Maja Breznik, Rastko Močnik

Research Policies in Practice: the Social Sciences and the Humanities(“Themes-oriented” application call, Slovenian Research Agency, 2005)

Accelerated transformations of scientific practices do not offer much occasion for serious

reflection. Educational and research priorities are defined in a process to which people from

the field have little access.1 The demand for economic impact of science and commercial

success of scientific practices, moreover, limits the operational scope of sciences and block

reflection on scientific practices and their effects upon society. In social sciences and the

humanities that may have little impact on commercial performance, the reconsideration of

scientific practices is, roughly speaking, held back. This seems particularly true about the

situation of social sciences and the humanities in the South-East European region. There are at

least two main reasons for this.

The first reason is general and banal. The humanities and social sciences remain in the

shadow of natural and technical sciences. Societies that identify economic growth as the most

important impetus for social development, appreciate the scientific endeavour mostly as far as

it produces innovations that can swiftly be transformed into profitable market products.

Consequently, it is the type of local economy that decides which kind of science will mostly

be needed and, accordingly, appreciated. Social sciences and the humanities will find fields of

economically profitable application in economies that are intensely concerned with the

conception of new products and their launching, i.e., with the two extremes of the production

chain. Such are the economies in the centre of the world-system.2 However, peripheral

economies, such as those of the S-E Europe, mostly engage in the intermediate stages of the

production chain, i.e., in the material production. There, social sciences and the humanities do

not have much application. To the best, they can contribute to better management and to the

governance techniques: however, this knowledge is now massively imported from the core-

1 The "themes [of the competition of 2005] were determined by the ministry [of higher education, science and technology] on the basis of the guidelines proposed by 'The group for priorities', composed of the heads of development of successful Slovene enterprises" ("Orientations of the Ministry of higher education, science and technology for the attribution of budget funds for research priorities in the year 2005", p. 1, § 3). – The call was immediately criticised precisely on this point. Prof. dr. Frane Adam, now member of the Scientific Council of the Slovenian Research Agency, made the following harsh assessment: "The themes are definitely the most controversial aspect of the call. It has happened for the first time that the themes for basic and applicative projects had been defined in advance. […] Who has invented them? We have been told that all the themes had been proposed by representatives of enterprises (?) […] This is a scandal and an unprecedented arrogance. […] it contradicts the autonomy of science and the principles of functional differenciation and specialisation." (Frane Adam, "Bosta humanistika in družboslovje samo še za okras?" [Will the humanities and the social sciences remain only as an ornament?], Nova revija, vol. XXIV, nos. 277-278-279, May-June-July, 2005, pp. 120 – 121.) 2 "In the new international division of labour, the rich tend to sell immaterial goods and to buy material goods." Daniel Cohen, Trois leçons sur la société post-industrielle, Seuil, Paris, 2006, p. 53.

countries in the pre-packed form of know-how that does not need additional research, or

simply imposed by the patterns of organisation required by the transnational partners and/or

owners. Local social and human science is in this way largely considered as not being useful,

and is excluded from the fields where it could eventually find specific applications. The

competitiveness of the humanities and social sciences in the local S-E European “research

markets” is considerably limited, and their reputation is proportionally low. Consequently, the

humanities and social sciences remain “silent” in proportion to their “fruitlessness”.

The second reason is even more particularly valid for the South-Eastern European region.

These societies were politically defeated along with their hegemonic social engineering after

the fall of communism. Social scientists in these countries are, consciously or not, placed in

the position of the “vanquished” and are compelled to give the “conquerors” a due

recognition. Consequently, social scientists from the region promptly assume hegemonic

Western theoretical (or "theoretical") models, fashionable jargons, methodologies, and

scientific practices to transplant them into the local social contexts without due

reconsideration. Uncritical westernization of their research fields does not really equip them

for self-reflective criticism.3

The question of "defeat" certainly gets more complicated if we consider the high quality of

theoretical production in the region before the change of socio-economic systems.4 There has

been no inherent theoretical reason for the demise of this production during the nineties. Quite

the contrary: theory and research were strong and productive during the period from the

sixties to, and through, the eighties, they were critically intervening into the local social and

political life and often produced important political effects5, they were entertaining a

sustained dialogue with the contemporary production in the world, and developed a scholarly

dialectic of their own (internal debates, generational conflicts, "schools" and deviations, splits

and mergers, heresies and orthodoxies etc.). However, these trends in theoretical production

and research never succeeded to gain much institutional support. They were tolerated at

universities and institutes, often reduced towards the margins of their institutional 3 There are two main and largely visible symptoms of the intellectual defeat of the region: 1. researchers from the region act as providers of the material that is to be processed in the core academic and research centres; 2. what original research may still be performed in the region, is streamlined by the core-models which presuppose that the region is still inapt for full integration into the contemporary civilised (democratic, free etc.) world, and pin-point the foci of this inadequacy, thereby shaping the basic epistemic and policy approaches: ethnic strife, identity malaise, religious intolerance, unfinished or unsuccessful modernisation, burden of the past, traditionalism etc.4 E.g., the Praxis school in Yugoslavia, the "Budapest school" in Hungary, later also "the materialist theory", mostly centred in Ljubljana; and many individual achievements.5 E.g., important limitation of an educational reform at the beginning of the eighties in Yugoslavia; the conquest of the freedom of expression in the public media from 1985 on (esp. in Slovenia); abolition of the death-penalty in Slovenia (1989).

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constructions, and from time to time exposed to purges.6 Their presence in other cultural

apparatuses (publishing, journals, the media) was weak; however, public impact of theoretical

production in social sciences and the humanities, and its general importance was increasing

during the eighties, especially with the affirmation of the alternative cultures and the

alternative politics (the "new social movements"). With the change of the system, institutional

weakness of theoretical production became fatal: it was the institutionally established parts of

research and scholarship, the mainstream that easily survived the changes and adapted to the

new context – basically carrying on its old social role, albeit under the new conditions. The

development in the field of theoretical production was somewhat parallel to the development

in the political field: in the political sphere as well, it was the "mainstream" that successfully

survived the transformation of the system, re-articulated itself to follow the transformation of

the mono-party to the multi-party organisation of the field, changed the ideological discourse,

but basically carried on the old tasks of political monopoly, domination and control. In the

political sphere, too, it was the new social movements and other alternative trends that were

the victims to the "transition": marginalised and institutionally weak under the previous

arrangements, they were successfully liquidated by the mainstream actors, who could use

their well-established position under the previous system in order to secure the monopoly of

political power within the new context.7 These drastic discontinuities in theoretical production

in social sciences and the humanities that had no "immanent" cause in theoretical work itself,

but were the effect of institutional arrangements, power-relations and other "extraneous"

conditions in a wider context of deep social transformation, remind us how decisive is the

impact of seemingly "heteronymous" factors upon the development of science and research.

This paper is going to investigate contemporary research policies and practices in Slovenia.

The study will take under scrutiny legal documents, administrative regulations, project-

financed programmes, general rules for the application call in 2005 and all research proposals

submitted to this call. We will here focus upon the social sciences only, since the field of the

humanities will be analysed in a separate study. Both studies will hopefully provide some

material for serious future reflection. Our investigation has been limited by its financial frame

and the time schedule. Hopefully, our studies will at least point to some general trends and

will encourage future more profound examination of the nature of changes in social sciences

and the humanities and of their effects upon society.6 For the removal of the Praxis group from the teaching process at the University of Belgrade, see: Nebojša Popov, Contra fatum. Slučaj grupe profesora Filozofskog fakulteta u Beogradu 1968-1988 [Contra fatum. The case of the group of professors at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, 1968-1988], Mladost, Belgrade, 1989.7 For a contemporary account of these processes, see, e.g.: Rastko Močnik, Koliko fašizma? [How much fascism?], ISH, Ljubljana, 1996, and arkzin, Zagreb, 1999.

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* * *

Within the general frame shortly outlined above, we investigated the application call for the

social sciences and the humanities in 2005 organised by the Slovenian Research Agency8.

This call was the first themes-oriented basic and applied research contest in Slovenia.

Additionally, we analysed Slovene and European legal and administrative documents in order

to reconstruct the inherent logic of the policies and the argumentation strategies of the

involved actors. We wanted to find out the general conditions of research as they were

designed for the application call in 2005. We also wanted to include the response of the

scientific community to the new research conditions. We accordingly analysed all the project

proposals submitted, those selected and those rejected. We wanted to know, on one side, what

were the selection criteria that were used in evaluation of research proposals. On the other

side, we wanted to asses the epistemological approaches developed in the projects, and also

the eventual “adaptation” strategies that were adopted by research teams and communities.

We took under closer examination the application call for themes-oriented basic, applied and

post-doctoral research in 2005.9 Slovenian Research Agency kindly delivered us the essential

content-defining parts of all the applications in the social and human sciences.10 For each

proposal, we had access to texts related to the fractions “General starting-points” and

“Summary”. We had on our disposal anonymous descriptions of the projects without the

names of the applying researchers and without the indication of their institutional affiliation.

We organised the material by ranking the submitted proposals according to the sum-total of

evaluation points they had been awarded, and ascribed them ordinary numbers that indicated

their rank.

The creation of a thematic-oriented research programme was a novelty introduced that year;

the evaluation procedure was also designed in a new way that distinguished this call from

previous evaluation and selection arrangements. The “Resolution on national research and

development programme” that was adopted later, is presenting this evaluation procedure as a

novelty: however, it was already used in 2005, precisely in the competition that was the object

8 The official name in Slovene is “Javna agencija za raziskovalno dejavnost Republike Slovenije” – "Public agency for research activity of the Republic of Slovenia". We use the English expression that figures on the official documents of the Agency and at its website.9 Three calls for research projects are regularly launched every year in Slovenia:

Themes-oriented basic, applied and post-doctoral research projects, Aim-oriented research projects “Competitive Slovenia”, Aim-oriented research projects “Science for Security and Peace”.

The application call for aim-oriented research “Competitive Slovenia” was not held in 2005. 10 We wish to express our thanks to Janez Slak, PhD, Deputy Director, Slovenian Research Agency, who generously provided the material.

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of our analysis. The document claims that the evaluation system shall be designed after “the

model of leading European countries, and will guarantee the highest possible objectivity of

evaluation”11. The evaluation process was in fact in a great part designed after the European

Commission’s “Guidelines on proposal evaluation and selection procedures” for the Sixth

Framework Programme.

Evaluators examined proposals individually and awarded them evaluation points from 1 to 5,

according to the particular criteria defined in advance. Additionally, there were certain

thresholds in the procedure. The evaluation was successively performed by two independent

groups of evaluators, the first one international and the second one domestic. After the first

round of evaluation (performed by international experts), the twenty percent of proposals that

had obtained the lowest number of points were removed from further evaluation; the projects

that, in each of the categories of the call, had obtained the highest number of points, were

automatically selected (without being submitted to further evaluation). In the next phase, the

evaluation was conducted by Slovene Council of Science. The Council appointed one

domestic expert for each field to evaluate the rest of the projects. When the reviews were

completed, members of the Council, each for her or his own field, made their lists of project

proposals that they recommended for financing. Besides the evaluation points, they had to

take into consideration other criteria: quantitative indicators of researchers (like citation

indexes, publications, patents…), the estimation of research group’s capability to carry out the

proposed project. They could rely on their own estimation as well. When the lists were ready,

the Council of Science discussed the proposals and took final decisions about the financing of

projects.12

The evaluation procedure in 2005 was therefore already designed after the model of “leading

European countries” (i.e., the European Commission). The novelty was also that it involved

foreign experts in the first phase of evaluation. The following analysis is going to provide a

view into the results of such an evaluation and selection of research projects.

