RMZ Science Works

Robert K. Merton Zentrum für Wissenschaftsforschung
  • 0.0 (0)
  • SCIENCE
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Der Podcast des Robert K. Merton Zentrums für Wissenschaftsforschung

  1. FEB 4

    Willem Halffman/Serge Horbach: The library and the database: two imaginaries for the research literature

    Two competing imaginaries inform the current wave of innovations in research publishing: one that perceives ‘the literature’ as a library of research accounts, and one that sees it as a gigantic database. While the library portrays acquiring knowledge as an act of reading texts informed by an understanding of their inter-textual setting, the database sees the literature as a collection of verified facts that can be extracted, or ‘mined’. Both imaginaries present different understandings of what the research literature is, of which knowledge is valued in that literature, how it should be curated and what it should be usable for. Using basic notions of socio-technical infrastructures and inspired by the work of Ricœur, we analyse how these imaginaries are at work in current publishing innovations, such as new tools for enriching text with tags for uniquely identified research entities, new publication platforms and formats such as micro-publications or mega-journals, or forms of meta-analysis. We highlight how both imaginaries can derail into phantasmagories and explore how reflecting on their premises can inform productive accommodations of both.

    41 min

  2. JAN 21

    Sebastian Büttner: In der Wissenskrise? Politisierung von Wissen und Expertise als Herausforderung für die Soziologie

    In aktuellen politischen Debatten etwa zur Klimapolitik oder zu Corona ist einmal mehr deutlich geworden, dass es sehr unterschiedliche Vorstellungen zur Rolle, zum Status und zur Geltung von Wissen und Expertise bei gesellschaftlichen Grundsatzfragen gibt. Zwei Extrempositionen markieren dabei den Korridor der aktuellen Debattenlandschaft: Es gibt einerseits die Verfechter:innen einer konsequent wissensbasierten Politik, verkörpert im Slogan “follow the sciences”, andererseits betont antiintellektuelle und wissenschaftsskeptische Positionen, verkörpert im Topos “alternativer Fakten” bei Trump und Co. Dieser Beitrag nimmt diese aktuellen Tendenzen einer wachsenden Politisierung von Wissen und Expertise wissenssoziologisch in den Blick. Diskutiert werden Grundlagen der Expertise-Forschung in der Soziologie und grundlegende normative Färbungen der Debatte. Entgegen der These einer problematischen “Epistemisierung des Politischen” (Bogner) wird hier dafür plädiert, gesellschaftliche Spannungslinien und dahinterstehende Wert-, Verteilungs- und Identitätskonflikte stärker in den Blick zu nehmen als bisher.

    50 min

  3. JAN 7

    Sheena F. Bartscherer/Sven Ulpts/Bart Penders/Sarahanne Field: The (anti)social replication of replication: exploring how replication moves across epistemic communities

    Since claims about a ‘replication crisis’ started to circulate, the concept and practice of replication have gained new momentum. Some communities have started to promote replication indiscriminately as a practice and criterion for research quality irrespective of the diverse research communities’ various conditions and ways of knowledge production. Others have identified a replication drive, which involves moving replication into various research communities. This drive is enacted by incentivizing or demanding replication and related Open Science practices, and forms part of a culture change strategy towards increased replicability. Here, we propose the two-dimensional social replication of replication framework. It describes the process of moving replication across epistemic communities and enables us to understand first how the diverse epistemic communities across the research landscape relate to replication as a concept, practice and evaluative criterion and, second, which changes it undergoes along the way. The framework’s two dimensions are adaptation and adoption. Moving replication into different research communities without sufficient adaptation may lead to a potentially problematic and inappropriate social replication of replication. We thus argue that sustainable and appropriate social replication of replication requires adaptation, or more precisely a process of co-adaptation between replication and a community’s already established technologies of accountability.

    47 min

  4. 12/10/2025

    Marco Seeber: The evolution of the scientific publishing market, its drivers and implications

    The seminar describes the dramatic transformation of the scientific publishing market in the last 30 years. It discusses the forces underpinning this process, its implications for science and scientists, and proposes individual and policy actions to counter some of its problematic aspects.

    39 min

  5. 11/26/2025

    Chérifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri & Jie Xu: The big transformation? Early Career Researchers as they race in the open scholarly world. Perspectives from France and China

    In the ever-changing world of Academia, rules and values are at stake. These form the basis of new regulations, including openness. The Harbinger research project was a six-year international research project investigating the extent to which early career researchers (ECRs) are contributing uniquely to this change, allowing to identify continuums or cracks. This presentation focuses on the results from France and China, shedding light on the shared values of ECRs, their compliance with open science policies, and the differences in their publication, collaboration and socialisation strategies. The presentation will also discuss how these differences in approaching new values and norms contribute to a new research culture,  which may represent a call for a reimagining of Homo Academicus.

    47 min

  6. 11/12/2025

    Jesper W. Schneider: Questionable Research Practices, what are they and so should we worry?

    Prof. Jesper W. Schneider (Aarhus University, Denmark) will introduce and discuss the concepts of questionable research practices and misconduct. We will discuss their alleged widespread use, the suggested reasons why, and the presumed effects they have on the science system, not least their role in the so-called replication crisis. Examples will be given, and we will end by discussing suggested remedies to the challenges. The talk is based on the preprint "Is something rotten in the state of Denmark? Cross-national evidence for widespread involvement but not systematic use of questionable research practices across all fields of research." (https://osf.io/preprints/metaarxiv/r6j3z/) Jesper W. Schneider spoke at the BUA-seminar 'So geht Wissenschaft - Aktuelle Diskussionen zu Open Science und Forschungsqualität', hosted by Professor Martin Reinhart (Humboldt-Universität Berlin/Robert Merton Center for Science Studies).

    42 min

  7. 10/29/2025

    Christian Greiffenhagen: Judging importance before checking correctness: quick opinions in mathematical peer review

    Peer review has never been a uniform practice, but is now more diverse than ever. Despite a vast literature, little is known of how different disciplines organise peer review. This paper draws on 95 qualitative interviews with editors and publishers and several hundred written reports to analyse the organisation of peer review in pure mathematics. This article focuses on the practice of ‘quick opinions’ at top journals in mathematics: asking (senior) experts about a paper’s importance, and only after positive evaluation sending the paper for a full review (which most importantly means checking the paper’s correctness). Quick opinions constitute a form of ‘importance only’ peer review and are thus the opposite of the ‘soundness only’ approach at mega-journals such as PLOS ONE. Quick opinions emerged in response to increasing submissions and the fact that checking correctness in mathematics is particularly time-consuming. Quick opinions are informal and are often only addressed to editors. They trade on, indeed reinforce, a journal hierarchy, where journal names are often used as a ‘members’ measurement system’ to characterise importance. Finally, quick opinions highlight that a key function of the peer-reviewed journal today, apart from validation and filtration, is ‘designation’ – giving authors items on their CV.

    48 min

  8. 10/15/2025

    Monika Krause: The model systems of global science

    The talk explores the role of models and model systems in the production of scientific knowledge in the context of the institutions and inequalities of internationalised science. It discusses formal models and model systems as vehicles for findings that circulate as of relevance across geographic and cultural contexts and asks: How do researchers access these in different geographical contexts and different disciplines? What are the consequences of access and non-access for researchers and the knowledge produced?

    58 min
See All (33)

About

Der Podcast des Robert K. Merton Zentrums für Wissenschaftsforschung

Information

  • Creator
    Robert K. Merton Zentrum für Wissenschaftsforschung
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    33
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Robert K. Merton Zentrum für Wissenschaftsforschung
  • Show Website
    RMZ Science Works