Dutch Science Shops: Matching Community Needs with University R&D
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Science Studies 2/1999 Dutch Science Shops: Matching Community Needs with University R&D Nicole Farkas “You have to keep in mind,” says Jan sity scientists (mostly students but also Weerdenburg, editor of two Dutch-lan- recent graduates) to answer these ques- guage volumes on science shops in Hol- tions through research. Other European land, “the University of Amsterdam’s first countries including Denmark, Germany, science shop was located in a box. We and Northern Ireland have established had a box with files of client questions. science shops, inspired by what has been When we wanted to work we would go cast as “the Dutch model of science pick up the box and take it to an empty shops.” room” (1999, personal interview). Science shops attempt to redirect uni- So began the first Dutch science shop, versity R&D towards (economic and po- as volunteer initiatives by students from litical) non-elites. In this way, they seek the Dutch student movements of the late to directly satisfy the concerns of smaller 1960s and early 1970s. These students groups, especially less financially pow- and university employees sought at once erful ones. This paper proposes that sci- to change the character of university re- ence shops produce university R&D in search and to support activist groups such a way that distributes expertise working on issues pertaining to environ- more equitably. They also work at devel- ment, feminism, nuclear resistance, mi- oping a more invigorated citizenry and norities and the workplace. should be studied as one model of co- Today Dutch science shops (“weten- operation between experts and lay- schapswinkels”) are university depart- persons. Science shops mitigate the dis- ments that solicit questions from inter- proportionate power of business inter- est groups (such as environmental orga- ests within the current university R&D nizations, neighborhood associations, environment by doing what Sclove and and nursing homes) and match univer- Scammel (1998:2) have called “commu- Science Studies, Vol. 12(1999) No. 2, 33–47 Science Studies 2/1999 nity-based research”: “research that is Need for Science Shops initiated by communities and that is conducted for – and often directly with Ordinary citizens are underrepresented or by – communities”. in today’s R&D environment. Within the In the first part of this paper I will so-called Triple Helix of government, briefly describe the need for democratic university, and industry relations, there steering of university R&D and the are limited mechanisms by which non- Dutch context within which activists ar- elites can marshal scientific and techni- ticulated and addressed this need. In the cal expertise. Supposedly, citizens are second part, I describe the clients of sci- represented within this matrix – for ex- ence shops, the avenues by which they ample through government via their come to ask for help, and the use they elected officials or via industry with their make of scientific research. In the third buying power. In practice, however, they section, I describe what makes science have very little direct influence on the shops tick: how they formulate a scien- direction of R&D. As Sclove and tific research question from a client Scammel (1998:3) put it, “right now, question, what talents and skills science around the world, most research is con- shop workers use to do this, and what ducted on behalf of private enterprise, preconditions have enabled the estab- the military, and national governments, lishment of science shops in the Neth- or in pursuit of the scientific com- erlands. Throughout, I highlight some of munity’s intellectual interests. Conse- the historical decisions/debates sur- quently research agendas often favor rounding science shop practice. By do- elite groups, and – wittingly or not – help ing so, I hope that we may not only bet- them maintain their privileged posi- ter understand these endeavors, but also tions. view their successes as lessons for the Policy analysts have been concerned more equitable distribution of university about the exclusion of lay publics in sci- R&D in other countries and in other entific and technical decision-making ways. (e.g. Cozzens and Woodhouse, 1990) and The data in this paper comes from in particular, with the privileged position fieldwork I conducted in the Nether- of business (Hamlett, 1992; Collingridge lands at science shops. I interviewed and Reeve, 1986). Substantial social opinion-leaders from the first Dutch sci- costs are incurred when citizens are ex- ence shops. I also conducted extended cluded from decision-making about sci- case studies at four different universities ence and technology (Lindblom and where I met with university administra- Woodhouse, 1993; Barber, 1984; tors, as well as science shop employees, Nowotny and Rose, 1979). For example, clients, and student researchers. I per- research on alternative biomedical tech- formed archival research at the science nologies indicates that women patients shops and attended meetings