An expertise at the top

11 “Uveljavitev novega ekspertnega sistema za evalvacijo projektov in ostalih razpisanih kategorij po vzoru evropskih držav, ki bo jamčil za največjo objektivnost ocenjevanja.” Published in: “Resolucija o nacionalnem raziskovalnem in razvojnem programu za obdobje 2006-2010” [Resolution on national research and development programme, 2006-2010], Uradni list, Ljubljana, No. 3, 10. 1. 2006, article 1.2.2./3.12 Cf. Slovenian Research Agency, “Pravilnik o (so)financiranju temeljnih, aplikativnih in podoktorskih raziskovalnih projektov [Regulation about (co-)financing of basic, applied and postdoctoral research projects], Uradni list, Ljubljana, No. 12, 10. 2. 2005, articles 34-39.

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In the field of social sciences, the result of this complicated procedure was rather surprising: it

promoted an expertise to the top of the best graded applications. Among all the various

research project proposals (basic, applied and post-doctoral), it was an expertise (see our

definitions in the grey square) that was awarded the highest number of points. Evaluators

graded best a research project that proposed to survey the efficiency of a governmental

educational reform. The proposal openly admitted that the team intends to use as main

research data the already available international and national surveys in some of which the

applicant had participated. Consequently, the proposal was most likely a by-product of the

applicant’s regular activities.

But the privilege accorded to a mere evaluation expertise is only one of the problems opened

by the top-graded project. The applicant justified the proposal with two main arguments. The

first introduces an international survey as an infallible source of information. The data

processed in such a research are presented as “mere facts”, as the outer reality itself.

The second argument is built upon the first one. If one assumes that a particular international

ranking of national achievements is trustworthy (as to the definition of an "achievement" and

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EXPERTISE: Study intended to monitor the effects of the state (governmental) measures or of the state policies, using either empirical methods or juridical comparative analysis or some other approach. It maintains the appearance of scientific distance and methodological strictness. Such studies are usually commissioned by the state (government) administration in order to support their operations.

POLICY STUDY: Research paper that, like an expertise, monitors the efficiency of a particular state policy. Contrary to the expertise, it openly admits its bias and its participation to the practices like lobbying, endeavours to introduce new practices or of new strategies into the operations of the state administration, and the like. On the organisational level, it corresponds to the output of “think tanks” (e.g., Institute for Policy Study, Washington). In European context, it corresponds to the research scheme EQUAL.

PURE BASIC RESEARCH: Research that introduces a new conceptual and theoretical paradigm or produces new knowledge without predetermined results. (Not all of the projects classified as “basic” in the 2005 competition satisfy this strict definition. We were charitable and included also projects producing “new knowledge” or providing “new information”.)

APPLICATION: Problem solving research with intention to produce a concrete product or service for industry or service sector (including state administration) using experimental methods or some other approach.

STRATEGIC HYBRID: Research that combines several approaches in order to maximize the chance to win the competition as, for instance, combining basic research with policy study.

as to the reliability of its measuring), than one can proceed to evaluate whether the position of

Slovenia on such a list is "good" or "bad". However, in order correctly to perform such an

evaluation, one has to develop a measure of the relative "success" on this particular list. The

application does not enter into these details, but bluntly states that the position of Slovenia

below the highest ranks means that “Slovenians lag behind the best countries”. The main

focus of research proposal actually is the supposedly bad ranging of Slovenia. The application

interprets the ranking as a threat that “Slovenians lag behind the developed countries” and that

“Slovenian pupils are backward in comparison to others”. The definition of the “good

performance” in education is not discussed. Were the proposal really trying to identify what a

“good performance” might be, it would need to deconstruct the premises, the methodology

and the “object of research” of the international research to which it wants to refer. Without

such an effort, it takes the results of the international survey as direct indicators of mere

objectivity. With this argumentation procedure, the applicants first created a “problem” and

then proposed their project as a step towards its “solution”.

Sciences and techno-sciences

The very top rank of such a proposal suggests that the evaluators (and perhaps the organisers

of the competition) did not consider new knowledge and questioning of theoretical paradigms

as the most appreciated achievements. Their attitudes towards research and scientific practices

obviously emerged from other premises. From the example above we can surmise that it was

“problem solving” that interested them the most. They understood the call as giving a chance

to the applicants to identify, within the frame of the proposed "themes", particular (disturbing)

social problems and to propose ways how to solve them. Put into such a context, research

risks to be drawn out of the field of scientific practices and to confront "problems" that have

not been theoretically, i.e., conceptually defined, but have been intuitively, i.e., ideologically

determined. Problems so defined belong to practices other than theoretical practices.

Theoretical concepts are then applied to them from the "outside", instrumentally – and not as

procedures of genuine analysis within the field of theory. In other words, in this way, research

is drawn towards technological practices, i. e., towards the techno-sciences.13

While scientific practices have to keep in their horizon past scientific achievements and the

insertion of a particular problem into larger structures (of science, society, civilisation…), in

techno-sciences, these concerns are not only unnecessary, but troubling and undesirable. 13 We use the expression "techno-sciences" as presented in: Michel Freitag, Le naufrage de l’Université, Paris, La Découverte/M.A.U.S.S., 1995; it basically describes the approach directed towards solving heteronymously determined "problems" by "scientifically" provided tools.

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Scientific practices have to sustain a critical approach towards the past scientific

achievements and towards their present presuppositions. Contrary to these theoretical

attitudes, techno-sciences are meant to grasp an isolated particular and immediate problem

only, and to develop instruments how to solve it, control it or predict its impact and effects. If

we transfer the questions that are usual and expected within the sciences into the

preoccupations of the techno-sciences, then we risk invalidating their instrumental efforts. For

this reason, applied research actually has to avoid properly scientific approaches: they may

reveal that applied research is something impossible to perform. In the above example, how

we can reach a “good performance” in education, if we do not know what a “good

performance” should be; or if we do not ask the radical question about what is the "education"

in contemporary society?

Moreover, in scientific work, it is a necessity that scientists position their endeavours into a

more general horizon of “knowledge”, “progress”, “truth” or the like, since such a general

horizon validates their work, puts limits to it and identifies the objectives to be reached. The

little that a particular scientist can contribute to science (with regard to its past and its future),

can only get a meaning if this overall context is identified.14 It gives a sense to the work of the

particular scientist and determines the conditions that mould scientific communities. It

determines what goals they serve, how they are organised, how scientists communicate, co-

operate and eventually compete.

For this reason, and since science actually has no master, scientists have to overview and to

control the conditions of the production of knowledge. Techno-scientists, to the contrary, have

to take their conditions of production for granted and to accept them as their administrative

counterparts have programmed them. They offer skills how to solve a certain problem and,

after completing their task, the result of their work is taken away from them. It is not a part of

their practice any more. They might continue to research the same subject-matter or, as a

flexible and skilled person, shift to the solving of some new problem. They are not supposed

to entertain any “intimate” relationship with the object of their research; and even when they

feel certain affection, it is in their interest, in the interest of techno-scientist, to hide it. In the

technocratic world any other consideration besides doing the “job” is taken as a passion that

14 In Althusser’s words, this would be the "second element", the spontaneous philosophy of scientists. The first element is inherent to scientific practice and presents the convictions-theses with objective and material character. They define the subject of research, the body of knowledge and the method, and are a precondition in order to do science. The second element is extraneous to scientific practice. It is an idealistic moment that is similar to the scientist's "world view": however, it does not coincide with the "world view" (the "personal" ideology), for it is a kind of "scientific world view of the scientist". Cf. Louis Althusser, Philosophie et philosophie spontanée des savants, Paris, François Maspero, 1974.

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endangers good performance and objectivity. “Objectivity” actually is the key word in the

technocratic research.

Given that the difference between scientific practice and technocratic practice is so

fundamental and definite, we would assume that scientists will struggle for the basic research.

The investigated application call of 2005 was the only call that year that offered opportunity

for basic research. Accordingly, one would expect that most of applications asked for basic

research. In fact, this was not the case; according to our classification above (see the grey

square), we identified:

20 applications,

17 expertises,

13 projects in basic research,

9 policy studies,

3 strategic hybrids.

Only one fifth of all applications proposed to do basic research, while the others proposed

applications, expertises, policy studies and so on. The outcome is somewhat understandable

given that only few basic research projects were offered and, additionally, they had to

correspond to a certain “theme”. At the end, 18 research projects were selected from among

62 applications submitted. Projects were selected proportionally according to the

classification of the call: basic research, applied research and post-doctoral research. Six

projects in applied research were finally selected, four basic projects and eight post-doctoral

projects. According to our classification, there were six basic research projects, six expertises,

four policy studies, and two applications.

Classification of selected projects according to Research Agency of science and to our classification:

Agency’s classification

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6 Basic research

Basic research 4 6 Expertise

Applied research 6 4 Policy study

Post-doctoral res. 8 2 application

The final result is: one third of basic research projects and two thirds of expertises, policy

studies and applications. It is interesting that among the postdoctoral research projects only a

quarter of them were basic research projects. This indicates that the majority of the young

PhD researchers were recruited into technocratic social science.

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Ideology and science

In order to be eligible, research proposals had to treat one of the following themes prescribed

by the ministry of science:

product management,

e-lifestyles,

industrial design,

informational systems connected with the national and cultural heritage,

security,

democracy and the management of Slovene state.

Among the projects approved, we find some that do not match with any of the prescribed

themes: such is, for example, the historical presentation of the “dissident economists in the

time of communism”. For this particular project, there was no niche among the themes, and

still the proposal was selected. The proposal could eventually be associated with the last

theme “democracy and the management of Slovene state” in an only very loose way. It

nevertheless seemed to satisfy the evaluators, since it announced to show how the "dissident

economists" demonstrated “that the market economy is the best socio-economic system” and

“that the alternative solutions proposed by communism or self-managed socialism were

wrong and forced to fail in theory and practice”. Such a goal can hardly be considered

scientific. One may wonder why such an ideological proposal could meet the approval of the

evaluators. And yet the foreign evaluators ranked it among the four best proposals. The

support they gave to an openly apologetic project raises serious doubts about the reliability of

the foreign experts conducting the 2005 call. The domestic reviewer graded the project so

poorly that it could not have been approved had only his/her evaluation been taken into

account.

