Suchergebnisse

Future political priorities for science and technology (S&T) policy formulation usually rest on a rather simplistic interpretation of past events. This can lead to serious errors and distortions and can negatively affect the innovation system. In this article we try to highlight the riskiness involved in policy making based on traditional R&D indicators and trends. We would emphasise that this approach does not take account of structural aspects crucial for the analysis of the innovation system. We examine the implications for science, technical and human resources policies of the political challenge of R&D convergence in a peripheral EU region. Three scenarios are developed based on application of the same criteria to the trends observed in traditional R&D input indicators.

The objective of the present essay is to show that the traditional dilemma of philosophy, namely, does science think or does not think, has today become the problem that science itself has to solve. To assert that science thinks means first that science, when it thinks, constructs its object in an always specific manner; second, in construing its object, it adds to it the real, i.e., a reference, external to the scientific construction itself, which science then discovers as the basis and source of its construction. This article argues that it is for strictly scientific reasons that science is today faced with the task of affirming itself as a domain of thought in both aforementioned meanings. Affirming the view that science thinks is a scientific struggle for the existence of politics of emancipation.

Cover; Contents; Preface; Acknowledgements; A Note to the Reader; Part I: Taking History as it Comes; 1. The Long Apprenticeship; 2. Entering History; Part II: The World Upside Down; 3. Political Struggle; 4. Political Agency; 5. Political Purpose; Part III: Thinking Differently; 6. History is Now; 7. The Long Revolution; Coda: 'I Was, I Am, I Shall Be'; Glossary; Notes; References; Index

The forest policy research with quantitative approaches is limited especially in the research fields of policy transfer and science-policy interface at the local government level. As a context of the citizen science and the science-policy interface, the attitudes of the Japanese local governments vary from municipality to municipality. For example, certain local governments proactively introduce participation of citizen in forest policy making and its implementation, while such attitudes or policies are absent for others. Where comes such differences amongst municipalities? This study conducts empirical analysis at local policy level, which has been largely overseen. In concrete terms, trends of adoption of local ordinances of forest planning in Japanese prefectures and participatory monitoring activities in forest lands are reviewed and analyzed. This study examines the relationships between political factors, social economic factors, and policy diffusion. We have looked at the various factors including local demographics, size of administrative areas, government structure, percentage of forest lands and net forestry production in local government to examine the differences. The results reveal the significant impacts of behavior of neighboring local governments. In other words, if a neighboring body acts, others will follow. The perceptions of the governors who are not from conservative political party seems to be a factor to motivate local governments to introduce the local ordinances of forest planning which encourage citizen to participate forest managements and forest policy making processes. Furthermore, participatory monitoring is a useful tool in citizen science and the number of biodiversity monitoring activities is increasing in Japan as well as other Asian countries such as Korea. The local ordinances of forest planning can influence the monitoring activities. The focus of recent monitoring activities based on citizen science in Japan is changing from "scientists use citizens as data collectors" to "citizens as scientists" under the recent development of data science. Alternatively, sharing, collecting and analyzing data in effective manner with participations remains as future challenges for data science.

"Secularism is often imagined in Thomas Jefferson's words as 'a wall of separation between Church and State'. This book moves past that standard picture to argue that secularism is a process that reshapes both religion and politics. Borrowing a term from religious traditions, the book goes further to argue that this process should be understood as a process of conversion. Matthew Scherer studies Saint Augustine, John Locke, John Rawls, Henri Bergson and Stanley Cavell to present a more accurate picture of what secularism is, what it does, and how it can be reimagined to be more conducive to genuine democracy"--