This paper discusses the uses of peer review for science policy and government funding (grant proposal evaluations) decisions.

This is a submission to the "Interrogating the social realities of information and communications systems pre-conference workshop, ASIST AM 2006". Digital photography has widely replaced film in recent years, yet there has been relatively little research into digital photography as a socio-technical phenomenon. This project examines the computerization of scientific photography among marine mammal researchers. Scientists studying marine mammals use photo-identification to identify individual animals (whales, dolphins, etc.) in their research, and have recently widely switched to digital photography. This study examines ways in which scientists' work practices, communication patterns, relationships, and behaviors have changed by applying Kling's Socio-Technical Interaction Network (STIN) strategy. STIN integrates the social and technical to develop a nuanced understanding of technology and extends Actor-Network Theory.

The Triple Helix of university-industry-government relations is elaborated into a systemic model that accounts for interactions among three dimensions. By distinguishing between the respective micro-operations, this model enables us to recombine the â Mode 2â thesis of a new production of scientific knowledge and the study of systems of innovation with the neo-classical perspective on the dynamics of the market. The mutual information in three dimensions provides us with an indicator for the self-organization of the resulting network systems. The probabilistic entropy in this mutual information can be negative in knowledge-based configurations. The knowledge base of an economy can be considered as a second-order interaction effect among interactions at interfaces between institutions and functions in different spheres. Proximity enhances the chances for couplings and, therefore, the formation of technological trajectories. The next-order regime of the knowledge base, however, can be expected to remain pending as selection pressure.

The doctrine of affinity deserves to be recognised by historians of chemistry as the foundational basis of the discipline of chemistry as it was practiced in Britain during the 18th century. It attained this status through its crucial structural role in the pedagogy of the discipline. The importance of pedagogy and training in the practice of science is currently being reassessed by a number of historians, and my research contributes to this historiographical endeavour. My analysis of the variety of theories sheltered under the umbrella term ‘affinity theory’ has emphasised the role of pedagogy in influencing both the structure and the content of knowledge. I have shown that there were wide ranging discrepancies between many of the components of individual affinity theories. Nevertheless, the scope of divergence was limited. This underlying organisation resulted from the unifying hub of affinity theory, the logical common ground. This was the essence of the doctrine of affinity, encompassing the law of affinity and the conceptualisation of the table that brought together the relations described in the law. The doctrine of affinity thus provided a disciplinary common ground between chemists, providing a mediating level of understanding and communication for all those who subscribed to the doctrine of affinity, in spite of their detailed differences.

