This is a CTP of initiative: Living Knowledge ‐ Wissenschaftsladen Bonn (Germany)
Date: 2013
Keywords: Founding, international collaboration,
Understand: This CTP is a combination of several different events happening at the same time that led the initiative in a new direction.
This CTP is about is about a change in direction, strategy and activities of WILA Bonn that started around 2013, but is still ongoing at the time of this interview. The change in direction was brought about through a change in their general management:
For many many years, until 2013, the head of the science shop was the guy who established the science shop. In the early years, in 1984, and then he retired. And we decided to continue with a team with a general management team and we had a bit of competition here in the science shop. There were two males and two females competing for this new position, or a new old position. And the women won, can we say it like that, but it didn’t split the science shop let me say it like that. It was just going… it was very important, because we had a lot of discussion of the future, of how to move on, how to bolster our activities. How to further develop business on the one hand, but also policy on the other hand, but still keeping the idea of being a self-administered organization.
The retirement of the founder was the trigger for this CTP; although that was an anticipated event, they were waiting for in order to take the next step in their development. One of the changes brought about was the establishment of an advisory board, which pushed them to pursue new activities, to do more in policy in Germany for instance:
They say [the advisory board]: you are such a recognized actor on the international level and you have such a huge number of cards. You should do more to promote the idea of civil society research here in Germany. So being recognized in this field often gives us certain possibilities. So we have to do something because we are here, we are doing it. And we can do more or should do more. And this is what now starts in this year last year and in this year. To think about a new direction of our activities, entering a bit more policy level.
Jens: So that’s a new future CTP?
Interviewee: Yep, and this happened together with the new general management and the establishment of an advisory board. So, this is the last critical turning point.
This new direction is, in a way, dragging them more towards the traditional science shop way of working, facilitating relations between universities and civil society:
Jens: So this new direction that You are trying to take the science shop in – what is it that you specifically is trying to do – what is the plans you are trying to achieve?
Interviewee: It again goes hand in hand with projects. One science shop is the national partner in the RRI project. One science shop is the national partner in the EnRRICH project, which is on curriculum development in responsible research and innovation. So, we have a lot of activities and training running in this field. We try to deepen our cooperation with one university. For example, we now are in a project to do the outreach. They want to have somebody for the outreach on the project, which is on biodiversity activity or biodiversity or bioenergy project here in Bonn. They want, the university wants, to have somebody for the outreach and then we said, okay we can do that, but outreach is not enough, we are going to do the communication in the way science shops should do the communication. Involve civil society in certain processes, which are going to take place in this project in this area. And this is what we now try to do. Take our role as mediators advocates for civil society and bring this role into this kind of activity into a more or less a standardized research project.
The change of direction, getting more involved in policy work and in mediating between universities and civil society, is a combination of their strategy and the circumstances of the moment.
Context
One of the environmental factors is the recognition WILA Bonn has gained during the lifetime through the international projects they have participated in:
Being recognized as an experienced actor in methodology on public engagement. And I think this is again coming back from us and this international experience being active in the development of activities and recommendation and policy papers in this field. And because it is a European idea and European strategy on public engagement. So in Germany nobody no official interested in public engagement. We had our national policy agenda. We had our national policy on science education on open axes but there were no national policy on public engagement. It was all scattered so there were some universities doing that and a couple of science shops doing that in Germany. And… but now we get this policy recognition not only as other science shops as well. We are able to convince policymakers to put money into pilot projects. For example our colleagues from University XX [annonymized name], they managed to get money from their science ministry in lower Saxony to pilot civil society contact points at universities of applied science. So they are in cooperation with three universities of applied science and they are experimenting with the idea of a science shop.
This has given them some kind of leverage to affect policy makers, enabling funding for projects for instance. This also coincides with a general change in the environment, at least as seen by the interviewee:
Sometimes I feel quite alone. Sometimes I am very surprised of how many actors there are in this field and I am very happy to see for example Fraunhofer being active here as well. So, things are happening and it is starting to change and it’s good. And maybe we were ahead of it a bit and now the wave gets bigger.
Actors of relevance
One of the reasons for establishing an advisory board was also to get more connections, and connections to specific areas like universities:
That was one of the ideas, get one advisory board member from the team on science shop, and there is a professor at one university, he was a director now he is retired, but he still have the connection into the university where he is also very experienced in ICT issues. So that was what our idea to have advisory board members who could help us in certain fields for talking to universities… talking to politics etc. etc. but also from their experience. Now there is another one, he is a regional manager of an environmental organization, so is on the environmental sector, and policy we have the state policies […] so this was the idea.
So through this advisory board they get access both to connection in specific contexts, as well as experience.
