The changing identity of research: A cultural and conceptual history

Abstract

Purposeful seeking of knowledge or new ways of applying knowledge, through careful consideration, experimentation and study (p. 11).

Prospecting the attachment research field: a move to the level of engagement

“…Duschinsky and colleagues (Duschinsky, 2020;Reijman et al, 2018) have documented factors that have made this interaction particularly strained, but it should be recognized as a wider issue. Godin and Schauz (2016) describe the shift from science being a central cultural value to a subsidiary issue in the public sphere, with "research" becoming an umbrella term that includes but is not necessarily limited to research with a scientific purpose. Their historical overview describes the commodification of research to deliver public and private goods.…”

Integrating the history of science into broader discussions of research integrity and fraud

“…Along these lines, Benoît Godin and Désirée Schauz have traced the definitional expansion of the term "research" since the early twentieth century and its subsequent restriction to mean laboratory research and marginalization as an explanation for economic progress. 28 Similarly, Schauz and David Kaldewey contrast the pure/applied science dichotomy with the discursive distinction historically drawn between "basic" and "applied" research, examining the latter through the method of conceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte). They explain that: "Dichotomies such as 'pure versus applied science' or 'basic versus applied research' played an important role within the development of modern science policy across national borders by building on and transforming values that had been previously conveyed in the ancient and early modern distinction between 'theory' and 'practice'."…”

Official statisticians as conceptual innovators

“…The above two situations can be explained by two facts. On one hand, in the first decades of the twentieth century, research was first of all an academic category, and its application to other institutions, above all businesses, was far from evident or accepted (Godin and Schauz, 2016). On the other hand, innovation was for centuries a (contested) social category that was just starting to become, with no precedent yet, a category of knowledge (Godin, 2015).…”

“…Nevertheless, the national framework -measuring research in the overall economygave rise to a conception of research as a "whole" (Godin and Schauz, 2016). The concept of research applies to every institutional sector of the economy -university, government and industry.…”