GEW-Forderung: 10.000 zusätzliche Stellen und Tenure Track

Die GEW hat sich bereits vor einiger Zeit zu der strukturellen Perspektivlosigkeit von NachwuchswissenschaftlerInnen geäußert. Zum einen fordert sie 10.000 zusätzliche Stellen für den wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchs und damit verlässliche Karrierewege nach dem Modell des Tenure-Track. "Dies heiße, dass die Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler im Falle einer positiven Evaluierung ihrer Hochschule auf eine Professur oder eine unbefristete wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterstelle übernommen werden."
6ooo dieser zusätzlichen Stellen sollen an Frauen vergeben werden, da vor allem zwischen Promotion und Professur viele Frauen die Wissenschaft verlassen würden.

UNQUIET RIVERS AND STORMY OCEANS

I found a very interesting article in Le Monde Diplomatique (June 2010). I thought it was interesting to summarise the main points and discuss the topic. I am not German mother tongue, so I preferred to write in English. Feel free to comment also in German.

Original source: Pablo Jensen[1], « L’histoire des sciences n’est pas un long fleuve tranquille »

THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE IS FAR FROM BEING A QUIET AND LINEAR WATERCOURSE

Science seems to have no sources anymore. Researchers build their own theories on the basis of previous ones. However, the image of a linear flux naturally bringing towards scientific truth is strongly criticised and put into discussion by new social studies on research mechanisms.

Sciences never easily found their place in society. Scientific domains have to coexist with a fundamental contradiction coming from the old ideal that sees “pure science” as isolated from deformations resulting from economic and social contingencies[2]. In the last decades, studies on social history of science, initiated by Alexandre Koyré and Thomas Kuhn[3], transformed the way in which the place of science in society is conceived.

Far from what traditional history tells us[4], sciences’ evolution is not the result of a coherent and linear project, but the one of temporal and spiritual global changes. History of sciences is like a watercourse, flowing towards an unknown ocean, facing obstacles, accidents and bends. Sciences do not discover the world, but build new worlds while holding together humans, machines and natural objects.

It is everyday more clear that the great scientific controversies do not end up with confrontations between erudite rationalists and an obscurantist opinion. More realistically, political debates are generated by discussions between different world views’ partisans. It seems clear, by now, that scientific progresses (such as nanotechnologies and GMO) cannot be judged separately from the social system where they were generated[5].

The great challenge is, then, to find a way to link researchers with a civil society that, on one side, remains submitted and controlled by a multiplicity of influences, but, on the other side, does not accept anymore a passive role.

Let’s discuss about it...

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[1] Researcher at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and at the Ecole normale supérieure de Lyon, author of the essay “Des atomes dans mon café crème. La physique peut-elle tout expliquer ?”, Seuil, coll. « Points sciences », Paris, 2004.

[2] Rapport des états généraux de la recherche, www.ladocumentationfrançaise.fr

[3] See Alexandre Koyré, Du monde clos à l’univers infini, Gallimard, Paris, 2005 (1 éd. : PUF, 1962). Thomas Kuhn, La Structure des révolutions scientifiques, Flammarion, Paris, 2008 (1 éd. : 1962).

[4] See for example Georges Barthélemy, Histoires des sciences,Elipses, Paris, 2009.

[5] Christophe Bonneuil et coll., « Innover autrement? La recherche face à l’avènement d’un nouveau régime de production et régulation des savoirs en génétique végétale », dans Dossiers de l’environnement de l’INRA, n. 30, Institut national de la recherche agronomique, Paris, 2006.