This CTP is composed of several different events that in the end led to a new direction for WILA Bonn. These events were:
Any of these event could also be considered a CTP in their own right, in this template the choice was just to focus on the new direction of WILA Bonn, and these events were seen as part of that development. Splitting it into different CTPs would give more details, at the cost of a greater number of CTPs to read.
Part of this change also comes from other events unrelated to WILA Bonn specifically, like project calls from the EU, or generational changes, as explained by the interviewee:
So this is all happening now, partly. In my understanding partly because there is a demand from the European commission when it comes to research funding that public engagement or responsible research and innovation has to be considered, or elements of responsible research and innovation has to be considered. Also maybe because there is a generation shift in research or among researchers, younger researchers following now and they are probably more open for new ideas for societal demand.
This wider change in the environment seems to affect all of Germany, and policy makers are actively recognising public engagement activities:
Jens: So you had kind of a renaissance or a second wave of new science shops in Germany?
Interviewee: Yeah I hope so. Next week, we will get an award from our state ministry of science and education for one of our projects on local biodiversity. And she will come to meeting with this biodiversity network we have here. And she will hand over the award. However, she also already said that they are interested in public engagement responsible research and innovation and they intend to set up a network of contacts. I am not really sure how they accommodated it after that. The contact of research and innovation points. The contact points for research and innovation, which are science shops.
In other words, the federal government actively sets up science shop like activities, although the interviewee is currently not sure how it has progressed. However, there have opened several new science shop in Germany over the last couple of years.
The closest this CTP comes to a contestation is during the election of the new general management, where there were 4 contestants. However, the interviewee comments that it did not split the science shop and all the contestations were long-time members of the science shop. Their whole way of operating is also set up to avoid contestations:
Each employee has a vote in decision-making. This is how we started, as we were working with just volunteers, and we sat together, we asked the question and we lifted our arms, and the majority won. Of course you can say that this is one of the disadvantages of democracy… it is always the majority that wins, but this is how we started. And it was even written in the statues how we were going to make decisions in the science shop, and we still keep it and we have let me see 22-23 people allowed to vote in the weekly… we meet every two weeks in the assembly. And this of course is a challenge if you start with a small team, let me say 3 or 4 people, and the board to get to a decision it is very easy, but if you have 20 people and 20 opinions it gets very difficult. So, we developed structures to prepare these decisions and this is working quite well. So, we still use this basic democratic procedure. It is still written in our statues, we don’t want to change that and it’s working very well even with a manager. And as new general managers because they were already working for the science shop for many years before they decided to apply for this position.
Therefore, they have a basic democratic voting system, and they have procedures in place for preparing suggestions and such.
During all the discussions on which direction to take, what activities to engage in etc., there have likely also been different opinions and maybe heated discussions, but it seems from the interview that everyone agrees in the end through the democratic procedure.
The retirement of the founder was predictable and anticipated. Moreover, it seems that they have planned to make some changes upon his retirement, even though the interviewee do not say so explicitly.
The election of a new general management and an advisory board is of course anticipated to the degree that it is actions taken by themselves, forced on by no one. However, it was not a clear course of action if seen several years before.
The options opening up by having an advisory board, the connections they enable, was not clearly anticipated either. There were also a degree of randomness. One of the board members is a local politician who became state secretary about the same time as he accepted to be on the board, and the interviewee originally knew the person partly because their children went to the same kindergarten. Therefore, it is a combination of randomness and planning, as they intentionally tried to get a diverse group of people in the advisory board, with the intention of enabling connections.
The various international projects were anticipated, to some degree. There have been projects running in Living Knowledge more or less continuously since its inception, and there is a clear anticipation that there will be project calls from the EU of relevance for science shops, although the focus changes over time and it not wholly predictable. Which consortium that wins are also not clearly predictable, and there may be competing consortiums of science shops in Living Knowledge applying for the projects.
This CTP is very new, and their new direction is still under way, so it is hard to talk about impact and learning. Learnings from this CTP are many though, but not very obvious.
The new general management were important because they needed change. Although WILA Bonn is democratic, it seems it is still important with a daily manager.
The advisory board already had some impact, as they have pushed WILA Bonn to go more into policy in Germany, and to use the prestige and experience they have gained through the international projects more nationally in Germany. The advisory board have also helped to establish connections with the university, so WILA have started to do more traditional science shop work as well, i.e. connecting civil society with research at the university.
Also, the founder who retired, enabled the new direction they are going. By extension, although the founder brought stability, experience, and a great many connections, he may at the same time also have prevented further development of the initiative while we has still working there. This is an inference, and not apparent from the interview, but a point worth pondering.
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