Construction de la légitimité des agences de moyens : le cas du fonds national suisse de la recherche scientifique (1940-2000)

Construction of the Legitimacy of Funding Agencies: the Case of the Swiss National Found of Scientific Research (1940-2000) In some countries, public research is financed by funding agencies. Those agencies operate not only on scientific production, but also on researchers’ credibility cycles. They can be therefore considered as an established power of scientific authority in so far as they participate in distribution of material and ideal means within the scientific field. This paper is concerned about those agencies’ kind of legitimacy and is interested to explore how this legitimacy is constructed. The legitimacy question is interesting in so far as those agencies hold an intermediate position between the political field and the scientific one, that oblige them to consider several social requests. This relational configuration is potentially a tension source in term of legitimacy conception. And because legitimacy is connected with the state of battle of wills and meaning between the political field and the scientific one at a given time of the history of a country, this legitimacy can be put in question. Then, in order to report on plurality of legitimating practices and on its contingence, it’s advisable to develop this analysis on a long time. This paper offers an analysis of the constitution of the legitimacy of one of this agency the Swiss national found of scientific research. Three main periods have been detected the fifties with the creation of the Swiss national found of scientific research and the setting up of grants for fundamental research ; the seventies with the elaboration of national programs aimed to focus research on some defined targets and the nineties with the creation of national poles of research. The three periods shows that legitimating practices are constituent of power relationship and participate to the transformation of the equilibrium between the political field and the scientific one. In an ideal-type way, the evolution of practices of national fund and of its organization can be presented in the following way: in the first period (1950-1960), the national fund receives its legitimacy both from the scientific values and norms and from political institutions. In the second period (1970), the equilibrium is modified as the legitimating practices of the national fund change. These practices are based much more on a political use of science partially altering, as a result, the evaluation criterions of research. Finally, in the third period (1990), the national fund tries to rely its legitimacy much more on scientists in order to gain independence as to politics

AMNIOTE PHYLOGENY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF FOSSILS

Several prominent cladists have questioned the importance of fossils in phylogenctic inference, and it is becoming increasingly popular to simply fit extinct forms, if they are considered at all, to a cladogram of Recent taxa. Gardiner's (1982) and LØvtrup's (1985) study of amniote phylogeny exemplifies this differential treatment, and we focused on that group of organisms to test the proposition that fossils cannot overturn a theory of relationships based only on the Recent biota. Our parsimony analysis of amniote phylogeny, special knowledge contributed by fossils being scrupulously avoided, led to the following best fitting classification, which is similar to the novel hypothesis Gardiner published: (lepidosaurs (turtles (mammals (birds, crocodiles)))). However, adding fossils resulted in a markedly different most parsimonious cladogram of the extant taxa: (mammals (turtles (lepidosaurs (birds, crocodiles)))). That classification is like the traditional hypothesis, and it provides a better fit to the stratigraphic record. To isolate the extinct taxa responsible for the latter classification, the data were successively partitioned with each phylogenetic analysis, and we concluded that: (1) the ingroup, not the outgroup, fossils were important; (2) synapsid, not reptile, fossils were pivotal; (3) certain synapsid fossils, not the earliest or latest, were responsible. The critical nature of the synapsid fossils seemed to lie in the particular combination of primitive and derived character slates they exhibited. Classifying those fossils, along with mammals, as the sister group to the lineage consisting of birds and crocodiles resulted in a relatively poor fit to data; one involving a 2—4 fold increase in evolutionary reversals! Thus, the importance of the critical fossils, collectively or individually, seems to reside in their relative primitive-ness, and the simplest explanation for their more conservative nature is that they have had less time to evolve. While fossils may be important in phylogenetic inference only under certain conditions, there is no compelling reason to prejudge their contribution. We urge systematists to evaluate fairly all of the available evidence.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73857/1/j.1096-0031.1988.tb00514.x.pd

Risk to human health related to the presence of perfluoroalkyl substances in food

Acknowledgements: The Panel wishes to thank the following for their support provided to this scientific output as Hearing experts: Klaus Abraham, Esben Budtz-Jørgensen, Tony Fletcher, Philippe Grandjean, Hans Mielke and Hans Rumke and EFSA staff members: Davide Arcella, Marco Binaglia, Petra Gergelova, Elena Rovesti and Marijke Schutte. The Panel wishes to acknowledge all European competent institutions, Member State bodies and other organisations that provided data for this scientific output. The Panel would also like to thank the following authors and co-authors for providing additional information in relation to their respective studies: Berit Granum, Margie M Peden-Adams, Thomas Webster.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

La fabrique des politiques scientifiques : une approche interprétative de l'action publique

This dissertation analyzes the making of science policies in Switzerland, with a special emphasis on the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) policy, which represents Switzerland's most important public funding agency. The dissertation is organised in two parts.The first one describes how different actors are involved in the development and legitimization of new policy tools. These instruments are designed not only to change the institutional organization of research and its purpose, but also to transform the representations of researchers. Thus, in the study of "National Centre of Competences in Research" (NCCR), established by the National Fund (SNF) in the late 1990s, we have considered this instrument as the embodiment of a normative discourse that proposes new evaluation criteria of scientific excellence. Those new criteria are not only based on the scientific quality of research activities, but also on the quality of its managerial organization. This model articulates normative logic of discovery and experimentation, on the one hand, and the logic of efficiency and productivity, on the other.A second part examines how researchers funded by this research program interpret, negotiate and translate this new interpretive framework in the context of their practices. An approach in terms of "membership categorization" is used to analyze the "mediations" between the policy of the SNF, through its "National Centre of Competences in Research" (NCCR), and the research practices of members of a laboratory funded by this program. This allows us to show that membership categories have been mobilized for the establishment, control and promotion of collectives.In our opinion, this double analytical perspective allows to account for the effectiveness of public policy instruments like the NCCR, understanding those instruments as discourse and power techniques, that is technologies of government.L'objectif de cette thèse est d'analyser la fabrique des politiques scientifiques en Suisse. Dans ce but, un accent particulier a été mis sur la politique du Fonds national suisse de la recherche scientifique (FNS) qui représente l'une des plus importantes sources de financement publique de recherche en Suisse. La thèse est divisée en deux parties.La première explique la manière dont différents acteurs participent à l'élaboration et à la légitimation de nouveaux instruments d'action publique dans le domaine de la recherche. Ces instruments visent non seulement à modifier l'organisation institutionnelle et la finalité de la recherche mais également à transformer les représentations des chercheurs. Ainsi, dans l'étude des « Pôles de recherche nationaux » (PRN), mis en place par le Fonds national (FNS) à la fin des années 1990, nous avons considéré cet instrument en tant que porteur d'un discours normatif qui propose de nouveaux critères d'évaluation de l'excellence scientifique. En effet, ces nouveaux critères ne reposent plus seulement sur la qualité scientifique de la recherche, mais également sur la qualité managériale de son organisation. Un tel modèle normatif articule logique de la découverte et de l'expérimentation, d'une part, et logique de l'efficience et de la productivité, de l'autre.La seconde partie analyse la manière dont les chercheurs, financés par ce programme de recherche, interprètent, négocient et traduisent ce nouveau cadre d'interprétation dans le contexte de leurs pratiques. Une approche en terme de « catégorisation identitaire » a permis d'analyser les « médiations » entre la politique du Fonds national, via son programme « Pôles de recherche nationaux », et les pratiques de recherche des membres d'un laboratoire. Nous montrons ainsi que les catégories identitaires ont notamment été mobilisées pour la constitution, le contrôle et la promotion de collectifs.Cette double perspective analytique permet, selon nous, de rendre compte de l'efficacité d'instruments d'action publique tels que les « Pôles de recherche nationaux » en les comprenant à la fois comme des discours et des technique de pouvoir, à savoir des technologies de gouvernement

The making of research policies : an interpretative perspective of public action

L'objectif de cette thèse est d'analyser la fabrique des politiques scientifiques en Suisse. Dans ce but, un accent particulier a été mis sur la politique du Fonds national suisse de la recherche scientifique (FNS) qui représente l'une des plus importantes sources de financement publique de recherche en Suisse. La thèse est divisée en deux parties.La première explique la manière dont différents acteurs participent à l'élaboration et à la légitimation de nouveaux instruments d'action publique dans le domaine de la recherche. Ces instruments visent non seulement à modifier l'organisation institutionnelle et la finalité de la recherche mais également à transformer les représentations des chercheurs. Ainsi, dans l'étude des « Pôles de recherche nationaux » (PRN), mis en place par le Fonds national (FNS) à la fin des années 1990, nous avons considéré cet instrument en tant que porteur d'un discours normatif qui propose de nouveaux critères d'évaluation de l'excellence scientifique. En effet, ces nouveaux critères ne reposent plus seulement sur la qualité scientifique de la recherche, mais également sur la qualité managériale de son organisation. Un tel modèle normatif articule logique de la découverte et de l'expérimentation, d'une part, et logique de l'efficience et de la productivité, de l'autre.La seconde partie analyse la manière dont les chercheurs, financés par ce programme de recherche, interprètent, négocient et traduisent ce nouveau cadre d'interprétation dans le contexte de leurs pratiques. Une approche en terme de « catégorisation identitaire » a permis d'analyser les « médiations » entre la politique du Fonds national, via son programme « Pôles de recherche nationaux », et les pratiques de recherche des membres d'un laboratoire. Nous montrons ainsi que les catégories identitaires ont notamment été mobilisées pour la constitution, le contrôle et la promotion de collectifs.Cette double perspective analytique permet, selon nous, de rendre compte de l'efficacité d'instruments d'action publique tels que les « Pôles de recherche nationaux » en les comprenant à la fois comme des discours et des technique de pouvoir, à savoir des technologies de gouvernement.This dissertation analyzes the making of science policies in Switzerland, with a special emphasis on the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) policy, which represents Switzerland's most important public funding agency. The dissertation is organised in two parts.The first one describes how different actors are involved in the development and legitimization of new policy tools. These instruments are designed not only to change the institutional organization of research and its purpose, but also to transform the representations of researchers. Thus, in the study of "National Centre of Competences in Research" (NCCR), established by the National Fund (SNF) in the late 1990s, we have considered this instrument as the embodiment of a normative discourse that proposes new evaluation criteria of scientific excellence. Those new criteria are not only based on the scientific quality of research activities, but also on the quality of its managerial organization. This model articulates normative logic of discovery and experimentation, on the one hand, and the logic of efficiency and productivity, on the other.A second part examines how researchers funded by this research program interpret, negotiate and translate this new interpretive framework in the context of their practices. An approach in terms of "membership categorization" is used to analyze the "mediations" between the policy of the SNF, through its "National Centre of Competences in Research" (NCCR), and the research practices of members of a laboratory funded by this program. This allows us to show that membership categories have been mobilized for the establishment, control and promotion of collectives.In our opinion, this double analytical perspective allows to account for the effectiveness of public policy instruments like the NCCR, understanding those instruments as discourse and power techniques, that is technologies of government