The relationship between scientific expertise and political decision-making is becoming more and more paradoxical: On the one hand, policies increasingly rely on scientific and socially convertible knowledge. On the other hand, science faces a loss of authority, trust and legitimacy due to the growing number of controversies about risks and uncertainties. At the same time, the increasing importance of scientific knowledge ultimately highlights uncertainties and areas of specified and unspecified ignorance in science as well. This trend challenges the communication between politics and science in a new way.

The project searches for new forms and modes of interface communication between politics and science, exemplified in the area of agricultural policies and agricultural research. Connected to the stronger societal emphasis on environmental protection, animal welfare and consumer interests, three questions come to the fore: How can scientific research and the political process open up for these new concerns? How far do modes of knowledge production and -communication become reflexive, dialogical and transdisciplinary? Moreover which contribution do these new modes make to better deal with uncertainties, problematic side effects and risks in the complex field of agriculture?

Using document analysis and expert interviews we will analyse the following key-areas in the project:

• The reaction of agricultural science to the scandals and the political paradigm change (module A): Have agricultural scientists adapted to the higher public sensibility for risks and problematic side effects and do they open up for such societal concerns? Which discursive and institutional factors and actor constellations do support such processes of opening?
• New reflexive forms of interface communication between agricultural science and policy on the federal (Bund: module B) and the state level (Länder: module C). The focus is on changes in the institutional settings, the networks as well as the discursive framing of the agro-political system, foremost at the federal level. On the state-level there will be a stronger emphasis on implementation. To this end, we will compare the states of North-Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and Bavaria and the patterns of communication between agricultural science and lower-level administrative authorities.
• Building on the results from the previous modules we want to explore new approaches of communication and cooperation between science, politics and agricultural agencies (module D). Therefore criteria of quality have to be developed. Furthermore, models have to be build that consider the addressees as well as the context.

The project is headed by the MPS in cooperation with the Research Center for Biotechnology, Society and the Environment at the Hamburg University and the Institute for Organic Farming at the University for Agricultural Sciences Vienna and Interface - Institute in Lucerne.

Duration: 1.04.2004 – 31.07.2007

Conferences

Neue Formen der Kommunikation zwischen (Agrar-) Wissenschaft und Politik – Auftaktworkshop des Projekts »Schnittstellenkommunikation«, 4./5.2.2005 in München (IBZ)
Weitere Informationen finden Sie im Konferenz-Flyer (pdf).

Further reading

- Kropp, Cordula / Wagner, Jost (2005): »›Agrarwende‹. Über den institutionellen Umgang mit den Folgeproblemen der Folgenreflexion im Agrarbereich.« In: Soziale Welt, Jg. 56 / H. 2, S. 159-182.

- Kropp, Cordula / Schiller, Frank / Wagner, Jost (Hg.) (2007): Die Zukunft der Wissenskommunikation. Perspektiven für einen reflexiven Dialog von Wissenschaft und Politik – am Beispiel des Agrarbereiches. Berlin. [im Erscheinen]