with cli- want scientific and technical experts as ents and science shop employees at vari- collaborators, mentors, and guides, ous stages of science shop research. In- whereas what they often receive is pa- terviews and quotations have been ternalistic expert advice that devalues translated from Dutch. their role in the health-care process 34 Nicole Farkas (Hess and Woodell, 1998). Alternative rector of the University of Amsterdam models of decision making that involve Chemistry Science shop, “groups of ac- laypersons include: technology assess- tive students started to do some advisory ment (Vig, 1992; Schot, 1992), consen- work for environmental and local sus conferences (Simon and Durant, groups. They tried to generate questions 1995), participatory design (Schuler and in society about the hazards of chemi- Namioka, 1993; Greenbaum, 1991; Ehn, cal substances in the environment and 1989), and science shops. Woodhouse at work, and tried to answer these types and Nieusma (1997) theorize different of questions” (1998, personal interview). roles for experts by making recommen- Before long, similar initiatives that be- dations for when their input is useful; gan at other Dutch universities were Hess and Woodell (1998) emphasize a awarded formal support by their univer- more egalitarian relationship between sities – namely, overhead and a small experts and laypersons; and Epstein budget. Bas de Boer, coordinator of the (1999) calls into question such a rigid University of Amsterdam science shop distinction between so-called “experts” for 15 years, explains this move as the and “laypersons”. second stage of the University of Amsterdam science shop, where they History of Dutch Science Shops became “a normal part of the univer- sity”(1998, personal interview). The Dutch student movement in the late Early on, the science shops made an 1960s had an idea for mitigating these effort to be clear about exactly for whom problems within the university. Students they would work. Through internal dis- had accused universities of being ivory cussion and through contact with a na- towers unconcerned with the broad dis- tional coalition of science shops, they tribution of their primary product, developed criteria for accepting research knowledge (Nelkin and Rip, 1979). One questions. Three criteria (or variations of way to enhance the public benefit from them) were used at every science shop university resources would be to work in Holland. The group asking the ques- directly for the community. They would tion must: solicit questions from citizens and pro- • have no commercial aims (and duce scientific research at their requests therefore allow all research to be (Weerdenburg and Pennings, 1987). The public) idea was that they would “intermediate” • be able to make a concrete policy between scientists and the public. change based on the research Independent efforts at this sprung up • have limited financial means avail- at several universities. In the late 1970s, able to them to do the research notably in the chemistry departments at (Leydesdorff and van den Besselaar, the University of Utrecht and the Univer- 1987) sity of Amsterdam, students sought out small organizations and citizens for These criteria, (or variations), were whom they could help directly with implemented by the groups of volun- knowledge of chemical subjects. Accord- teers who ran the science shops in the ing to Peter van Broekhuizen present di- first several years. Often these groups 35 Science Studies 2/1999 made decisions by consensus. Although technical knowledge by enhancing its this lengthened the duration of interme- distribution, a second aim was to serve diation, it was an attempt to apply ideo- as what de Boer calls an “early warning logical convictions to internal organiza- function”. Since their origin, a large but tional structure. important goal was to alert university In the late 1990s, these criteria remain researchers to socially important topics the same – though with some qualifica- (see also Hoogmeinstra and van der Luit, tions. The most significant change has 1982). They hoped this would make uni- come under the third criterion, ability to versity research less elitist and more rel- pay for research on their own. Both the evant to the needs of regular citizens. science shops and their clients pro- Science shop employees are proud of the fessionalized. Environmental advocacy instances where the science shop has groups, labor unions and volunteer or- drawn the attention of university re- ganizations, who were the main source searchers to very pressing social con- for science shop questions in the 70s, cerns. José Dobbelsteen tells how the gained credibility and their own exper- University of Nijmegen science shop tise. Now many of them employ their conducted a study on how people make own experts or can afford to commission connections between their illnesses and professional researchers or research bu- the environment: “Now, seven years reaus. To this day, science shops con- later, it is a very normal topic, you hear tinue to work with these semi-profes- about these problems everywhere.