This thesis progresses from a ‘science and technology studies’ (STS) perspective to consider the ways that expert stakeholders perceive and communicate uncertainties and risks attached to carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS) research and development, and how this compares with policy framings and regulatory requirements. The work largely falls within the constructivist tradition in sociology, but also draws on literature from the philosophy of science and policy-­‐oriented literature on risk and uncertainty. CCS describes a greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation technology system that involves the capture, pressurisation, transportation, geological injection and long-­‐term storage of CO2 as an alternative to atmospheric emissions. Only few and relatively small applications exist at the moment and research efforts are on going in many countries. The case for developing CCS towards large-­‐scale, commercial deployment has largely been presented as follows since the mid-­‐ 1990s: climate change mitigation is the developed world’s historical responsibility and must be addressed urgently; chief amongst GHGs is CO2, which makes up more than three quarters of emissions; the vast majority of CO2 is emitted from the combustion and gasification of hydrocarbons – oil, gas and coal – for energy generation; transitioning away from these high-­‐CO2 primary energy sources will likely take several decades at the least; therefore, CO2 capture systems should be designed for power and industrial emissions in developed countries, as well as emerging economies where energy suppliers will continue to construct relatively cheap and well understood high-­‐CO2 generation plants. The development of large-­‐scale CO2 capture has thus arisen from a concern with engineering a technological system to address a CO2 legacy in the developed world, and a high-­‐CO2 trajectory in developing/emerging countries, rather than on the back of purely scientific curiosity. And the potential for large-­‐scale development has been presented on the back of a variety of scientific and technical evidence, as well as the urgency of the policy objective and related aims. Research activities, often concentrated around technology demonstration projects, are the primary focus of the first part of this thesis. In the second part I consider the extent to which research has shaped policy developments, and how regulations have subsequently informed a more detailed research agenda. I follow a ‘grounded theory’ methodology as developed by Glaser and Strauss (1967) and take additional guidance from Glaser’s (1992) response to Strauss’ later writings as well as Charmaz (2006) and Rennie (2000), and use a mix of qualitative and quantitative analytical methods to assess my data. These include information from 60 semi-­‐structured interviews with geoscientists and policy stakeholders; close readings of scientific publications, newspaper articles, policies and regulatory documents; statistical evidence from a small survey; quantitative analysis of newspaper articles; and social network analysis (SNA) of scientific co-­‐authorship networks. Theory is drawn from STS literature that has been appropriate to address case study materials across each of the 7 substantive chapters. The first section of the thesis considers expert claims, with a focus on geoscience research, and draws on literature from the closely related ‘social shaping of technology’ (SCOT) and ‘sociology of scientific knowledge’ (SSK) programmes, as well as Nancy Cartwright’s philosophy of science. The second half of the thesis draws on the ‘co-­‐production’ framework and Wynne’s (1992) terminology of risk and uncertainty, to assess relations between risk assessment and risk management practices for CCS. I likewise draw on literature from the ‘incrementalist’ tradition in STS to ask whether and how understandings of technology risk, governance and deployment could be improved. Each chapter presents new empirical material analysed with distinct reference to theories covered in the introduction. Chapter 2 provides a general overview of the history, technology, economics and key regulatory issues associated with CCS, which will be useful to assess the theoretically driven arguments in subsequent chapters. Chapter 3 draws on the concept of ‘interpretive flexibility’ (Pinch and Bijker 1984) to assess a range of expert perceptions about uncertainties in science, technology and policy, and I develop a substantive explanation, ‘conditional inevitability’, to account for an epistemic tension between expressions of certitude and the simultaneous acknowledgement of several uncertainties. Chapter 4 continues the enquiry into stakeholder perceptions and draws on Haas’ notion of ‘epistemic communities’ (Haas 1992) to assess geoscientists’ work practices. I complement this framing with a close look at how uncertainty is treated in simulation modelling and how conclusions about storage safety are formulated, by drawing on Nancy Cartwright’s philosophy of science (Cartwright 1999) and Paul Edwards’ account of complex system modelling for climate change (Edwards 2010). The chapter shows how shared understandings of adequate evidence and common analytical tools have been leveraged to present relatively bounded and simple conclusions about storage safety, while geoscientists nevertheless recognise a high degree of uncertainty and contingency in analyses and results. Chapter 5 continues the focus on knowledge production in the geosciences and is supported by SNA data of workflow patterns in the Sleipner demonstration project. The analysis shows how a few actors have had a pivotal role in developing insights related to storage safety particularly on the back of seismic monitoring and other data acquired through industry partnerships. I therefore continue the chapter with a deconstruction of how seismic data has been used to make a case for the safety of CO2 storage, again drawing on Cartwright and others (Glymour 1983) to explain how individual findings are ‘bootstrapped’ when conclusions are formulated. I show how a general case about storage safety has emerged on the back of seismic data from Sleipner as well as a shared understanding among geoscientists of how to account for uncertainties and arrive at probable explanations. Chapter 6 considers to what extent scientific research has given shape to, and in turn been shaped by, CCS policy and regulations in the EU, drawing on Wynne’s (1992) terminology of risk and uncertainty as well as legal scholarship (Heyvaert 2011). I conclude that a ‘rational-­‐instrumental’ interpretation of uncertainty and precaution has furnished a compartmentalised understanding of risk assessment and risk management practices. Chapter 7 continues to look at the ways that risk assessment methodologies influence risk management practices through a case study of the Mongstad CCS demonstration project in Norway. I draw on ‘incrementalist’ literature (Lindblom 1979; Woodhouse and Collingridge 1993) to consider alternative conceptualisations of technology development and risk management when expectations clash with scientific uncertainties and criticism. Chapter 8 draws on insights from across STS (Downs 1972; Collingridge and Reeve 1986; Wynne 1992) to create a novel conceptual model that accounts for recent years’ developments in CCS governance. Here I conclude that setbacks and criticisms should be expected when analyses have largely presented CCS as a technical problem rather than a socially contingent system. Following Stirling (2010) I conclude that scientists and policymakers should instead strive to present complexity in their analyses and to engage with wider publics (Yearley 2006) when technical analysis is inseparable from socially mediated indeterminacies (Wynne 1992), to increase the chance of more successful engagement practices (Wynne 2006). The conclusions at the end of the thesis seek to draw out interpretive and instrumental lessons learned throughout.

