
PNINA ABIR-AM I From Multidisciplinary Collaboration to Trans-
national Objectivity: International Space as Constitutive
of Molecular Biology, 1930-1970 153
ANDREW JAMISON I National Political Cultures and the
Exchange of Knowledge: The Case of Systems Ecology 187
GABOR PALLO I Internationalism in Soviet World-Science: The
Hungarian Case 209
JOHN KRIGE I Some Socio-historical Aspects of Multinational
Collaborations in High-Energy Physics at Cern Between
1975 and 1985 233
HENRY ETZKOWITZ I Redesigning 'Solomon's House': The
University and the Internationalization of Science
and Business 263
NOTE ON CONTRIBUTORS 289
INDEX 293
v
PREFACE
The articles published in this volume were presented at the Sociology of the
Sciences Yearbook Conference "What is International in Science?" held in
Abisko, Sweden, May 26 to June 1, 1991. The Abisko Scientific Research
Station was made available for the Conference courtesy of the Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences. Generous financial support was provided by the
Committee for Future Oriented Research (SALFO); the Institute for Futures
Studies; the Council for Studies of Higher Education at the Swedish Board of
Universities; and the University of Umea. Logistic support was provided by
the Center for History of Science at the Swedish Academy of Sciences. All
these institutions are thanked warmly for their contribution.
The two individuals who deserve special thanks are Birgitta Lundeberg of
the Center for History of Science whose tact and kindness in handling practi
cal matters ensured the success of the Conference, and Stephen Fruitman of
Umea University's Department of History of Science and Ideas whose
editing skills made this an infinitely better volume than it otherwise would
have been.
Finally, all participants are to be thanked for the enthusiasm with which
they brought their knowledge and experience to bear on the theme of the
Conference.
ELISABETH eRA WFORD
TERRY SHINN
SVERKER SORLIN
vii
THE NATIONALIZATION AND DENATIONALIZATION
OF THE SCIENCES: AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY
ELISABETH eRA WFORD
Centre National de la Recherche Scientijzque, Strasbourg
TERRY SHINN
Centre National de la Recherche Scientijzque, Paris
and
SVERKER SORLIN
University of Umea
The title of this volume is Denationalizing Science: The Contexts of
International Scientific Practice. We have chosen it to indicate that we stand
at the crossroads of two major currents that have affected the sciences in the
past four hundred years: their nationalization and their denationalization.
Both are on-going processes-with more new nation-states being born in the
early 1990s than at any other time during the 20th century, the sciences are
certainly still being nationalized - but as the title says, Denationalizing
Science is to us now the prevailing trend. This means, first and foremost, that
in the present growth of both national and transnational science, transna
tional science (1) (defined as activities involving persons, equipment or funds
from more than one country) seems to be gaining the upper hand. The main
purpose of this volume is to try to understand the reasons for the denational
ization of science, its historical contexts and its social forms.
But the title, Denationalizing Science, has broader meanings than merely
the growth of transnational science. There are other ways in which the nation,
or rather the state, is divesting its scientific capital, ways that the title may
also denote. One way is the de-emphasis on government funding of research
which has become important as publicly-funded universities perform more
Elisabeth Crawford et al. (eds.), Denationalizing Science, 1-42.
© 1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
2 Elisabeth Crawford, Terry Shinn, and Sverker S6riin
and more work for industry which can be national, or belong to another
country, or, indeed, be transnational. Another revolves around the transfer of
functions from national governments to local and especially regional bodies.
Again, the latter may be within the nation's boundaries or it may cut across
national borders, as in the case of the interregional cooperation networks
within the European Community (EC) research and educational programs. In
1991 the first proper interregional treaty for research, education and industrial
development was signed between the region of Catalonia (Spain) and a
number of French regions. We shall have occasion to return to both these
modes of denationalizing science in the course of this essay.
Statistics are largely inadequate to grasp the fine structure of the present
flux and reflux of scientific activities across boundaries, be they those of
nations, regions, or public and private enterprise. How can we account statis
tically, for instance, for the way science at national, publicly-funded universi
ties increasingly blends with research and development in multinational
industrial corporations? Because statistics are most often aggregated at the
national level, however, they serve one useful purpose. This is to demonstrate
that science is still primarily an enterprise that is politically and financially
contained within the boundaries of the nation-state. At the same time it is
obvious that many parts of the knowledge produced in the scientific commu
nity is universal in the sense that it is relevant everywhere. The status and
problems of this epistemic universalism properly belongs to the philosophy of
science and will not be dealt with here. We acknowledge its strong influence,
however, on the ideology and rhetoric of internationalism that has permeated
the scientific enterprise for the past 150 years (2).
Although science is universal, and although there reigns an internationalist
ethos among scientists, scientific work and careers are most often bound up
with the nation. This is not surprising since the sources of funding for science
are overwhelmingly national. At least 90 percent of today's research and
development (R&D) is carried out within nationally based coordinate
systems, either private or public. In 1989 (the latest year for which statistics
are available) only Canada and Greece among the countries of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) had
(slightly) more than ten percent of the Gross Domestic Exp.enditure on R&D
coming from abroad (3). Within the private sector, foreign spending on
R&D is more marked in certain countries, notably so in Canada, Greece,
An Introductory Essay 3
France, and the UK (4). Nonetheless the foreign portion in no instance
exceeds 20 percent.
These statistics do not present the full picture since the largest industrial
corporations are transnational and can locate R&D activities worldwide
without that being visible in company reports. That phenomenon does not,
however, change the overall picture. Neither do the figures showing expendi
ture on distinctly multi- or transnational programs or institutions (that is
those where the pooling of national resources for a common purpose creates
supranational facilities or staff). Even in those, national elements are still
strong. For instance, as John Krige's article in this volume shows, although
CERN (Center for European Nuclear Research) has its own personnel, that of
national research institutions predominates in CERN-collaborations. A
general conclusion has to be then that science, through a complicated series
of events involved with the growth of modem nation-states over a period of
several hundred years, has become almost exclusively tied into the institu
tional and financial systems of these states.
This is what available data on research financing reveals about the current
time. The question is: Will the present situation continue? What we should
note is that the transnational flow of payments in this field-as indeed in
others in an ever more globalized economy-do indeed grow rapidly.
Between 1985 and 1989 alone the percentage of expenditure derived from
foreign sources on R&D rose from 7.9 to 10.6 in Canada; from 4.8 to 7.3 in
France; and from 3.6 to 4.8 (1990) in Italy (5). The R&D expenditure of
Sweden going abroad increased from a tiny 250 million SEK in 1975 to
1 500 million in 1987, admittedly making up only some 5 percent of the total
expenditure, but growing about twice as fast as total R&D spending in the
1980s (6). In the same period, American-owned corporations increased over
seas R&D spending. In 1986 and 1987 alone, the increase was 33 percent,
compared to a mere 6 percent in R&D spending in the United States (7). As
far as funding is concerned then there are certainly indications of the dena
tionalization of science, although it starts from a very low point.
Less easy to capture statistically are the scientific communication and
exchange networks that cut across national boundaries and that indeed shape
the everyday perception-both the expert's, the layman's, and the suspicious
politician's who cautiously signs the bill-of what scientific work is all
about. There does indeed exist a worldwide system of journals, organizations,
