The independence of research—A review of disciplinary perspectives and outline of interdisciplinary prospects [original]

Vol.:(0123456789)

Minerva (2022) 60:105–138

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-021-09451-8

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REVIEW

The Independence ofResearch—A Review

ofDisciplinary Perspectives andOutline

ofInterdisciplinary Prospects

JochenGläser1 · MitchellAsh2· GuidoBuenstorf3 · DavidHopf4·

LaraHubenschmid5· MelikeJanßen6· GritLaudel1· UweSchimank7·

MarleneStoll5· TorstenWilholt4· LotharZechlin8· KlausLieb5,6,9

Accepted: 25 July 2021 / Published online: 8 September 2021

Abstract The independence of research is a key strategic issue of modern socie-

ties. Dealing with it appropriately poses legal, economic, political, social and cul-

tural problems for society, which have been studied by the corresponding disciplines

and are increasingly the subject of reflexive discourses of scientific communities.

Unfortunately, problems of independence are usually framed in disciplinary contexts

without due consideration of other perspectives’ relevance or possible contributions.

To overcome these limitations, we review disciplinary perspectives and findings

on the independence of research and identify interdisciplinary prospects that could

inform a research programme.

Keywords Autonomy· Conflict of interest· Competition· Freedom of science·

Science in dictatorships· Academy-industry collaboration· Social epistemology·

Epistemic independence

* Jochen Gläser

Jochen.Glaeser@tu-berlin.de

1 TU Berlin, Berlin, Germany

2 University ofVienna, Vienna, Austria

3 University ofKassel, Kassel, Germany

4 Leibniz University Hanover, Hanover, Germany

5 Leibniz Institute forResilience Research, Mainz, Germany

6 German Centre forHigher Education Research andScience Studies (DZHW), Berlin, Germany

7 University ofBremen, Bremen, Germany

8 University ofDuisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany

9 Department ofPsychiatry andPsychotherapy, University Medical Centre Mainz, Mainz,

Germany

106 J.Gläser et al.

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If you do not have the freedom to choose the subject of your research, the

chances of discovering something of importance will already be limited. If

your choice of methods is restricted as well, these chances are reduced even

further. And if, at last, you are not allowed to disclose the results because they

are inconvenient for some, many, or even all, it might be best for you to discard

your research altogether—and for those who fund your research, too. This is

what we have to prevent. (Hell 2019: 6, our translation)

Introduction

The independence of research is a key strategic issue in modern societies. Science

has become a major source of wealth and is increasingly seen as a possible source of

solutions to survival problems of contemporary societies. This has turned research

capacity into a major base of power for actors in the ‘knowledge society’; as a con-

sequence, attempts to instrumentalize science and neglect its autonomy have grown.

At the same time, the growth of science and the dynamics of its research technolo-

gies have turned it into a very expensive enterprise. It comes as little surprise that

the question as to who should be able to influence research and how influence can

be exercised without damaging the productivity and integrity of research becomes

more important.

Current political struggles have made the independence of research take centre

stage. The discourse on ‘fake news’ coincides with attempts by some governments to

limit the independence of research (Goldman etal. 2017; Barnett and Wiber 2018;

Rectors’ Conferences 2018; Enyedi 2018). Even in countries with a broad societal

consensus on the necessity to maintain academic freedom the actual extent of this

freedom and the ways in which it should be maintained is subject to continuous

negotiation, which is e.g. illustrated by legal challenges to some higher education

reforms in Germany (Zechlin 2017). In analyses of research as a source of power,

the independence of research from the state and industry is often seen as advan-

tageous because political and economic interests are seen as ‘corrupting’ science

(Lave etal. 2010), while independence from ‘the public’ (whatever it may be) and

civil society actors is considered problematic because stakeholders with legitimate

interests get disconnected from research (Brown et al. 2006; Frickel etal. 2010).

Among researchers, there is an increasing concern about becoming dependent on

incorrect or unreliable findings, whose growing number may disorient or slow down

the knowledge production of scientific communities (Kern 2012; Byrne 2019).

These concerns point to threats to the independence of research that emerge within

the science system itself.

Dealing with the independence of research appropriately poses legal, economic,

political, social and cultural problems for society, which have been studied by the

corresponding disciplines and are increasingly the subject of reflexive discourses

of scientific communities. Unfortunately, these perspectives are unevenly devel-

oped and insufficiently integrated. Problems of independence are usually framed in

disciplinary contexts without due consideration of other perspectives’ relevance or

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The Independence of Research—A Review

possible contributions. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to overcome the limita-

tions of disciplinary perspectives by turning the independence of research into an

object of interdisciplinary study.1

We begin by identifying relevant disciplinary perspectives and findings on the

independence of research. Sociology specifies independence as the autonomy of

actors, which it has considered mostly in dyadic relationships between researchers

and their universities, industry the state or other actors. Economics conceptualises

independence in a similar way but focuses on strategic actions in competitive situ-

ations. Its perspectives on goal formation and on the process of competing facili-

tate the investigation of changing conditions for independence, some of which are

linked to intensifying and increasingly complex competitions in science. The most

important perspectives on the independence of research developed by the Philos-

ophy of Science are those of research ethics, the political philosophy of science,

and of social epistemology. The perspective of Legal Studies considers academic

freedom primarily as a personal defensive right, i.e. the right of the individual to

reject incursions on its academic freedom by other actors. At least in the German

case, which we exemplify here, the legal perspective can also be applied to organ-

izations (mainly universities) as guarantors of academic freedom and to the level

of the national science system whose independence is to be legally supported. The

History of Higher Education and Science emphasizes that academic independence

means different things under different historical circumstances, is granted academ-

ics to varying degrees, is not a necessary condition for high-quality research, and

can be abused to produce scientifically based claims that benefit specific commercial

or political interests. Self-reflections by research communities on the independence

of their research address biases in research that are caused by conflicts of interests,

which can be understood as researchers losing their independence. In addition, the

dependence of researchers in the Global South on the (Northern) cores of their com-

munities has been discussed by an increasing number of research communities.

