Professor:innen im Spannungsfeld zwischen Wissenschaft, Politik und Gesellschaft (ProWisPol)

Contact:

Please contact Dr. Nadin Fromm for information on the project.

Project team/cooperation:

• Prof. Dr. Sylvia Veit (University of Kassel)
• Prof. Dr. Markus Seyfried (University of Applied Sciences for Police and Public Administration NRW)
• Dr. Nadin Fromm (University of Kassel)
• Jonas Schmitt (student assistant)

Duration:

November 2021 - November 2023

Summary:

Crisis management shows how central scientific expertise can be for political decision-making processes and how much influence individual scientists can exert. The increasing importance of evidence-based decisions and the associated institutionalized and non-institutionalized advisory arrangements in politics offer opportunities for understanding and further development on the one hand. On the other hand, however, they also open up a target. This is because science and politics follow different logics of action and time horizons. If politics and science interact too closely, scientific expertise can come under suspicion as a potentially tendentious source of legitimacy and the quality and credibility of scientific research can be called into question. This not only puts pressure on politics, but also has an impact on the actors in the science/university system.

The research project examines the political attitudes and perspectives of Professors on the tense relationship between politics, science and society. In doing so, it addresses several research gaps: Firstly, little is known about the political attitudes of Professors at German universities. Secondly, there is hardly any research on Professors' views on the tensions between science, politics and society in different disciplinary contexts. Thirdly, there is little systematic knowledge about the concrete knowledge transfer and consulting activities of Professors and their motives, recruitment patterns and role perceptions in this regard.

In order to close these research gaps, two empirical sub-studies will be conducted. In a first step, Professors from selected subject areas (Islamic Studies, Law, Medicine, Philosophy, Political Science, Physics) will be interviewed with the help of an online survey regarding their views on the tensions between science, politics and society. Once the quantitative sub-study has been completed, a qualitative interview study with selected university professors will follow in the second step. The aim of the interviews is to gain in-depth knowledge of the self-perception of these university professors in the context of science-based transfer and policy advice activities.

Would you like to know more about the project? Then please get in touch with us.