Interdisciplinarity

The “themes-oriented” contest gives advantage to the experts who have specialist knowledge

on the prescribed fields, or have access to relevant documentation, archives and so on. For

example, the subject of “e-lifestyle” or “informational systems connected with the national

and cultural heritage” can be developed only by somebody who has access to informational

sources and has the expertise in this particular field. Many selected proposals have won the

competition because the applicants had specific knowledge or exclusive access to relevant

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documentation. In some cases, especially in the humanities projects, the applying institutions

were the authorised guardians of the relevant documentation.

This kind of advantage is against the traditional idea of scientific community where the

scientific achievements and documentation should be available to everybody.15 Scientific

achievements can only be valuated through discussions in scientific communities; it is in this

way that they enter as productive elements into new scientific practices.

If some researchers, keeping research results or archives for themselves, can in this way

achieve the advantage over what they may consider as rivals, and not as colleagues in science,

then the scientific community is in danger, and the public cannot profit from the scientific

work. Individuals or institutions that enjoy this kind of advantage may further be encouraged

to block scientific debates and communication in order to protect their fields of expertise from

their rivals and to defend their quasi-feudal domains. In this way, they obstruct the discussion

among researchers and scientists about the identification of problems, scientific approach, and

methodology. Losing this possibility, scientific community loses control over scientific work

– only because a small number of researchers, who can gain benefits from hiding their work

from the public, pursue their non-scientific interest. Destroying scientific communities, these

researchers put themselves in the service of bureaucratic apparatus and convert research into

technocratic instrument. Unfortunately, disintegration of scientific co-operation is gradually

becoming a social fact that contaminates all the parties involved, not only the few that have

broken the communication. Once the communication channels of scientific community are

broken, it is not possible to restore them so easily.

There are a number of such cases on the list of proposals. The “themes-oriented basic

research” application call invited them to use their expertise in a certain field in order to

develop a basic research out of it. Behind this, there is a presumption that immediate data

brought to the daylight by the empirical research better lead to general conclusions than basic 15 This problem is really of great importance. Even governmental bodies often refuse to open research reports (financed by public money) to the public. Sometimes “Office for the access to public information” has to intevene and persuade governmental bodies to provide public access to research reports. The MP Aleš Gulič, for example, got access to two research reports “The Impact of the Eventual Single Tax Rate upon Culture” and “Advantages and Disadvantages of the Eventual Single Tax Rate in Slovenia” only after the decision of the “Office for the access to public information” on the 27 th of March, 2006. The administration does not use neither refer to the results that challenge its official ideology and policy, even if it had financed the research that produced them (Cf. Aim-orientied research about Slovene publishing and reading concluded in 2004. Research report was published in: Cf. Breznik, M., Novljan, S., Jug, J., Milohnić, A., Knjižna kultura [Book Culture], Ljubljana, UMco, 2005.) There is no common practice that government bodies regularly publish research reports on their web sites although such solution would be inexpensive and handy for scientific communities and the general public. It would afford the possibility that research results could be discussed, evaluated and, finally, controlled by scientific community and the general public. This would also contribute to a better public evaluation of the performance of the state administration and the governement.

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research. Is it possible to “produce contemporary [sic!] theoretical concepts…”, as one of the

selected basic research proposals describes its own project, “… on the base of the preceding

empirical research”?

Conversion of previous applicative research into basic research raises several questions. The

applications are led by the commissioners' interests and by the commissioners' understanding

of their interests. Consequently, this type of research is under strong ideological pressure, and

the very formulation of its problématique may be permeated by "practical concerns" as they

appear from the point of view of one of the involved agents (i.e., the commissioner). There is a

strong probability that such a research is just a technical attempt at solving ideologically

formulated practical tasks. In the case where the commissioner of the applicative research is

the same governmental agency that now wants to support the basic research performed by

draining "general" consequences from the previous case-oriented applicative investigation,

there is a strong chance that the whole process is trapped into a vicious circle: basic research

then provides a general or "theoretical" support to the ideological presuppositions that have

informed the initial applicative investigation. This may mean only further mystification of the

concrete field of problems – and further degradation of research towards ideological

apologetics of pre-established ideological premises. While such a vicious process may be

epistemologically objectionable, it certainly produces real social effects and contributes to the

transformation of social relations.

However, it was not only the fetishism of empirical approach that led towards the strong

support to the conversion of the previous applicative empirical research into the basic

research. Above all, this attitude emerges from a new conception of the interdisciplinary

research. This time it is not the interdisciplinary ideology that Louis Althusser analysed in his

lectures of 1967 when “interdisciplinary” was obviously a part of the common scientific

jargon.16 The term now promotes interdisciplinarity in the sense that various types of research

- basic research, applications and development – should be interconnected. As declared in

16 At that time he decisively condemned the idea of interdisciplinarity as “dialogue” among various scientific disciplines around the same table without a defined scope. The interdisciplinarity in social sciences and humanities simplify, according to Althusser, the interdisciplinary exchange among various natural sciences where mathematics, for example, is not only applied to other sciences, but is a constitutive part (partie prenante) of many natural sciences. In social and human sciences, interdisciplinary exchange can not create such firm bond (although philosophy, according to Althusser, could take the position of mathematics in natural sciences), so, if we bring various sciences together for its own sake (to work on issues they do not know and to get somewhere they do not know), is a “science of ignorant persons”. This old concept of interdisciplinarity, that is still popular to a certain extent, has later been expanded toowards the concept of interdisciplinarity on the level of “research types”. Cf., Louis Althusser, Philosophie et philosophie spontanée des savants (1967), Maspero, Paris, 1974. For a critique of "interdisciplinarity", see also: Immanuel Wallerstein et al., Open the Social Sciences, Stanford UP, Stanford, 1996; Rastko Močnik, “Sistem družboslovja in njegovi učinki” [The system of the social sciences and its effects], Časopis za kritiko znanosti, vol. XXVIII, no. 200-201, Ljubljana, 2000.

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Slovene and European official documents, this mixing will be one of the priorities in the

allocation of state financial support to research in future.17 This is a political decision with far-

reaching implications. It means that the state will in the future give privilege to research

commissioned by corporations, i.e., by the private capital. This raises the question of

diversion of public funds into private pockets. It also announces a serious attack upon the

public nature of scientific work: private investors into research have genuine interest to keep

its results secret as long as they can commercially be exploited.18

17 Resolution on national research and development programme, 2006-2010, (Uradni list, Ljubljana, no. 3, 10. 1. 2006, article 4.2.2.): “In next midium-term period attention will be paid to: […] researches which will connect various sciences and grades of research (basic, applied, and development)…” “V naslednjem srednjeročnem obdobju se prednostno obravnavajo: […] raziskave, ki bodo povezovale različne vede in stopnje raziskav (temeljne, uporabne in razvojne)…« Action for "centres of excellence" with a European dimension (http://ec.europa.eu/research/area/centres.pdf): “By efficiently "combining" the various knowledge and infrastructure resources spread over Europe, productivity may be significantly increased through the effects of […] better exploitation of RTD diversity available across Europe, using complementary sources of knowledge, know-how and facilities. As S&T progress comes to rely more on interdisciplinary approaches, the necessary sources are less and less likely to be found inside one country.«18 The secrecy of the evaluation procedures imposed by the governmental agencies is already at present eroding the public nature of genuine scientific work. This is such a dramatic threat that it deserves a longer quote from a perspicacious contribution by the French economist Daniel Cohen: "Pour être efficace, la production d'"idées nouvelles" devrait obéir à deux règles: cooperation de tous ceux qui visent à résoudre le même problème, puis, une fois le problème resolu, libre usage par tous de ses applications. Ainsi fonctionne la recherche universitaire. [...] Dans le cas de la recherche privée, c'est exactement le contraire: les laboratoires sont en concurrence et ne coopèrent pas. Le secret de leurs travaux est jalousement gardé. Une fois la decouverte réalisée, les firmes en gardent l'usage privatif. [...] On tient ici l'équivalent pour la nouvelle économie de la contradiction que Marx dénonçait au sein du capitalisme entre le développement des forces productives et ce qu'il appelait les rapports de production, à savoir le régime de la propriété privée. Alors que sa démonstration n'est guère convaincante pour une économie industrielle ordinaire, elle devient éclatante dans le cadre de la 'nouvelle économie'." (Daniel Cohen, Trois leçons sur la société post-industrielle, Seuil, Paris, 2006, pp. 68-69. – Cohen quotes Paul David, "A tragedy of the public knowledge commons?", Oxford IP Centre, Working Paper 04/00, 2000.)

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Authors of the book The New Production of Knowledge19 advocate the interdisciplinarity of

various research types arguing that the realm of application can be opened for “new research

agenda” as well as for basic research. The usual proceeding from basic research to application

can therefore be reversed. Authors give the example of hypersonic aircraft construction, a

technological research that raised a wide range of questions which could not rely much on the

previous research and experimental knowledge. We must add that every innovation creates at

least a small “break” or discontinuity with respect to the previous knowledge otherwise it

would not be an innovation. More important “breaks”, like the invention of electricity, could

not be made in continuity with the problems of the preceding paradigm.20

The fundamental rethinking of science that may be needed in the present historical period can

only be envisaged if the request that science be immediately "useful" is lifted.

The present commentary about interdisciplinarity does not try to re-establish a hierarchical

order where basic research as supreme knowledge would be situated at the top and

technological applications at the bottom of the list. We are not proposing a teleological view

of knowledge, but would rather want to reaffirm the awareness that each type of research has

its own modus operandi. If we mix various types of research in an “interdisciplinary” way, we

neglect the differences among them, i.e., the fundamental conditions of knowledge production

required by one or the other type of research.

We could say that application in natural sciences is result-oriented scientific work. In social

sciences application, result, product or “problem-solving” orientation raises concerns about

how we have determined the frame within which solutions to particular problems are to be 19 Cf. Michel Gibbons, Camille Limoges, Helga Nowotny, Simon Schwartzman, Peter Scott, and Martin Trow, The New Production of Knowledge. The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies, London-Thousand Oaks-New Delhi, Sage, 1996 [1994]. This book made a strong influence upon European and national research policies and became a strong reference point of research documents, strategies, resolutions. It is quoted several times in the national programme of the development of science of Slovenia. Christian de Montlibert (Savoir à vendre. L'enseignement supérieur et la recherche en danger, Raisons d'agir, Paris, 2004, p. 27) comments this work and other products of the same authors as follows: "Les experts de l'OCDE, de l'UNESCO et de la Banque mondiale ont trouvé des appuis et des cautions au sein du monde universitaire lui-même. Tout se passe comme si les citations d'auteurs comme B.R. Clark, M. Gibbons, H. Novotny ou P. Scott apportaient une sorte de légitimation savante aux manières de voir et de penser le monde de la recherche et de l'enseignement universitaires partagées par les experts des organismes internationaux." The success of these works is all the more remarkable when we read,e.g., in the book quoted above, the following commendation of of the Annales school: "Strange, even shamanistic, beliefs have been recovered as legitimate subjects of historical enquiry alongside the dignified routines of polite intellect." (Michel Gibbons et al., op. cit., p. 107; similar formulations occur whenever the text draws closer to real scientific work; one then starts to wonder whether the mis-spelling of "Bourdieu" or "Lepanto" should be viewed as something more than just error typi.) The authors struggle in favour of what they call the "Mode 2" of practicing science: the mode is based on post-modernist ideology, and promotes neo-liberal economic and social practices and institutions. The obsolete "Mode 1" that the authors want to see abandonned, is, although presumably derived from the "Newtonian practice of science", an epistemological monstruosity and a political horror. Luckily, it has never existed: at least not in the region of our study.20 Edouard Brézin, president of the French Academy of Sciences: "Electricity was not discovered while people were trying to improve the candle."