We identify Interdisciplinary Prospects that could inform an interdisciplinary

research programme, namely the social construction of independence and the rela-

tionship between independence and the content of research. Finally, we draw some

Conclusions about the benefits of the concept ‘independence of research’ as a focus

of interdisciplinary studies.

The Independence ofResearch: Disciplinary Perspectives

In the most general sense, the independence of research refers to the extent to which

actors in science arefree from influences that alter their choices. Actors are com-

pletely independent if there are no such influences, or if they are able to resist such

influences. They are completely dependent if other actors make all their choices for

1 This paper is the result of a string of discussions the authors had among themselves and with partici-

pants of several workshops. We are particularly grateful to Martina Franzen, Fabian Hattke, and Simone

Rödder, who contributed ideas in the discussion process.

108 J.Gläser et al.

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them. Neither extreme is likely to occur empirically, i.e. independence is always

a matter of degree. It is important to note here that there is no reason to assume

that beyond a minimum that guarantees the functioning of the science system, more

independence is always better. Indeed, it is also important to consider what research-

ers themselves do with their independence that might constrain research options

within the system.

This very general idea of independence has been specified by the disciplines for

investigations in their respective conceptual frameworks. Hereinafter, we consider

how sociology, economics, the philosophy of science, legal studies and the history

of science conceptualise the independence of research, which problems of independ-

ence they address and which gaps in disciplinary knowledge exist. We conclude this

section by an account of reflexive discussions of threats to independence by scien-

tific communities in the social sciences, sciences, and medicine.

Sociology

Sociology specifies independence as the autonomy of actors.2 Actors are never fully

in control of their own conditions of actions because they are always embedded in

sets of relationships with other actors and thus interdependent. Within these con-

stellations of interdependence, some actors intend to change others’ behaviour by

exercising influence. Autonomy refers to an actor’s handling of such influences and

is considered as the degree of control over the formation of goals and the choice of

approaches to achieving them that remains with an actor who is influenced by others

(Gläser and Schimank 2014).3

Autonomy thus is a property of all actors in the science system including individ-

ual researchers, research groups, research organisations (e.g. universities), and fund-

ing agencies. Although studies of these types of actors have rarely considered their

autonomy explicitly, several recurrent topics of science studies can be interpreted

as addressing the autonomy of actors in science (Table1). These topics mostly con-

sider a specific relationship and the effects of dependencies on research.

Among the various actors influencing researchers, companies have received the

most attention. Researchers investigating the influence of pharmaceutical companies

on drug studies found “that study outcomes were significantly different in privately

funded versus publicly funded drug studies” (Krimsky 2013: 569; for the evidence

see e.g. Bekelman etal. 2003; Schott etal. 2010a, b). One of the causes of the fund-

ing effect is bias, which is defined as “the use of a method, data collection, data anal-

ysis, or interpretation of results that, in the consensus view of scientists of a disci-

pline, tends to yield results that distort the truth of a hypothesis under consideration”

2 For an alternative perspective, which considers the autonomy of social systems, see Luhmann (1995)

and Stichweh (2014).

3 This idea can be extended to sets of interdependent actors such as markets or communities. The auton-

omy of such an actor constellation could be understood as the extent to which external dependencies

leave the way in which this actor constellation ‘functions’ (its basic social order) intact (Gläser and Schi-

mank 2014).

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The Independence of Research—A Review

(Krimsky 2013: 568). Furthermore, collaboration with industry was found to slow

the diffusion of new knowledge but not to limit it (Evans 2010a, b). Empirical stud-

ies also confirmed that collaboration with industry makes researchers withhold their

data from colleagues, although other reasons like the wish to maintain a competitive

advantage may lead to the same result (Blumenthal etal. 1997).

Dependencies on the state are rarely discussed. Recent studies focus on the align-

ment of state and industry interests and discuss effects of state influence similar to

those of industry influence, with the interesting additional twist of the production of

ignorance (Frickel etal. 2010). An interesting gap in studies of researchers’ depend-

ence on the state concerns the exclusion by the state of its own or foreign researchers

from the communication within their scientific communities through travel restric-

tions (but see Varma and Sabharwal 2018).

Effects of researchers’ and universities’ dependence on the military, which merit

separate treatment due to the specific interests and governance tools of this sector

of the state, have been mostly investigated from a historical perspective (see below,

History of Higher Education and Science), not least due to the problems of gaining

access (Rappert etal. 2008: 731–732). A sociological analysis shows how weapons

Table 1 Foci of science studies related to the autonomy of actors in science

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