SCRUTINISING SCIENCE: THE CHANGING UK GOVERNMENT OF SCIENCE; REBECCA BODEN...ET AL

British science has undergone radical transformation during the past 20 years. This is less a result of scientific discoveries per se, but rather the structure of funding and institutions. Science used to occupy a discrete socio-economic space. Scientists enjoyed the privileges of status and funding in return for the generation of knowledge. This knowledge is now regarded as a commodified product or a set of commercialized relationships. This book aims to explain the transformation of science in the UK public sector through detailed analysis of the main Government Research establishments since 1979. By the 1980s, UK government research laboratories were an often quirky but always essential part of the state sector. The importance of these laboratories only usually becomes evident when there is some new and frightening scientific public issue - for example 'mad cow disease', foot and mouth disease or anthrax threats. Yet much of the work of these laboratories is more prosaic but nevertheless vital. In one of the most radical experiments in the organization and management of scientific research attempted in the UK, successive Conservative governments in the 1980s and 1990s sought to reform these laboratories by applying the market-based solution of 'New Public Management'. For many laboratories this meant some form of privatization, for the remainder it meant a significant degree of marketization within the public sector. Scrutinising Science explores and critiques that reform process by examining the laboratories' new organizational forms, the new visions of what science is for implicit in the reform agenda and the new forms of scientific knowledge production that have arisen as a consequence

By the 1980s, UK government research laboratories were an often quirky but always essential part of the state sector. In one of the most radical experiments in the organization and management of scientific research attempted in the UK, successive Conservative governments sought to reform these laboratories by applying the market-based solution of 'New Public Management'. Scrutinising Science explores and critiques that reform process by examining the laboratories' new organizational forms, the new visions of what science is for implicit in the reform agenda and the new forms of scientific knowledge production that have arisen as a consequence.

Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 6 List of Tables......Page 8 List of Figures......Page 9 List of Abbreviations......Page 10 Acknowledgements......Page 12 Foreword......Page 13 1 The Changing Nature of Scientific Organisation......Page 16 2 Historical Context......Page 43 3 New Public Management......Page 62 4 The Organisation of Science......Page 90 5 Science and Markets......Page 124 6 Scientific Knowledge Production Processes......Page 151 7 Lab Reports......Page 172 8 The Future of Science?......Page 200 Notes......Page 209 Bibliography......Page 211 Index......Page 219 "By the 1980s, UK government science research laboratories were an often quirky but always essential part of the state sector. In one of the most radical experiments in the organisation and management of scientific research attempted in the United Kingdom, successive Conservative governments in the 1980s and 1990s sought to reform these laboratories by applying the market-based solution of 'New Public Management' Transforming British Government provides a summary of all the key findings of all the projects on the Economic and Social Research Council's Whitehall Programme