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reached. Application in social sciences refers to empirical research which is identified to

immediate intervention into real social practices.21 Consequently, the analysis of “real social

practices” is imprudently identified to empirical research with immediate practical incidence.

This does not make much sense, since an empirical research can only be initiated if it relies

upon a background of certain theses, i.e., propositions that allow researchers to determine the

basic questions from which the research proceeds. Reflexive control of this background is

essential for theoretical practice. If the goal the research has to reach is determined in a

heteronymous way, e.g., by the commissioner, there are all the chances that the research will

only technically instrumentalise certain procedures with the aim to find a solution to an

ideologically defined problem.

Overestimation of empirical research in social research, i.e., the so praised “objectivity” of

empirical research, leads to the presumption that empirical research is the best and the most

reliable way that leads to theoretical generalisations.

This presumption has been leading evaluators while they were making the selection from

among the “thematic-oriented” applications. They highly graded the “basic research” that

used previous empirical results as the driving force for developing "theoretical" research and

"theoretical" generalisations. Experience in empirical research obviously qualified researchers

as theoreticians. Distinction and delimitation between the two practices (applied and basic

research) has not been questioned in any of the proposals. The switch from one to the other

has consistently been taken as unproblematic.

Research proposals, when performing the conversion from the “empirical” into the “basic

research”, clearly show the dangerous consequences of such a move. In one case, a project

that proposed to explore the internet, showed an inclination towards the hypothesis of

technological determination, but without spelling it out, even not seeming to be aware of it. In

another case, the use of a particular method to investigate social networks, was entrusted the

mission to oppose the presumably paternalistic role of the state and to advocate social

flexibility.

The use of theoretical concepts

21 Empirical research (i.e., nomothetic science) is opposed to idiographic science, considered to be an ideological pseudo-science that can at most attain an "understanding" of social phenomena, describe them, but is not able to analyse or to explain them. Empirical research, on the contrary, is supposed to have this analytical force. For a critique of this dichotomy, see: Immanuel Wallerstein, et al. (“the Gulbenkian Commission”), Open the Social Sciences, Stanford UP, Stanford, 1996; Rastko Močnik, “Sistem družboslovja in njegovi učinki” [The system of the social sciences and its effects], Časopis za kritiko znanosti, vol. XXVIII, no. 200-201, Ljubljana, 2000.

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Themes-oriented basic research proposals make use of notions such as “lifestyle”, “social

capital” and “liberalism”. As these concepts make part of longer traditions in the social

sciences, they make a strong impression at the first sight. Closer analysis reveals the weakness

of these concepts and of their use in the applications.

Liberalism, for example, is an expression with several meanings: it is a political notion and an

economic term22, and, within the field of economy, it may again mean many things23.

Therefore, the use of “liberalism” as a unified concept hides contradictions, political struggles

and theoretical heterogeneity that are covered by the same expression. The effect of such a

strategy is that what remains of the notion, is its ideological aura only. In this way, the

concept is transformed into an instrument used in political and social battles. In a time when

"liberalism" has no political opposition in the established political apparatuses, the term is

used as a mere signifier that has no content and can be freely attached to any anew produced

version of "liberalism".24

The origin of the other two concepts – “social capital” and “lifestyle” – is slightly different,

but the final effect is quite similar. In 1977, The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought

presents the expression of “lifestyle” as a popular expression only.25 In 2001, the same word

was introduced as a “concept”, as one of the three meanings or derivatives of the general

concept “social class”. Putting it under the “social class” umbrella, one hides the descriptive

and instrumental use that the notion “lifestyle” is only able to perform. The dictionary points

to it clearly: “Social scientists have also carried out descriptive investigations of social

differentiation and market research companies have devised occupational classifications in

order to give an indication of lifestyles and consumption patterns.”26 Therefore, we can accept

“lifestyle” as a concept only under the condition that we agree that marketing is nowadays a

dominant discipline in social sciences.

22 The Italian makes this distinction: liberalismo is a political doctrine and movement; liberismo is an economical doctrine and policy.23 In a strict sense, it may embrace the neo-classical theories and their derivations, like, e.g., the German Ordo-liberalism; it can then be extended to ideological formations parasitic upon economic theory, like the works of Friedrich von Hayek. In contemporary situation, the term is often used to designate doctrines and policies aimed against the social state in both its general types – the social-democratic core-variant and the socialist peripheral variation. In post-socialist contexts, the term is often loosely used to mean "pro-capitalist" or "anti-socialist". 24 In Lévi-Strauss wording, it is a »signifiant flottant«, floating signifier, the carrier of mana. More about it: Lévi-Strauss, »Introduction à l’oeuvre de M. Mauss«, published in: Marcel Mauss, Sociologie et anthroplogie, Paris, PUF, 1985 [1950]; Rastko Močnik, »Marcel Mauss – klasik humanistike« [Marcel Mauss – a classic of the humanities], in: Marcel Mauss, Esej o daru in drugi spisi, Ljubljana, SH, 1996. 25 »In popular usage, all observable characteristics of a person…« The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought, London, Collins, 1977, p. 349. 26 »'Class' as prestige, status, culture, or 'lifestyle'« International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, Elsevier, 2001, p. 14233, italics ours.

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The third notion, “social capital”, is widely used in various meanings. It has been stabilised as

a theoretical concept by Pierre Bourdieu: in his theory, it designates an asset deriving from

family ties and other similar social relations or networks that would provide to a certain

person more or less of advantageous "sociality" that can be used in social promotion,

transformed into economic capital etc. Accordingly, in Bourdieu's theory, it is an extrinsic

social category beyond the individual's control. Nowadays its meaning is slippery. The

struggle over the meaning of the expression has not been finished yet.27 In most its usages,

though, it has definitely moved away from Bourdieu’s concept. In the mainstream usage, it

now refers to the individuals' “trust” and “loyalty” to social organisations; the predominant

idea, according to International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Science, is that

"social capital" is a personalised (intrinsic) category that gives the measure of “trust” or

“loyalty” that individuals develop in their voluntary engagements, informal networks and

associations. “Trust” is understood as an ethical category that leads individuals towards effort

at work, risk-taking, flexibility, and social efficiency. If trust is missing in a particular social

group, this indicates a certain dominant ethos or the cultural particularities of a population,

like family egoism and lack of the trust in state in Southern Italy and Sicily (in reference to

the mafia). Consequently, “social capital reflects enduring cultural norms passed across

generations by socialization, norms that cannot be explained in terms of reasonable responses

to current circumstances”.28 The latest meaning of "social capital" has evidently been forged

as an instrument to propagate a certain type of behaviour highly valued in societies that

reproduce by their members' flexibility and risk-taking.

We have briefly analysed the usage of these concepts in the basic research applications. We

assessed that the use of “liberalism” conceals discrepancies among various meanings of the

term and hides the indeterminacies of the notion. "Lifestyle" has obviously been promoted to

the status of a concept by a metonymic replacement of one expression for another: what used

to be "social class" is now "lifestyle". By quietly adapting its notional apparatus to the

processes of "culturalisation" of class conflicts and other social tensions, this social science

renounces to analyse them and adopts an ideological, not a theoretical approach to its

ideological and no more theoretical object of knowledge. In the use of the notion of “social

capital”, one meaning has replaced the other, transforming social relations and conflicts into

cultural norms and behaviour.

27 About the polemics on the notion of “social capital” see Richard Sennett, The Culture of the New Capitalism, New Haven - London, Yale University Press, 2005, pp. 63-64.28 International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, Elsevier, 2001, p. 14217,

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These procedures result in signifiers emptied of content and open to assume any meaning that

may be suitable at a given moment. These notions operate in a paradoxical way: their aura of

"scientificity" expands over the context and enhances its credibility – while the "scientific"

context conceals their emptiness. Through various transformations, these notions have

become “signifiants flottants” that have no content and can be used for the needs of the

moment. According to Lévi-Strauss, such a symbolic strategy is contrary to the idea of

science: theory has to endeavour to eliminate “signifiants flottants” or at least to control them.

Toleration towards them produces deplorable consequences: e.g., it promotes marketing into a

distinguished discipline among the social sciences and everyday political jargon into a

legitimate element in scientific contexts29.

Autonomy of science

We might look towards the rejected proposals with the hope that they develop some kind of

an alternative scientific practice. Among the rejected social science research proposals there

were seven projects in the basic research, eleven expertises, five policy studies, eighteen

applications, and three “strategic hybrids”. This description shows that scientific community

adapted to the requirements and expectations of the commissioner. Only one sixth of the

whole set of rejected projects, i.e., seven proposals, aimed at a basic research work, the rest

had chosen the strategies that would increase their chances to win the contest. Finally, they

were right since most of the basic project proposals - four in total - were among those who

were rejected immediately in the first phase of evaluation process.

In the frame of the project-financed research scheme, scientists do not propose properly

scientific projects, or they do it very rarely. It may be that the programme-financed "research

groups" (within the longer-term – 5 years – financed research) perform more scientific

activities, but the allocation of funds is closely related to the attributed status of “excellence”.

This attribution has more to do with university hierarchies and political influence of certain

groups than with their scientific performance.30 Project financing that will be the main scheme

29 Politicking is a frequent feature in the applications and would deserve a special study. One of the selected projects proposed to contribute to the history of economic thought in Slovenia a survey of the work of the "three most important dissident Slovene economists after the World War II" (italics ours; they were not "dissidents" in the usual sense, but emigrants). However, besides sketching their biographies, the application writes about their work in exclusively political terms, pointing out that they were "assessing that the market economy is the best socio-economic system in the sense of efficiency and sustainability, and that the alternative solutions in the direction of communism or self-managed socialism were misconceived in theory and in practice and doomed to fail".30 According to Slovene statistics office, two thirds of public finances were spent for “non-oriented research”. Statistic office of Republic of Slovenia, year 2003, http://www.stat.si/letopis/index_letopis.asp (page visited on November 11, 2006).

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of financing in the future, already now excludes basic research and real scientific practices.

Nevertheless, persons in charge of research policies consider that “thematic-oriented basic

and applied research” is still not enough practically oriented. We may expect that the

expression “basic research” will soon be completely erased from public research policy.31 The

present research context does not provide conditions for scientific research, so in the future it

will probably have to be practiced either in breach of the valid regulations and in secrecy, or

outside the presumably scientific and research institutions. This obviously despised research

practice seems to be in the process of radical extinction.

The eventual withdrawal of scientific research and theoretical practice into illegality will have

an additional consequence for the research community. Dissolution of scientific practices will

harm the whole community, not only those stubborn scientists who insist on abstract

epistemological questions. The only possible reference point that the world of research can

recognise is scientific community: it has the authoritative position to exercise comments,

criticism, and, finally, also to control the research work. It is so due to the general process of

verification of scientific knowledge, described by Pierre Bourdieu, according to whom

“scientific knowledge” is approved through legitimation that can only be carried out by the

scientific community.32 If scientific practice is endangered or illegal, the reference point is

becoming weak and pale and cannot perform its task any more. This point (the process of

auto-reflexivity or, according to Bourdieu, “intersubjective validation”) is very important,

because it is a precondition that makes scientific practice an autonomous social field. If

science loses its own field, it is left to the mercy of the commissioners and their aims. This is

true about any science, and even more about the human and social sciences that have a “weak

autonomy”. Pierre Bourdieu defines social and human scientist as someone who “makes part

of world s/he tries to objectivate; and science s/he produces is only one of the forces that

combat in the world.”33 The position of social and human sciences is much “weaker” and is

more dependent than that of any other science precisely because it is always already a part of

the world they try to understand or explain. For this reason, human and social sciences even

more depend on the preservation of their “weak autonomy”; otherwise they will lose their

31 »Žal pa pričujoči NRRP ni bil sprejet pred ustanovitvijo agencij in novim ciklom projektnega in programskega financiranja, ki se je začel v letu 2004, kar škodljivo in mimo tega NRRP že vnaprej določa porabo približno dveh tretjin proračunskih sredstev za temeljne in aplikativne raziskave.« Cf. Resolucija o nacionalnem raziskovalnem in razvojnem programu za obdobje 2006-2010, idem, p. 3.32 »Dejstvo je osvojeno, skonstruirano, ugotovljeno v dialektični komunikaciji med subjekti in prek te komunikacije, to se pravi, skozi proces verifikacije, kolektivne produkcije resnice, v pogajanju in z njim, v transakciji in tudi homologaciji in z njima, v ratifikaciji z eksplicitno izraženim konsenzom – homologein – (in ne zgolj v dialektiki med hipotezo in izkušnjo). Cf. Pierre Bourdieu, Znanost o znanosti in refleksivnost, Ljubljana, Liberalna akademija, 2004, p. 119, translation Braco Rotar. 33 Cf. Pierre Bourdieu, idem, p. 138.

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reference point. Inherent contradiction of research community is that, while it adapts to the

demands of commissioners and desperately searches a niche for survival, it works against its

fundaments. This is a desperate strategy that leads scientific practices towards dissolution,

while condemning researchers to slave for accidental commissioners.

The goals of the competition and their attainment: the case of the humanities

We have analysed the part of the competition of the year 2005 pertaining to the humanities

without entering into the analysis of the proposed projects themselves. We have rather

examined some of the salient features of the competititon in the light of the main purposes for

which the funding of research "by projects" has been introduced. In the sections that follow,

we will try to asses to what extent the 2005 competition succeeded to carry out the following

main purposes:

1. secure social and economic relevance of research;2. encourage more rational and economical organisation, process of work, use of human

resources in research institutions;3. introduce competition among research institutions, and, as a consequence, secure a

fairer distribution of funds.

The figure below shows the institutions whose projects were selected for funding:

Institution Sole First partner Second partner

Scientific-research instituteof Slovene academy of sciences and arts

10 1 3

Faculty of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana 4Scientific-research centre – Koper / Capodistria

2

Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana 1Institute of geodetic, Ljubljana 1Institute for recent history, Ljubljana 1Slovene ethnographic institute, Klagenfurt / Celovec

1

Total one-institution projects 16 Total two-partner projects 4

Sum-total selected projects 20

Scientific-research institute of Slovene academy of sciences and arts was awarded funds for 10 out of 16 selected one-institution projects, and participated to all the selected two-partner projects. The Institute participated to 14 of the 20 selected projects – i.e., to 70% of the selected projects.

20

Only 2 institutions out of 7 that were awarded funds are not from Ljubljana; they were awarded 3 out of 20 selected projects.

Scientific-research institute of Slovene academy of sciences and arts proposed all the 8 selected projects that do not belong to the humanities: 5 as the sole supporting institution, and 3 as a partner to another institution.34

In the sequel, we present the nature of the projects that were selected for funding. The

presentation does not enter into an evaluation of the inherent merit of particular projects: we

treat them, as it were, "from the outside", without entering into an epistemological or similar

discussion of the applications.

Among the 20 selected projects 8 (40%) do not belong to the humanities:

- 5 were presented as belonging to a broader area that is classified as a sub-domain of the

humanities. Although the projects themselves do not belong to the field of the humanities,

they were classified as belonging to a sub-group of the humanities: - 1 biological project is classified as belonging to archaeology (zoo-archaeology: "Zoo-archaeological

research of eneolithic sites in Slovenia);- 1 project in physical anthropology is classified as belonging to archaeology ("Anthropological analysis of

selected antiquity sites in Slovenia");- 1 project in social geography is classified as belonging to geography ("Common lands in Slovenia:

cultural landscape between the past and the present");- 2 projects in physical geography are classified as belonging to geography ("Triglav glacier as indicator of

weather changes"; "Results of the research of surface Carstic phenomena as orientation for planning interventions into Carstic landscape").

- 1 project squarely belongs to natural sciences ("The role and the importance of micro-organisms in Carstic waters").- 1 project belongs to law ("Slovene juridical terminology and elaboration of explanatory and normative vocabulary of juridical lexicon").- 1 project belongs to social sciences ("Habitus of the Slovene businessman between 1960 and 1990").

These remarks do not want to promote any kind of epistemic exclusivity. Co-operation among

disciplines is certainly welcome. However, the projects in question are not interdisciplinary in

the usual sense of the expression. Their funding within a humanities competition raises at

least the following questions:

a. They could have hardly been competently evaluated. As I will show below, the non-

humanities projects had a disproportionate success within a humanities competition.

34 It has not been possible fully to investigate the institutional dimension of the competition. The Agency allowed us to look into the text of the applications with names and institutional indications deleted. The list of the selected projects is public. The concerns of "privacy" raise very important questions when applied to scientific practices that should by definition be public. At least, one would suppose that this is the difference between magic and science? (For the details on the materials we could examine, see above, pp. 4 ss.)

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Does this indicate an embarrassment on the part of the evaluators, and their ensuing

magnanimity towards the projects they were unable to understand?

b. What could eventually be concluded from the fact that all the non-humanities projects

are affiliated to the same institution - Scientific-research institute of Slovene academy

of sciences and arts, the institution that was awarded 70% of the selected projects?

c. In this way, the funds that had originally been allotted to the humanities were diverted

towards other scientific fields. What could this mean?

We can present the disproportionate success of the non-humanities projects at the humanities

competition also in the following way35:

Out of the 49 applications admitted to the evaluation process, 14 or 28,57% did not belong to the humanities.Among the 20 selected projects, 8 or 40% do not belong to the humanities.Among the first 10 best evaluated projects, 6 or 60% do not belong to the humanities.

Total number Not the humanities % not humanitiesApplications admitted to theevaluation process

49 14 28,57

Selected projects 20 8 40First 10 best evaluated projects 10 6 60

Total number Selected % selected within the totalAll projects 49 20 40,82Humanities 35 12 34,29Non-humanities 14 8 57,14

At the 2005 humanities competition, the non-humanities projects had a better chance to win

than the properly humanities projects.

Contradiction between the funds allotted to the humanities and the "themes" prescribed that did not contain a niche for the humanitiesThe sum-total of the available funds for the 2005 competition was 118 FTE. The break-down

of the total decided by the Ministry of higher education, science and technology favoured the

humanities to the detriment of social sciences:

- social sciences: 11 FTE

35 We have calculated the percentages better to visualise how the part of the non-humanities grows along the line: number of the projects admitted to the evaluation process → number of the selected projects → the ten top-rated projects.

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- the humanities: 17 FTE

The humanities were supposed to find their opportunities within the "second priority

complex"36 where the "themes" were the following:

- Productive management- E-life-style- Industrial design- Informational systems connected with the national and cultural heritage- Security- Democracy and the management of Slovene state

The eventual niches for the research in the humanities could perhaps be sought within the

themes written in italics. However:

- "E-life-style" pertains to social sciences.- Informational systems in general, and accordingly those connected with the national

and cultural heritage as well pertain to the informational science and library science that are classified as social sciences.

- Democracy and the management of Slovene state pertain to political science, administrative sciences and management.

Under a strict interpretation, there was no "theme" for the humanities in the priorities of the

ministry.37 There was an obvious contradiction between the break-down of funds, favouring

the humanities as against the social sciences, and the themes, where there was no niche for the

humanities in the strict sense.

Perverted effects38

36 "The second priority-complex comprises research of information society technologies; investigations in the domain of citizenship and the management of knowledge-based society, including the development of human resources; it also comprises research about social cohesion and about preservation of the natural and cultural heritage, inasmuch as the later is connected with information technologies." ("Orientations of the Ministry of higher education, science and technology for the attribution of budget funds for research priorities in the year 2005".)37 This was noted immediately after the publication of the competition by prof. dr. Frane Adam: "There is practically no theme for the candidates of the humanities to apply for. A partial, but exceptionally particular exception is the theme 'Informational systems connected with the national and cultural heritage'. In fact, this calls for an applicative, not a properly scientific project." (Frane Adam, "Bosta humanistika in družboslovje samo še za okras?" [Will the humanities and the social sciences remain only as an ornament?], Nova revija, vol. XXIV, nos. 277-278-279, May-June-July, 2005, p. 121.)38 Raymond Boudon defines what he calls effet pervers in the following way: "Pour résumer cette notion …, on peut dire qu'il y a effet pervers lorsque deux individus (ou plus) en recherchant un objectif donné engendrent un état de choses non recherché et qui peut être indésirable du point de vue soit de chacun des deux, soit de l'un des deux." (Effets pervers et ordre social, PUF, Paris, 1993, p. 20.) – "Perverted effect occurs when two or more individuals, seeking a given goal, generate a state of affairs that has not been sought for and that may be undesirable from the point of view of both individuals or of one of them."

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The attempt of the ministry to direct research towards "useful" activities by defining the

research "themes" seems to have resulted in the institutions presenting as "projects" what

actually are their regular infrastructural activities:

6 from among the selected projects (30%) propose to carry out the 4th "theme" "Informational systems connected with the heritage". They envisage digitalisation of archives, setting the inventory of existing collections/storages and constitution of a data-base. They seem to consist of the regular activities of public institutions, not being a research project in a strict sense. 2 projects propose: publication of a canonical opus of the national literature; and of a representative graphic collection belonging to cultural heritage.

1 selected project is the composition of explanatory and normative vocabulary of juridical terminology. The application underlines that such a vocabulary is particularly needed after the integration of the country into the EU legal system. The part of research proper seems small in this project, and even smaller its dimension that belongs to the humanities (eventual philological considerations).

