researchgerman german research 1 / 2018 Magazine of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Cover: fotolia / lassedesignen At a loss for words: New imaging and 1 / 2018 neurophysiological techniques con- tinue to contribute to a better under- standing of the possible causes and treatability of stuttering. Commentary Peter Strohschneider Shaping the Sciences and Humanities in the Digital Age 2 Unpredictable opportunities and enormous challenges In Focus Digitalisation and Digitality 4 Current initiatives, strategy paper and statements Humanities and Social Sciences Nicole Deitelhoff, Priska Daphi and Felix Anderl Many Roads to Another World 6 Insights on the changing Global Justice movement Engineering Sciences Christoph Baer, Ilona Rolfes, Thomas Musch and Jürgen Sachs The War on Landmines 12 Using innovative technologies to detect explosive devices in Colombia Life Sciences Martin Sommer and Annika Primaßin Poorly Wired 16 How new understanding of the brain leads to novel therapies in stuttering SERIES: Migration and Refugees – Perspectives from Research / Part 4 21 The Litmus Test of Integration 22 Children of immigrants in Europe – an interview with sociologist Frank Kalter Stuttering: Poorly Wired | Research Policy: Shaping the Sciences and Humanities Selected Topic-Related DFG Projects 26 in the Digital Age | Changing Social Movements: Many Roads to Another World | Innovative Detection: The War on Landmines Series on Migration and Refugees: Natural Sciences | Sabine Kugler, Steffi Deuerling, Daniel Van Opdenbosch, Cordt Zollfrank The Litmus Test of Integration New Material Synthesis: Reaching for the Light | Reaching for the Light 28 Using the sensitivity of microorganisms to create new materials 2 Commentary german research 1 / 2018 german research 1 / 2018 3 Peter Strohschneider mains of a research “achievement” if thinking begins to be automated? How is it attributed to an individual? What will scientific reputation be based on in the future? Not to mention the legal and financial questions that Shaping the Sciences and arise: Who is responsible for the research? Who is liable for its consequences? How will this be regulated legally? Humanities in the Digital Age And financially and economically? hese and other questions – including those re- Digitalisation and digitality are changing the world – and the sciences and humanities with it. lating to good scientific practice, the publication T system and research ethics – are linked to new This transformation gives rise to unpredictable opportunities for knowledge yet at the same challenges for research policy and research administra- time poses enormous challenges that must be addressed in science-driven research funding. tion, and of course for academically driven research funding. e live in an ever-changing world. Science is ways incomprehensible to us. At the same time we act – To give an indication of just how radical the impli- characterised, among other things, not only amid an excess of information – under the conditions of cations of the digital transformation are, consider that W by its capacity to effect change but also to a serious lack of information and dramatic uncertainty. the entire funding system – not only that of the DFG experience change. It is subject to a constant process of The only thing it seems we can depend on is the prospect – relies on the participation of academic peers. But are transformation. And the process that we are currently that linear extrapolation of what we already know will their powers of judgement irreplaceable? Could funding witnessing is what I refer to as Weltenwandel, or funda- not succeed in predicting the future. It will certainly decisions not also be automated, that is, be taken on the mental and ongoing change brought about by techno- be different from what is promised by the utopias or basis of algorithms that rank the project proposals? In logical advancements but affecting all areas of society. threatened by the dystopias. This is already the case, be- that case we could get by with just a few administrators Ausserhofer / This Weltenwandel encompasses much more than the cause Weltenwandel through digitality will neither come and an IT support group. However, the incentives to digitality addressed in academic research and politics; to an end in the foreseeable future nor allow itself to optimise project proposals through algorithmic stream- where it is often reduced for convenience’s sake to tech- be objectively limited. It does not have the profile of a lining would be unpredictable, just as the consequences nical catchphrases or policy questions in the areas of in- “problem” for which definitive “solutions” or even the Illustration: DFG for the quality and originality of research would be. But novation, education, law or democracy – such as Indus- one and only solution might be found. above all, would not such automation come at the price try 4.0, broadband roll-out, tablets for primary schools, of research are being superseded, and we can observe of weakened justifiability and transparency of funding artificial intelligence, the Network Enforcement Act, hese constellations of digitality and sociality, of across whole scientific disciplines that new mathematical decisions – and hence a loss of legitimacy? or e-democracy. The opportunities and responsibilities open future, uncertainty and the necessity to act, methods are gaining in importance. This is another area in which the Weltenwandel associated with computerisation, with the digitalisation T also define the sciences and humanities – and From these questions, methods and research prac- brought about by digitality presents an enormous need of texts, images, sounds and things, and with the ubiq- research administration, research funding and research tices, we quickly move on to the transformation of that for careful planning and management. The knowledge uitous networking of all the foregoing on the internet policy are no less concerned with them. which can be understood as research and science from regimes and social orders of science and scholarship, the are a great deal more complex and have a far deeper Research is playing a crucial role in driving this Wel- an epistemological perspective, and that which consti- epistemic, economic, financial, legal and policy aspects and broader impact than this. They concern questions tenwandel – for example, in mathematics, computer sci- tutes the preconditions and circumstances of its practice of this transformation, influence each other in many about individuality and collectivity, about economy and ence, materials sciences and new fields for which we from a sociological point of view. What is “research”, different ways and must be considered within the frame- society, about the state and law, about knowledge and presently use the imprecise term “data sciences”. At “knowledge”, a scientific “argument”, “proof” or “evi- work of these complex and contingent relationships. power. And, of course, questions about the sciences and the same time, the sciences and humanities, just like dence”, if the line between correlation and causality This latter requirement is one in which a particu- humanities too. all other parts of society, are also subject to this Welten- becomes blurred or “algorithms” take the place of “theo- larly prominent attempt to shape the Weltenwandel in This Weltenwandel, as dynamic as it is all-encompass- wandel – with all the unpredictable opportunities for ries”? When, for example, an experiment is replaced by terms of research policy appears to fail. The so-called ing, confronts us with the same experience that Søren knowledge and challenges that follow from this. a digital simulation; when research is dominated by a 3O strategy (Open Science, Open Innovation, Open to Kirkegaard encapsulated at the start of the modern age “Research” is a concept with historical origins and is neo-positivist faith in numbers that can no longer dis- the World), as developed by EU Research Commissioner when he said that although life can only be understood thus susceptible to change. And through digitality, re- criminate between the possible unambiguous nature of Carlos Moedas, is turning the technical level of digitali- backwards, it must be lived forwards. We live in this era search is being transformed in that previously analogue data, the controversial nature of its interpretations and sation currently achieved into a benchmark of research of transformation and, knowingly and unknowingly, data is now available in digital form, allowing it to be the ambivalence of its social consequences of action; policy programme-making. Yet the ideological catch- help shape it, and yet it remains opaque and in many analysed with new methods and research questions. In when the research result is owed to an algorithm which phrase “open” is more likely to obscure the openness the life sciences and physics, for example, data-intensive is, in turn, the result of processes of machine learning? and unpredictability of the Weltenwandel than to address This article is a revised version of an address given by the DFG President at technologies are now making completely new forms of And such epistemological shifts are followed by ques- its conceptualisation seriously and get it moving in the the DFG’s New Year Reception on 15 January 2018 in Berlin. research even possible. Meanwhile, established forms tions from the sociology of science. Because what re- right direction. (continued on page 4) 4 Commentary / In Focus german research 1 / 2018 german