Self-tracking practices are growing in popularity worldwide. From heart-rate monitoring to mood tracking, many believe that wearable technologies are making their users more mindful in exclusively positive ways. However, I will argue that consistent and deliberate self-tracking (with or without portable devices) necessitates a particular understanding of the self with consequences that have yet to be fully explored. Through an analysis of forum posts on a popular self-tracking discussion and informational site, QuantifiedSelf.com, I will claim that self-trackers approach the creation of self-knowledge in a manner that is particular to today’s society. I will discuss how the ubiquitous conflation of numerical identities with objective reasoning feeds into a mindset that supports quantification of the self, and how the views of self exhibited by these self-trackers can be considered a version of creating a “scientific self.” The notion of the scientific self supports both an individual and societal shift in the practice of “being”—a shift that carries with it many possible repercussions that have yet to be widely analyzed. This analysis, I will argue, is key to limiting the destructive potential of understanding people in terms of data, while simultaneously enabling new conceptualizations of self to be practiced in modern society.

European Journal of Social Theory 10(3)(2007; forthcoming) / Forthcoming in 2007 in the European Journal of Social Theory 10 (3). The intellectual organization of the sciences cannot be appreciated sufficiently unless the cognitive dimension is considered as an independent source of variance. Cognitive structures interact and co-construct the organization of scholars and discourses into research programs, specialties, and disciplines. In the sociology of scientific knowledge and the sociology of translation, these heterogeneous sources of variance have been homogenized a priori in the concepts of practices and actor-networks. Practices and actor-networks, however, can be explained in terms of the self-organization of the cognitive code in scientific communication. The code selects knowledge claims by organizing them operationally in the various discourses; the claims can thus be stabilized and potentially globalized. Both the selecting codes and the variation in the knowledge claims remain constructed, but the different sub-dynamics can be expected to operate asymmetrically and to update with other frequencies.

Practitioners of ecological restoration are increasingly adopting a genetic perspective when recreating historical landscapes. Genes are often endowed with the capacity to reveal specific and distinct relationships between organisms and environments. In this dissertation, I examine how genetic technologies and concepts are shaping ecological restoration practices. This research is based on two and a half years of fieldwork in Chicago. I employed participant observation and semi-structured interviews to compare how restorationists in two plant science institutions employ genetic concepts in their projects. One institution uses high-tech genetic methods to guide practice while the other uses lower-tech genetic approaches. Each group has distinct, yet internally diverse ways of deciding which seeds are ‘local enough’ to be included in a project. This research theorizes how classification differences regarding native seeds are part of a broader set of genetic logics I refer to as ‘genetic epistemologies’. Specifically, I ask how genetic technologies circumscribe different ways of seeing and making landscapes. I compare how restorationists delineated valid seed sourcing regions for restoration projects based on their genetic definitions of ‘native’ species. Drawing from science & technology studies, political ecology, and cultural landscape geography, I illustrate how restorationists incorporate cultural preferences, funding imperatives, aesthetics, and discourses about nature into their particular genetic epistemology. From this research, I offer the following conclusions. By incorporating genetic technology into ecological restoration, many practitioners feel their work will achieve more precision. Yet this perspective is typical of those who do not directly use genetic technologies. Scientists using direct genetic analyses are much more reserved about the potential of their technologies to match organisms to environments. Second, individuals or groups often come into conflict when attempting to apply different genetic epistemologies to the same problem. These conflicts are resolved in the course of planning and implementing a restoration project. Finally, direct genetic methods are only useful in restoration work involving rare or endangered species. Despite the limited utility of genetic technology in restoration, this approach is becoming influential. Chicago’s high-tech plant science institution is discursively reshaping the goals and approaches of native plant institutions that do not use these technologies.

Direct-to-Consumer advertisements allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise prescription drugs directly to consumers. Increasingly, marketing executives employed by pharmaceutical companies are shifting the focus of these advertisements from promoting the drug as a product, to promoting illness in general. Pharmaceutical companies defend this movement saying the advertisements have an educational function to "inform" consumers.

Authors: E. Bassecoulard, D. deB. Beaver, H.-J. Czerwon, M. Davis, K. Fuchs-Kittowski, L. Fuglsang, S. Gerasimova, W. Glänzel, J. Gläser, Y. Guo, F. Havemann, H. Kretschmer, R. Kundra, L. Lange, G. Laudel,,L. Liang, Z. Liu, U. Matzat, à . Must, Y. Okubo, R. Rousseau, S.L. Sangam, D. Tomov, R. Wagner-Döbler, Y. Wang, V. Wenzel, C.S. Wilson, Y. Wu, M. Zitt