1 selected project proposes to "constitute a Slovene-English-Italian corpus of texts of tourist advertising". The rather confused application seems to propose the redaction of a series of exemplary tri-lingual advertising for (selected items of?) the national natural and cultural heritage. It also promises to produce preliminaries for a terminological vocabulary of tourism. The part of "research" proper seems weak.

To summarise: among the 20 selected projects, 10 (50%) seem to lack the proper nature of a

"research project". Within the 12 selected projects that belong to the humanities in a stricter

sense, 9 (75%) are problematic as to their properly research nature.

We can conclude that the thematic constraints imposed by the ministry did not produce the

effects desired. Quite to the contrary:

- They blocked the basic research lead by immanent and autonomous scientific logic.

- They seem to have produced perverted effects: several institutions presented as

research projects activities that normally are part of their regular work (digitalisation

of archives, stocks, collections). In this way, research funds have been diverted

towards normal maintenance and updating operations. Furthermore, one would

conclude that the institutions in question are limiting their activities to maintenance

and routine – and giving up research proper. Ironically, they may be doing this for the

lack of research money.

Why was there no niche for the humanities?The "themes" were set forth by the Ministry in order to secure social relevance of the funded

research, and to direct research projects towards the government's political priorities. The

absence of themes that would invite a properly humanities-type approach is disconcerting.

Does it mean that in the eyes of the government, the humanities no more seem able to perform

a socially relevant effort? Or is it that the government and the state administration consider

that they can reach their objectives without the assistance of the humanities?

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Let us take a closer look to the text that introduces the "second priority-complex"39 and to the

list of themes that follows this text.

The introductory text presents expressions taken from the EU-vocabulary; we can group them

into three uneven sets:

1. Contemporary technologies and their social effects: - information society;- information technologies;- knowledge-based society.

2. Social governance:- citizenship;- social management;- development of human resources;- social cohesion.

3. Conservationism and identity:- natural and cultural heritage.

The vocabulary translates the concerns of the EU establishment to raise Europe upon the level

of contemporary "post-fordist" or cognitive capitalism40:

- The first thematic group presents the endeavours to "socialise" technologies of information and communication (TIC) both in the sense of making them transform social relations and in the sense of opening the existing social structures to their impact.

- The second thematic group develops specifically social tools to carry out the tasks defined by the first thematic group, and to confront the tensions and conflicts arising from the implementation of such a programme; it implicitly promotes a new type of social engineering – a combination of traditional republican democracy and "governance".

- The third thematic group finally presents the horizon of the local translation of global pressures, the complex arrangements by which national governments both impose transnational requirements and enable local societies to submit to them: concerns of identity, local traditions, "pre-capitalist" modes of socialisation and domination.

The "themes" prescribed by the ministry transferred these broad European agenda upon the

national level and articulated them so as to direct scientific research. The definition of the

themes should then accomplish two tasks: specification in national terms, and

operationalisation in the terms of scientific research.

In this perspective, the "themes" are surprising. However, they acquire a certain consistency if

we consider them as expressing the particular perspectives of the various actors that have 39 The relevant portion of the text is quoted in the footnote 3 above.40 For the term "cognitive capitalism", see: Capitalismo cognitivo, Carlo Vercellone, ed., manifestolibri, Rome, 2006; also the ample literature on "post-fordism", "knowledge economy" etc.

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contributed to their formulation. From this angle, we can discern three thematic sets that

correspond to specific perspectives of three groups of actors:

1. The perspective of development managers reveals the competition concerns of particular enterprise:

- productive management;- industrial design.

While the first theme expresses a general concern arising on the level of particular

enterprises, the second theme is somewhat arbitrary, and may express either the concern of a

stronger group of enterprises – or just a momentary fashion within the development circles.

2. The perspective of the national government reveals some of the functions of the nation state in the present global situation:

- information systems connected with national and cultural heritage;- security;- democracy and the management of Slovene state.

The "themes" present the new structural profile of the nation state that combines traditional

democratic procedures with a governance-approach adapted from corporate practices. They

expose two modes of operation of the nation state: repression (security) and ideology (identity

concerns, local traditions, heritage). They also exhibit the urgency that the state starts to rely

upon the cutting edge technologies.

3. The remaining theme is puzzling:- E-life-style.

Could this be the specific articulation of the EU agenda proposed by scientific actors in the

domain of social sciences and the humanities? If this is the case, it demonstrates a contingent

and rather a frivolous nature of the relations the "state" (the ministry and its administration)

entertains with the scientific community.41

Even a rudimentary analysis of the "themes" shows that the year 2005 Agency's attempt to

articulate the humanities and social sciences research with the contemporary socio-historical

problems exhibits serious insufficiencies. The two perspectives – the bottom-up perspective

of the corporate management and the top-down governmental perspective – seem to miss

precisely what is new in the present social and economic developments.

41 There was only one application under this theme: "Social and cultural aspects of virtual life-styles", submitted within the domain of social sciences by a professor of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, doctor of economics specialising in "indicators of information society, statistics and polling methodology". The project was selected for 3-year funding.

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The managerial view can seize the aspects related to competitive capacity, but it has always

been able to do so: managerial view sees the particular problems that arise from specific

markets where a particular corporation is involved; it also and masters the internal processes

of the corporation – a know-how that can be generalised to a certain extent. However, the

"themes" bluntly indicate that this perspective misses the whole complex of the social context

of the enterprise – the dimension that presently most directly and decisively determines its

competitive capacity.

The government view seems to be caught within rather a traditional and stereotyped

understanding of the functions of a nation state, and expresses the way how the present socio-

historical situation is interpreted within this traditional horizon. However, a government is

nowadays called to involve in wider and more sophisticated tasks than the mere securing of

social peace by ideological operations and by eventual threats of repression. It has to

establish, to entertain and incessantly to develop the infrastructure and the social context for

competitive production, and carefully to decide which end of the productive process it intends

to promote: its cognitive dimension or the phases of mere execution.

Both perspectives failed to seize the general aspect under which social relations are now

becoming productive forces in a most immediate sense. They could only open towards a

spontaneous perception of contemporary processes, and generate their common-sense

interpretation, tampered with pieces of EU-jargon.

Some general questions

These observations point to one of the central problems of research policies in general: Can

research-questions be formulated outside the research-process? One would dare a positive

answer only in the case of technical and application projects. In other words, research

questions can be formulated outside the research-process only in cases where the greater part

of research has already been accomplished. Otherwise, "spontaneous" questions exhibit the

limitations of the common sense and of the particular position where they are being asked

from.

Naïve questions addressed to theoretical practices can certainly be re-formulated within the

theoretical research process. However, the situation may be different if naïve extra-theoretical

"themes" are the selective criterion of funding. In such a case, it is the theoretical and research

agents that have to adapt. One can then imagine the uneasy position of the evaluator who has

to evaluate scientific proposals adapted to extra-scientific selective criteria with scientific

rigour – but in the light of extra-scientific criteria of selection.

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Let us illustrate this general difficulty with the example of the only "theme" that seems to

have originated in scientific circles – "E-life-style". The topic is quite obviously meant to

encourage investigation of the social effects of the new technologies of information and

communication. We know that the new TIC have greatly contributed to the global

transformation of economic processes and social structures. It is on the other side highly

questionable if such a derivative and narrowed approach that only takes into consideration

their visible cultural effects, perhaps even only intentional cultural practices concerned with

TIC, can provide a relevant and illuminating insight into present TIC-triggered

transformations. It is as if one would try to analyse and explain social and historical impact of

the print technology only from the text of the Machiavelli's letter in which he accounts his

daily life and, within it, describes his reading habits – or, as we would say now, his "reading-

styles".42

The 2005 competition indicates that, without proper theoretical discussions, it is impossible to

develop an adequate research policy. Theoretical discussion among various scientific

approaches and paradigms can provide the adequate background for eventually successful

national research policies. However, securing the condition of such a discussion is a very

complex task and goes much beyond the recruitment of a few politically compatible

mandarins into the decision making bodies. Above all, this presupposes a constant concern

about the life of "scientific community", a question that is especially important in the

humanities and social sciences. It also presupposes keeping university and other higher

education institutions able to conduct research as part of their normal activities that involve

both students and teachers. Among other elements, this also requires a public presence of

scientists, researchers, teachers and students – a presence that is extremely limited in the

present conditions when public space is mostly occupied by politicians and journalist, and,

eventually, by media intellectuals.43

There was no niche for the humanities in the 2005 competition because there was no coherent

theoretical background supporting the thematic repertoire offered by the ministry. If the

42 In the letter of 10th December 1513, addressed to his friend Francesco Venturini, Machiavelli described his day in exile in Florentine countryside. In particular, he recounted how, in the morning, he was taking a stroll across the forest, "with a book under my arm, Dante or Petrarca or one of those minor poets like Tibullus, Ovidius and others". Historians reconstruct that Machiavelli was reading Latin and Italian poets published in small format by the Venetian printer Aldo Manuccio who introduced the practical "cursive" type we now call "italic". – In the evening, Machiavelli turned to a different kind of books and changed the manner of reading: in his study, he was reading, in large format, the "great" writers like Ploutarchos, Titus Livius, Tacitus, and reflected upon the great themes of statehood, politics and the course of history. (Guglielmo Cavallo, Roger Chartier, Historire de la lecture dans le monde occidental, Seuil, Paris, 1995.)43 See, for example: Pierre Bourdieu, Sur la télévision; Serge Halimi, Les nouveaux chiens de garde; Daniel Lindenberg, Le rappel à l'ordre; Raoul Marc Jennar, Europe, la trahison des élites.

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specific challenges of the present historical moment are to be adequately formulated, the

managerial and the governmental perspectives do not suffice: they have to be completed, and

mutually articulated, by theoretical perspectives proper.

The failure to achieve the proclaimed goals

Let us resume our analysis in the terms of the goals that the "funding by projects" is supposed

to achieve.

1. Social and economic relevance of research . The "themes" proposed by the ministry

did not provide a reliable indication towards relevant research. On the contrary, some

institutions used them as covers to smuggle their regular activities with weak research

component into the competition and to win additional funds.

2. More rational and economical organisation, process of work, use of human resources

in research institutions. Upon the available data, big and mostly central institutions

were able to acquire some additional funds for their activities. No particular

economising effects are visible.

3. Competition among research institutions and fairer distribution of funds . The projects

that won the competition mostly emanated from one central and strong institution with

a privileged status. Only two institutions outside the capital were awarded funding for

three out of 20 projects.

Spontaneous epistemology of the institutional arrangements

"Orientations of the Ministry of higher education, science and technology for the attribution

of budget funds for research priorities in the year 2005" opened a new financing opportunity

for "thematic, applied and post-doctoral research projects". Thematic projects were further

defined as "oriented basic and applied research projects on a determined theme. The priority

of thematic and post-doctoral projects are applied projects" ("Orientations…", 1). It should be

noted that basic research was only admitted under the condition of being "thematic", i.e., only

if fitting the themes determined by the Ministry. Basic research was further marginalised by

the provision that within the only category including basic research, applied projects were a

priority.

