Scientific policy advice as a socio-epistemic practice: Textual procedures ascribing significance, executive authority and responsibility

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Armin Grunwald; Professorin Dr. Nina Janich
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages ; Practical Philosophy
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 453708784

The aim of this project is to close a conspicuous gap in the research on scientific policy advice. The latter has been, and continues to be, a frequent object above all of various social sciences. It is therefore all the more surprising that up to now there are hardly any linguistic and epistemological text analyses of policy advice. The main hypothesis underlying the project is that science, through a double, epistemic and legitimizing function of its advisory services, is fundamentally confronted with the dilemma of having to maintain scientific credibility and develop political effectiveness at the same time, and that this dilemma is aggravated or defused in different ways depending on the underlying mutual expectations of roles and responsibilities. The project is therefore interested in how the current practice of scientific policy advice in Germany can be more precisely determined linguistically and epistemologically in terms of form, content and function, and how the struggle for epistemic quality and social legitimacy is reflected. Special emphasis is placed on the textual procedures that can be traced in policy advice texts: Which significance is given to knowledge, non-knowledge and controversy? Which different roles, authorities and responsibilities are ascribed to science as well as to politics? Where scientific policy advice is situated between the presentation of scientific findings, political orientation and concrete recommendations for action? How dynamic is it, taken as a socio-epistemic practice, against the actual background of expectations and controversies about scientific policy advice? And to what extent new approaches of reflexive dialogue with politics, the democratisation of science and the hermeneutic perspective on uncertain futures can be proven within the texts in the sense of a reflexive model of scientific policy advice? The idea behind this is to offer a robust interdisciplinary contribution to the longstanding and ongoing debate within the scientific community regarding science’s responsibility in the face of societal challenges and the communication of its insights. The critical self-reflection enabled by this with regard to the language and practices of science is intended as an indirect contribution toward the public legitimation of science as a democratic institution.The analyses are conducted in relation to two issues that serve as examples, namely, bioenergy and water pollution. The corpus consists of texts of selected German institutions of scientific policy advisory, published within the last twenty years.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants