Trust, Quality Assurance and Open Access: Predatory Journals and the Future of the Scholarly Publication System

Chapter in the book The Future of Scholarly Publishing: Open Access and the Economics of Digitisation

The Delusion of Knowledge Transfer

With the rise of the ‘knowledge for development’ paradigm, expert advice has become a prime instrument of foreign aid. At the same time, it has been object of repeated criticism: the chronic failure of ‘technical assistance’ – a notion under which advice is commonly subsumed – has been documented in a host of studies. Nonetheless, international organisations continue to send advisors, promising to increase the ‘effectiveness’ of expert support if their technocratic recommendations are taken up. This book reveals fundamental problems of expert advice in the context of aid that concern issues of power and legitimacy rather than merely flaws of implementation. Based on empirical evidence from South Africa and Tanzania, the authors show that aid-related advisory processes are inevitably obstructed by colliding interests, political pressures and hierarchical relations that impede knowledge transfer and mutual learning. As a result, recipient governments find themselves caught in a perpetual cycle of dependency, continuously advised by experts who convey the shifting paradigms and agendas of their respective donor governments. For young democracies, the persistent presence of external actors is hazardous: ultimately, it poses a threat to the legitimacy of their governments if their policy-making becomes more responsive to foreign demands than to the preferences and needs of their citizens

The conflation of motives of science communication - causes, consequences, remedies

Weingart P, Joubert M. The conflation of motives of science communication - causes, consequences, remedies. JCOM-JOURNAL OF SCIENCE COMMUNICATION. 2019;18(3): Y01.We explore and discuss the diverse motives that drive science communication, pointing out that political motives are the major driving force behind most science communication programmes including so-called public engagement with science with the result that educational and promotional objectives are blurred and science communication activities are rarely evaluated meaningfully. Since this conflation of motives of science communication and the gap between political rhetoric and science communication practice could threaten the credibility of science, we argue for the restoration of a crucial distinction between two types of science communication: educational/dialogic vs promotional/persuasive

The Delusion of Knowledge Transfer

With the rise of the ‘knowledge for development’ paradigm, expert advice has become a prime instrument of foreign aid. At the same time, it has been object of repeated criticism: the chronic failure of ‘technical assistance’ – a notion under which advice is commonly subsumed – has been documented in a host of studies. Nonetheless, international organisations continue to send advisors, promising to increase the ‘effectiveness’ of expert support if their technocratic recommendations are taken up. This book reveals fundamental problems of expert advice in the context of aid that concern issues of power and legitimacy rather than merely flaws of implementation. Based on empirical evidence from South Africa and Tanzania, the authors show that aid-related advisory processes are inevitably obstructed by colliding interests, political pressures and hierarchical relations that impede knowledge transfer and mutual learning. As a result, recipient governments find themselves caught in a perpetual cycle of dependency, continuously advised by experts who convey the shifting paradigms and agendas of their respective donor governments. For young democracies, the persistent presence of external actors is hazardous: ultimately, it poses a threat to the legitimacy of their governments if their policy-making becomes more responsive to foreign demands than to the preferences and needs of their citizens

Differenzierung der Technik oder Entdifferenzierung der Kultur: zur Bedeutung alltäglicher Verwendungszusammenhänge für die Technikentwicklung

Der Autor geht davon aus, dass die Verwendungszusammenhänge von Technik auf komplizierte Beziehungen zwischen Technik und sozialen Handlungsmustern verweisen. Dazu ist es seines Erachtens notwendig, zwischen alltäglichen und professionalisierten Verwendungszusammenhängen zu unterscheiden. Denn es hängt von der Art des Verwendungszusammenhangs ab, ob eine Technik an kulturelle Bedingungen und soziale Handlungsmuster angepasst werden muss, oder umgekehrt, ob sie Handlungsmuster und damit kulturelle Bedingungen ihrerseits verändert. Da kulturelle Differenzierungen im Alltagsleben am stärksten ausgeprägt sind, ist der Anpassungszwang an diese für die Gebrauchstechnik am ehesten gegeben, während die professionalisierte Technik kulturelle Differenzierungen am ehesten erodiert und soziale Handlungsmuster verändert. Die getroffene Unterscheidung ist jedoch - so die These -nur dann sinnvoll, wenn die Verwendungszusammenhänge nicht vollkommen mit einer bestimmten Technik identifiziert werden. Vielmehr müssen unabhängige Veränderungen zwischen Techniken und Verwendungsmustern möglich sein. Solche Typen unabhängig wechselseitiger Veränderungen sind in den gegenläufigen Prozessen von Professionalisierung und Entprofessionalisierung von Technik zu suchen. (ICI2

2+1 flavor QCD with the fixed point action in the ϵ\epsilon-regime

We generated configurations with the approximate fixed-point Dirac operator $D_\mathrm{FP}$ on a $12^4$ lattice with $a \approx 0.13$fm where the scale was set by $r_0$. The distributions of the low lying eigenvalues in different topological sectors were compared with those of the Random Matrix Theory which leads to a prediction of the chiral condensate.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, presented at the XXV International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, July 30 - August 4 2007, Regensburg, German

Die Stellung der Wissenschaft im demokratischen Staat: Freiheit der Wissenschaft und Recht auf Forschung im Verfassungsrecht

Die Wissenschaftsfreiheit und damit die Autonomie der Wissenschaft gegenüber Staat und Gesellschaft ist in der deutschen verfassungsrechtlichen Tradition als Funktionsbzw. Teilhabegrundrecht institutionalisiert. Hier wird der Frage nachgegangen, inwieweit die vielfältigen Begründungen der Reichweite der Schutzrechte – nicht zuletzt im Kontext rezenter wissenschaftspolitischer Entwicklungen – nicht letztlich in Widersprüche zu Prinzipien demokratischer Politik führen

Auf dem Weg in die Wissensgesellschaft

DFG-Graduiertenkolleg am Institut für Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung (IWT), Universität Bielefel

Wissenschaftskommunikation in Deutschland

Pansegrau P, Taubert NC, Weingart P. Wissenschaftskommunikation in Deutschland. Berlin: Deutscher Fachjournalisten Verband; 2011

Changes In Scientific Publishing: A Heuristic For Analysis

Taubert NC, Weingart P. Changes In Scientific Publishing: A Heuristic For Analysis. In: Weingart P, Taubert N, eds. The Future of Scholarly Publishing: Open Access and the Economics of Digitisation. Cape Town: African Minds; 2017: 1-33