The logic of the "Orientations …" (and the competition that was enacting them) is

remarkable. It first distributes the field of research into two categories: production of

knowledge and production-reproduction of scientific personnel; at a second stage, it divides

production of knowledge into thematic and applied research:

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production of knowledge vs. reproduction of scientific personnel thematic vs. applied

At a third stage, thematic research is defined as oriented basic and applied research. And its

"orientation" means that it fits into one (or several) "themes" determined by the Ministry.

production of knowledge vs. reproduction of scientific personnel thematic vs. applied

basic vs. applied

Finally, within the "thematic" and post-doctoral research, priority is given to applied

research. This means that the above schematisation should be abandoned and replaced by a

different one. This new scheme starts from the opposition between "autonomous" and

"heteronymous" research. However, this opposition is posited only to exclude the autonomous

research from the further development of the scheme. The only autonomous research admitted

is post-doctoral research, with the important supplementary provision that even there, applied

research is a priority (specifically on post-doctoral research, see below). All other research is

heteronymous: either responding to the needs of various social and economic agents

(corporations etc.) or fitting into the "themes" fixed by the Ministry. Within the "themes"

determined by the government, applied research again is a priority. The distinction that really

organises the scheme is the distinction between two types of heteronymy – the one fed by the

interests of private or "civil society" agents (corporations, companies, enterprises etc.) and the

other commanded by raison d'Etat. The underlying logic of the funding scheme of the

Ministry seems to be determined by two types of diversion of public funds: into the domain of

private capital and into the interest-sphere of the main actors in possession of political,

administrative, institutional power.

autonomous research vs. heteronomous research

heteronomy by heteronomy by private agents State

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applied research "thematic" research

post-doctoral; priority: applied applied basic

The red triangle marks the central area of "applied research"; basic research only figures

marginally. It can only be autonomous as post-doctoral research. As research sans phrase, it

cannot be autonomous; specifically, it should be commanded by the raison d'Etat type of

heteronymy.

Further, the raison d'Etat type of heteronomy was indirectly determined by specialists coming

from the economic sphere, i.e., from the domain of (private) capital. The "themes […] were

determined by the ministry on the basis of the premises [izhodišča: orientations] proposed by

the group for priorities, composed of the chiefs of development of successful Slovene

enterprises" ("Orientations …", § 3, p. 1). There are not two types of heteronomy, one

proceeding from the "civil society" and the other from the State. There is only one source of

heteronomy: although it certainly is situated within the "civil society", it only embraces a

limited area within it, the economic sphere – more precisely, "successful Slovene enterprises".

The exclusive source of heteronymous determination of research is the capital: this mediation

either acts directly, and yields "applied" research; or it operates indirectly, through the filter of

the State, specifically, re-articulated by the Ministry of higher education, science and

technology.

The scheme of the logic of the competition should accordingly be re-drawn as follows:

autonomous research vs. heteronymous research

heteronymy by private agents

direct State mediated

applied research "thematic" research

post-doctoral; priority: applied applied basic

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The best niche for basic research seems the post-doctoral research. However, it is meant as

reproduction of personnel, with a strong institutional determination. Each applicant should

have a mentor, and the regular way to apply is through a research institution (higher education

included) – the mentor's institution. The applicant "should be employed by the "applying

organisation [sic!] or he [sic!] should be employed before the signing of the contract of the

execution of the project" (text of the "Public competition … 2005", 4.4.3., in fine). Researches

without an institutional affiliation or without strong unofficial connections in research

institutions seem to be severely discriminated by the conditions of the competition.

The institutional determination is the same for other types of applications (thematic and

applied research). There, "contracts of employment for a determined period (the period of the

execution of the project) should be contracted before the signing of the contract of the

execution of the project" (text of the competition, 4.3.). Unemployed researchers or "private

researchers" (i.e., those who have a recognised status similar to that of private entrepreneurs)

are severely discriminated.

Objectivity of the evaluation procedure

In Slovenia, Council for science coordinated the evaluation process, while independent

experts evaluated research proposals. The peculiarity in Slovenian evaluation process was the

division between foreign and domestic experts. "Regulation on (co-)financing of basic,

applied and post-doctoral research projects" mentions the combination of “domestic and

foreign experts" as "necessary”. Although regulation mentions foreign experts only as an

option, Research Agency requested that research proposals be submitted both in Slovene and

in English. The Agency subsequently invited foreign experts to make the first evaluation of

the projects that were after that passed on to Slovene evaluators and national coordinators.

Agency made a great display about the novelty of this procedure at a press conference, and

argued that this arrangement would contribute to enhance the “objectivity” and “quality” of

the evaluation process and the fair selection of projects.44 Slovene resolution on national

research and development programme, published the next year, adopted the same argument

why foreign evaluators should have a more significant role in the evaluation process in the

44 “Slovene research field is small and therefore the evaluation of research proposals is problematic. For all kinds of conflict of interests, not qualitative projects always win; this was tied to many deficiencies that were obvious in past. We have decided to invite a group of more than 20 people, mostly from abroad and with Slovene background. They accepted the invitation to come to their motherland and to evaluate research proposals in the frame of this application call. We are certain that we have overcome now the conflict of interests’ problem that was a main criticized point of evaluation system up to now.” Franci Demšar, the director of Slovenian Research Agency, in: Dragica Bošnjak, “Slovenske raziskave po svetovnih merilih«, Delo, 14.7.2006.

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future. The document claims that “it is difficult in many fields to guarantee independent

evaluation with Slovenian experts only because Slovenia is too small, so the same people all

the time cannot keep up ethical concerns.”45

However, the twenty foreign experts that evaluated research proposals in 2005 were not really

foreigners; they were mostly Slovene experts working abroad or experts with a Slovene

background. If the evaluation process had to be internationalized, why was such a national

criterion applied? Director of Research Agency Franci Demšar explained that this criterion

was proposed by the non-governmental organisation Slovenian World Congress that provided

experts from their membership body.46 The non-governmental organisation considered its

involvement in evaluation as a “repatriation process” for their members and as an important

impetus to improve the research performance in Slovenia which is “lagging behind the most

developed countries”.47 National resolution obviously adopted the idea of the Slovenian World

Congress since one of the important tasks for the future is to invite one hundred excellent

foreign scientists per year to work at Slovenian research institutions for at least one month48 or

to establish a special fund for reintegration of Slovenian scientists that are successful abroad49.

The official strategy to make research performance more efficient is to import foreign

researchers (one can understand that they would predominantly be of Slovene origin) and to

replace the native ones. Institutions of research policy in Slovenia exhibit strong disdain

towards the existing domestic research capacities.

In this context, "domestic" is an institutional determination that does not anticipate the nature

of so predicated scientific practices and even less their quality; nor does it define the

evaluative capacity of the agents involved in "domestic" scientific practices. The Agency has

expressed the fear of self-serving clientelism: this kind of danger is much better countered by 45 “Zaradi majhnosti Slovenije je na mnogih področjih težko zagotoviti neodvisno ocenjevanje zaradi neupoštevanja etičnih meril vedno istih ljudi samo s strokovnjaki iz Slovenije.” Resolucija o nacionalnem raziskovalnem in razvojnem programu za obdobje 2006-2010, article 1.2.2.46 Slovenian World Congress proudly describes its involvement in the evaluation process on its website http://www.slokongres.com (the site visited on November 10, 2006). The award for their assistance, we quote, was the status of the “association in public interest” that brings many important privileges. [“Na vsakokratno sporočilo zbranih na konferencah, da je potrebno rojake vključiti v znanstvene tokove v domovini, je lani Agencija za raziskovalno dejavnost RS prva konkretno upoštevala naš predlog, da k ovrednotenju raziskovalnih programov povabi tudi strokovnjake slovenskega rodu iz sveta. Ministrstvo za visoko šolstvo, znanost in tehnologijo je naše delo ocenilo z izdajo odločbe, da ima Svetovni slovenski kongres status društva v javnem interesu na področju znanosti. Konference pa so hkrati tudi del repatriacijskih procesov, saj se njihovi udeleženci – rojaki iz sveta ob pomoči in nagovarjanju SSK odločijo tudi za življenje in delo v Sloveniji.”]47 The NGO defines its mission as follows: “Further, the mission of the Congress is to overcome the divisions that were imposed during the decades-lasting period of communism that did not cultivate national consciousness and its values." [“Nadalje je naloga Kongresa premagati delitve, ki jih zadalo desetletja trajajoče obdobje komunizma, ki ni vzgajalo nacionalne zavesti in njenih vrednot.”] Cf. http://www.slokongres.com (page visited on November 10, 2006).48 Resolucija o nacionalnem raziskovalnem in razvojnem programu za obdobje 2006-2010, p. 6.49 Resolucija o nacionalnem raziskovalnem in razvojnem programu za obdobje 2006-2010, p. 10.

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making the evaluation process open and public – than by "importing" evaluators selected on

the principle of their membership in a particular NGO. However, the scheme adopted by the

Agency in 2005 raises another problem: the question of how the variety of scientific

paradigms has been represented within the selected group of evaluators. Since this type of

representation has not been taken into account and the question of the plurality of paradigms

has not even been discussed, one could assume that the scheme has been deficient in this

respect. This is especially important in the social sciences and the humanities, where the

permanent dialogue among various paradigms is a necessary inherent dimension of scientific

practices. One could almost say that the quality selection is a matter of intra-paradigmatic

processes, while it is the inter-paradigmatic polyphony that should be secured by

governmental policies.

The mistrust with which the Agency treats "domestic" scientific communities can then be

interpreted as a mistrust of scientific community tout court. Scientists, who would like to be

reintegrated into domestic scientific community or are invited to be reintegrated,50 can hardly

be more “objective” than any other member of this community. If the firm mistrust of the

Agency towards the scientific community is justified, then it does not matter whether an

expert is domestic or foreign, since the Agency obviously believes that the self-control of

scientific community is not functioning. Internationalisation of the experts’ group is not likely

to solve the problem; it only alleviates the responsibility of those who have to be blamed for

the mistrust. The analysis above clearly shows that foreign experts’ group failed to guarantee

many of the basic scientific principles (as, for example, to prevent instrumentalisation of

science for ideological purposes or to hinder the use of weak concepts…). A group of twenty

renowned foreign professors and researchers (mostly from the USA as it was underlined at the

press conference) seems to have been just a mask behind which the rules and values foreign to

scientific process were enforced. Even the priority given in this call to the applied research,

expertise and policy studies cannot be an excuse for violating such rules.

Contrary to the declared “objectivity”, the rules that, both in European and Slovenian

regulations, determine the flow of the evaluation process, contain a stipulation that gives the

commission or agency a power to contradict the decision of the experts’ group. In the

Guidelines of European Commission one reads: “The Commission also reserves the right to

reject proposals below a given rank when it is considered that the level of quality (regardless

of threshold or budget availability) is not adequate, notwithstanding the independent experts’ 50 At the press conference, one of the evaluators, Prof. Dušan Petrač said that after the Slovene independence, successful Slovene researchers working abroad received many offers but never concrete proposals. "This time, finally, a concrete proposal has come.« Dragica Bošnjak, idem.

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recommendations”.51 The Commission therefore takes the right to judge what is “adequate” in

the sense of “quality” and to overrule the judgements of experts. A similar stipulation in

Slovene regulation of the evaluation process (in: “The orientations of the ministry…”)

destroys the professional evaluation process. In the second phase of evaluation, Ministry for

high education, science and technology gives the Agency the possibility that “projects

eliminated in the first phase, can be included later on if the leader of the project comes from

the best evaluated research groups in 2004 or the references of the submitter show his high

outstanding excellence”.52 Out of the 18 selected projects, the foreign evaluators approved 12

proposals, while the domestic evaluator gave six proposals the number of points that enabled

them to be selected. Finally, the national coordinator, according to the rule above, managed to

get on the final list three projects that the evaluators (foreign and domestic) originally had not

graded with enough points to be selected.

This kind of intervention from the outside is justified with the general concern to transform

“knowledge into economic value and commercial success”.53 What kind of science and social

progress can be generated by this kind of procedures that remove scientific practices from

their commitment to knowledge and truth? And, moreover, impose upon the scientists to

betray their traditional commitments? Can an economic incentive really be a substitutive

motive for doing science? Finally, is not a science that looks for economic success only too

dangerous for society?

European research policy defines its goal as “stimulating innovation and improving the use

and transfer of research results into commercial technologies in the Union and all its regions,

including new Member states”.54 Slovene resolution on the national research and development

programme in 2006 similarly defines “knowledge and creativity as main promoters of growth

and employment”. The justifying argument is the premise that the innovation and research

performance of European countries is lagging behind the USA and Japan.55 For this reason,

Barcelona declaration obliges EU to increase spending for research up to 3% of GDP by 2010

“in order to close the gap between the EU and its major competitors”.56 Consequently, “a 51 Guidelines…, p. 19-20.52 Orientations…, p.2. Cf. the discussion of the humanities competition, chapter 5.53 European Commission, More Research and Innovation – Investing for Growth and Employment: A Common Approach, Brussels, COM (2005) 488 final.54 European Research Area, European Commission, Brussels, Directorate-General for Research, July 2004.55 EU provides 1,93% of GDP for research, USA 2,6% and Japan 3,2%, while China is increasing national spending for research and is going to catch up with EU soon. Other indexes (number of patents, number of publications, technology venture capital, in-field employment…) are used as additional arguments that EU is lagging behind the USA and Japan. Cf. Key Figures 2005. Towards a European Research Area – Science, Technology and Innovation, Luxembourg, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2005. 56 “In order to close the gap between the EU and its major competitors, there must be a significant boost of the overall R&D and innovation effort in the Union, with a particular emphasis on frontier technologies.” Barcelona

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contribution to a strong European industrial base” is one of the priorities in Integrated

guidelines for growth and jobs (2005-2008).57 As we can see, European research policy was

created in an atmosphere of war. In the perspective of this policy, researchers are intellectual

combatants on the battlefield of the world economic competition. They fight for the power of

European “knowledge economy”. Few years after Barcelona’s declaration, the public

financial input for research has not been increasing58 - the research field is without the

promised background, while the militant jargon remains and justifies reforms in the research

area.

Brief analysis of one research competition in Slovenia (designed with European reform

programme in mind) showed dangerous inclinations towards dissolution of scientific sphere

and a profound mistrust in scientific community. Lack of financial resources,

commercialisation of education and publishing, politicization of sciences … will additionally

contribute to pull the rug from under scientists’ feet. Restoration of scientific community and

strengthening of communication among scientists seem to be a reasonable objective for the

future. Important economic and social impact of sciences will then come as the result of

socially responsible and self-critical scientific practices.

European Council, March 15-16, 2002.57 Integrated Guidelines for Growth and Jobs (2005-2008), Luxembourg, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2005.58 According to Key Figures 2005, ibidem.

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Conclusions

In many ways, the selection process in the competition of 2005 was made as if the scientific

community did not exist59: the secrecy of the procedure, importation of foreign evaluators60,

implicit tendency to make the selection automatic61, exclusion of the scientific community

during the process of determination of the "themes". Although the supposition was false, it

could, if maintained and enforced over a longer period, operate in the way of the "self-

fulfilling prophecy"62. The supposition was false for the social sciences and the humanities in

particular: during their history, those sciences have created a strong and relatively well-

integrated community. The community has developed in the federal Yugoslavia, when it was

tightly integrated into international debates and had a certain international irradiation. It was

able to secure a high level of autonomy and very high professional standards, and soon

acquired the capacity to resist attempts of heteronymous intervention.63 The second important

moment were the eighties, where social theory had a prominent place within the alternative

cultures and movements, and for a short period over-determined the public debate and

political agenda of the new social movements.

Before the achievements of these traditions and of the long continuity of scientific labour are

completely lost, governmental policies should attempt to strengthen the scientific community,

59 In an eartly reaction to the call, Frane Adam (now member of the Scientific Council of the Slovenian Research Agency for the field of the social sciences) wrote: "The call shows that its writers do not have a clear idea about the role of science as such. Is science autonomous or not, if it is, to what extent and and in what dimensions? Who decides, what are the priorities of scientific research? Are these really only those who use the results, or even only the representatives of the economy and etreprises?" (Frane Adam, "Bosta humanistika in družboslovje samo še za okras?" [Will the humanities and the social sciences remain only as an ornament?], Nova revija, vol. XXIV, nos. 277-278-279, May-June-July, 2005, p. 120.) 60 The problematic feature is not that the Agency invited non-residents, but the background belief that the opposition "resident / non-resident" could be relevant in science. The subsequent belief that "foreigners" are somewhat "better" or "more reliable" than the locals should be ascribed to the colonised mind of the local politicians and administrators. 61 Even with methodologically questionable arrangements: heterogeneous features of the project and the research team were numerically evaluated; marks referring to heterogeneous properties that unevenly correlated with the "quality" of the project and the team, entered into the final sum as if their simple addition were unproblematic. – Frane Adam, member of the Scientific Council of the Slovenian Research Agency for the field of the social sciences, recently admitted: " […] the evaluation system of the Agency has been trapped into a dead-end. There is too much quantification and too little care is directed towards the contents and the importance of research and publication contributions." (Frane Adam, "Zašli smo v slepo ulico" [We have been trapped into a dead-end], Delo, 21. 1. 2007.)62 "In a series of works […] W. I. Thomas […] set forth a theorem basic to the social sciences: 'If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.' " (Robert K. Merton, "The self-fulfilling prophecy", in: Social Theory and Social Structure, The Free Press – Macmillan, New York and London, 1968 [1949], p. 475.)63 Cf. the account of the pressures against the "group of professors" at the University of Belgrade, exercised by certain fractions within the powers-to-be of the moment in 1973-74. Academic and research community in whole Yugoslavia mobilised in defence of Belgrade colleagues. Students actively and massively participated in the struggle. (Nebojša Popov, Društveni sukobi izazov sociologiji [Social conflicts – a challenge to sociology], Centar FDT, Belgrade, 1990 [1983].) Under the regulations based upon the constitution of 1974, students were represented in all the tri-partite bodies of the academic self-management, and their delegation had the power of veto in all the decisions.

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support its immanent development and minimise heteronymous arbitrary and voluntaristic

interventions64. The administration should treat the self-guided scientific development with

less arrogance and should support the initiatives that come from genuine theoretic practices.65

Encouraging public scientific debate in the country and with international participation would

be a better way to define the priorities and to select the projects that are worth funding 66. It

would also be a better way to create research teams across the institutional boundaries that the

present system makes even more rigid by its bizarre administrative requests67 and by

stimulating an unhealthy competition among the institutions. Scientific practices are co-

operative, not competitive, and public, not secret. The system should also abandon regulations

that steer local production towards dependence and subordination.68

64 In a rather pessimistically tuned intervention, prof. Drago B. Rotar described the relation between scientific practices and their governmental administrators in the following way: "There is a complete misunderstanding between the persons who administer sciences and the sciences themselves. This can be seen in the inadequate network of control that is incredibly detailed when it insists upon topics without any relevance, in the neo-liberal notion of employment of scientists (for a limited period, on the basis of popularity, "usefulness" and servility – this will doubtlessly destroy the scientific potential in the country), and also in the names of the honours bestowed upon scientists, like, e.g., "the ambassador of Slovene science", that subordinate science to the service of national propaganda." (Drago B. Rotar, "Humanistika – veda ali znanost?" [The humanities – knowledge or science?], Nova revija, vol. XXIV, nos. 277-278-279, May-June-July, 2005, p. 91.) 65 Just two examples where the government failed to appreciate the importance of scientific initiatives. The 13th International Congress of Slavists was held in Ljubljana from August 15 to 21, 2003. The funding provided by the government of Slovenia was scarce and obliged the organisers to request a relatively high fee from the participants. This prevented many scholars, esp. from the Slavic speaking world, to participate. The government failed to perceive the importance of the congress of one of the most outstanding disciplines in the humanities – a discipline where Slovene scholars have played a prominent role. – On May 5, 2006, an international conference "Marxisms and linguistics" was organised by the students' association Agregat. The conference re-activated in an original way the contributions of Marxist thinkers of the twenties, articulating them to the present problems of the theory and philosophy of language and discourse. This is a field where there is a strong production within the region. The conference was held without the support of the government.66 Decades ago, in the system of socialist self-management (that comprised important "corporatist" elements), scientists and their institutions had a much greater role in administering scientific policies, and directly participated to the decision-making. In that system, the themes to be investigated were determined, and the projects were evaluated, at public discussions (panels and round tables) convening the "performers" and the "users", i.e., scientists, managers of scientific and research institutions, and representatives of the "larger society" (economy, local communities etc.). 67 Researchers on the projects have to be employed by research institutions. In the present situation of high unemployment of highly qualified professionals, this is a discriminatory regulation. Towards the end of the year 2006, there was an institutional panic among the applying researchers and institutions, since all who had applied had to be employed by the institution through which they had applied. In the case of the persons who were not regularly employed by the institutions who provided the institutional background for their applications, contracts were at that point fictive and were to be annulled in the case that the project had not been selected. – Another outstanding feature of the 2006 competition was that the projects started on January 1, 2007 – while the results were published on January 5. 68 There are many such regulations. One of them is the list of journals and publishers where scientific publications count as relevant and bring evaluation points. The list was composed by a commission at the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts, and is used by the Research Agency and by the University of Ljubljana. The list of publishers comprises 108 units: 77 from the English speaking world, 15 from Germany, 7 from Italy (3 publishers are quoted two times), 6 from France, 3 from Austria. The list of publishers in Slovene does not comprise 4 from among the most important publishers in the humanities and social sciences (Koda, Krtina, Mirovni inštitut, Založba /*cf. – the last one being, among other titles, the Slovene publisher of the prestigious international collection Making Europe). The regulations encourage researchers to publish in the mainstream established international journals, to treat the mainstream subjects and to follow the established fashions.

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Devaluation of publishing in Slovene (together with a restrictive funding of journals) leads towards the creation of professional elites alienated from their immediate social context and from each other. This is a directly technocratic policy that destroys the local society.

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