Group of children playing tug of war. — Cooperation and competition are by no means mutually exclusive. Rather, being integrated into cooperative structures can be of advantage in competitive situations. Photo: Forschungsgruppe Kooperation und Konkurrenz in den Wissenschaften, LMU. Bildbearbeitung: Dana von Suffrin

Interrelations between science, technology and society

Cooperation and Competition in the Sciences

Does science have an impact on (political) decisions? How do science organisations succeed in coordinating their interests? And how do they deal with conflicts? The research project on the Alliance of Science Organisations addresses these and further questions.

Content

The Alliance of Science Organisations: Corporatism in German Science between Cooperation and Competition

Funded by

DFG – German Research Foundation

Edited by

Dr. Alexander Gall
DFG-Projekt "Kooperation und Konkurenz"
Dr. Vanessa Osganian

Project description

The project investigates the development of the Alliance of Science Organisations. Looking at the period from the early 1960s to the late 1990s, the project examines how the Alliance of Science Organisations has been established and how it has actively shaped German science policy in close cooperation with the political system.
The project is based on the study of extensive archival collections and on interviews conducted with several contemporary witnesses from science and politics.

The Alliance of Science Organisations

The Alliance of Science Organisations brings together the most important science and research institutions in Germany. It takes a position on central issues of science organisation and is thus an important advisory body for science policy. At the same time, it can be considered a lobbying organisation of the federally funded science institutions and as a corporatist element of research organisation.

The Alliance aims at integrating and harmonising the diverging interests of its member organisations. Consequently, the Alliance of Science Organisations operates between the poles of cooperation and competition.

Photo: Deutsches Museum

Cooperation and Competition

The research institutions assembled in the Alliance of Science Organisations are funded by the federal and state governments. Therefore, one might assume that the individual members of the Alliance would compete with each other for more money. Scientists as well as science organisations, however, simultaneously operate within different cooperative structures, as can be seen in the Alliance of Science Organisations: the individual members try to cooperatively eliminate structural and situational conflicts that result from the intensifying constellation of competition for state resources – by joining forces and collaborating.

Using the example of the Alliance of Science Organisations, this research project examines the tense interconnection of cooperation and competition.

The project is part of the DFG research group “Cooperation and Competition in the Sciences” (FOR 2553), which is headed by Kärin Nickelsen (LMU Munich) as spokesperson.

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At the DFG Head Office, we looked through a total of about 40 files on the meetings of the Alliance of Science Organisations. Photo: Vanessa Osganian, Forschungsgruppe Kooperation und Konkurrenz, LMU

Reading room of the Archive of the Max Planck Society. — Several trips took the project team to Berlin-Dahlem. In the stunning reading room of the Archive of the Max Planck Society (MPG), we looked through numerous files, including those from the Presidential Board and the General Administration of the MPG. Photo: Vanessa Osganian, Forschungsgruppe Kooperation und Konkurrenz, LMU

The archives of the Wissenschaftsrat in Cologne. — In January 2019, the Wissenschaftsrat granted us access to its archive in Cologne. As a result, we were lucky to view and evaluate the files of another founding member of the Alliance of Science Organisations. Photo: Vanessa Osganian, Forschungsgruppe Kooperation und Konkurrenz, LMU

The project team also looked at numerous collections in the Federal Archives in Koblenz. These included the files of the Federal Ministry of Research and Technology (BMFT), the German Chancellery and correspondence from the chairmen of the Wissenschaftsrat and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Großforschungseinrichtungen (AGF). Photo: Vanessa Osganian, Forschungsgruppe Kooperation und Konkurrenz, LMU

Wissenschaftszentrum Bonn — In summer 2019, Vanessa Osganian spent two weeks at the Wissenschaftszentrum in Bonn. The DFG granted her extensive access to the collections of the DFG’s Presidential Board and the General Administration. Photo: Vanessa Osganian, Forschungsgruppe Kooperation und Konkurrenz, LMU

Lectures

Lectures:

Helmuth Trischler und Vanessa Osganian: Wuppertal, Bergische Universität, Workshop „Staatliche Forschungsfinanzierung in der Bundesrepublik nach 1945“, 11.3.2021: Kooperation trotz Konkurrenz. Die Allianz der Wissenschaftsorganisationen und die Frage nach der Finanzierung von Forschung (online).
Vanessa Osganian: München, LMU, Workshop „Evaluation in den Geisteswissenschaften - Institutionen, Personen, Praktiken“, 18.3.2021: Evaluation, Konkurrenz und Konflikte. Reaktionen der Allianz der Wissenschaftsorganisationen auf die Wiedervereinigung (online).
Helmuth Trischler und Vanessa Osganian: Berlin, MPI für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Workshop des Forschungsprogramms „Geschichte der MPG“, 22.4.2021: 10 Thesen zur Interaktionsdynamik von Wissenschaft und Politik unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft und der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft (online).
Vanessa Osganian: München, Abschlusskonferenz der DFG-Forschungsgruppe Kooperation und Konkurrenz in den Wissenschaften, 28.9.2021: Die Allianz zwischen Kooperation und Konkurrenz. Thesen zum Zusammenwirken der Wissenschaftsorganisationen.
Vanessa Osganian: Berlin, Gemeinsame Herbsttagung der DGS-Sektionen Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung und Organisationssoziologie „Wettbewerb und Organisation – Vergleichende Perspektiven“, 24.-25.11.2022: Kooperation in Konkurrenzen. Die Allianz der Wissenschaftsorganisationen als kooperative Akteurin auf dem kompetitiven Feld der Forschungsförderung.
Helmuth Trischler: Karlsruhe, Ringvorlesung des KIT zum Thema „Technische Hochschulen. Perspektiven der Universitätsgeschichte“, 21.6.2018: Kooperation und Konkurrenz zwischen Hochschulen und außeruniversitärer Forschung in Deutschland.
Vanessa Osganian: München, Projekttage der Forschungsgruppe „Kooperation und Konkurrenz in den Wissenschaften“, 8.10.2018: Die Allianz der Wissenschaftsorganisationen.
Helmuth Trischler und Vanessa Osganian: Berlin, Kolloquium des Forschungsprogramms zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, 5.11.2018:
Vanessa Osganian: München, TU und Deutsches Museum, Oberseminar zur Technik- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 28.1.2019: Die Allianz der Wissenschaftsorganisationen zwischen Kooperation und Konkurenz.
Vanessa Osganian: Bonn, 3. Jahrestagung der GWMT „Evidenz in den Wissenschaften“, 27.9.2019: Evidenzpraktiken in der Allianz der Wissenschaftsorganisationen. Institutionalisierung, Schließungs- und Öffnungstendenzen.
Vanessa Osganian: Stuttgart, Tagung „Das Ende des Goldenen Zeitalters“, 21.11.2019: Wissenschaftliche Selbstverwaltung im Umbruch? Die Allianz der Wissenschaftsorganisationen in den 1970er Jahren.

Workshop:

München, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 23.-24. 5.2019: „Macht. Wissen. Wettbewerb. Deutsche und europäische Forschungspolitik im Technology Race“.
Programm

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Workshop “Macht. Wissen. Wettbewerb.” — In May 2019, we invited scholars from various disciplines to our workshop “Macht. Wissen. Wettbewerb.” at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich. Photo: Vanessa Osganian, Forschungsgruppe Kooperation und Konkurrenz, LMU

Prof. Helmuth Trischler introducing the research group “Cooperation and Competition in the Sciences“ to the participants. — At the beginning of our workshop, Prof. Helmuth Trischler introduced the research group “Cooperation and Competition in the Sciences“ to the participants. Photo: Dana von Suffrin, Forschungsgruppe Kooperation und Konkurrenz, LMU

Workshop — In addition to the keynote lecture and three panel presentations, two working groups were the highlight of the workshop. We discussed theoretical concepts and various case studies on the basis of precirculated papers. Photo: Dana von Suffrin, Forschungsgruppe Kooperation und Konkurrenz, LMU

Publications

Osganian, Vanessa / Trischler, Helmuth: Die Max-Planck-Gesellschaft als wissenschaftspolitische Akteurin in der Allianz der Wissenschaftsorganisationen. Ergebnisse des Forschungsprogramms Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Preprint 16. Herausgegeben von Florian Schmaltz, Jürgen Renn, Carsten Reinhardt und Jürgen Kocka. Berlin 2022.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17617/2.3363237
Osganian, Vanessa: Competitive Cooperation. Institutional and Social Dimensions of Collaboration in the Alliance of Science Organisations in Germany. In: NTM 30 (2022) H. 1. S 1-27.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00048-022-00322-1
Trischler, Helmuth (im Erscheinen): Kooperation und Konkurrenz zwischen Hochschulen und außeruniversitärer Forschung in Deutschland – Der „Modellfall“ Karlsruhe im Kontext bundesdeutscher Wissenschaftsorganisation. In: Jahrbuch für Universitätsgeschichte 22 (2019).
Trischler, Helmuth; Wirsching Andreas (im Erscheinen): Wettbewerb durch Kooperation und Konsens: Modernisierungsstrategien im europäischen Forschungs- und Innovationssystem und bundesdeutsche Reaktionsdynamiken ca. 1970–2000. In: Nickelsen, Kärin (Hrsg.): Konkurrenz und Kooperation in den Wissenschaften der 1970er–1990er Jahre (2021).

Further links

[Translate to English:] LMU „Kooperation und Konkurrenz in den Wissenschaften“
https://www.kooperation-und-konkurrenz.geschichte.uni-muenchen.de/index.html

Deutsches Museum - of masterpieces of science and technology

Cooperation and Competition in the Sciences

Content

Funded by

Status

Duration

Edited by

Dr. Alexander Gall

Dr. Vanessa Osganian

Project description

The Alliance of Science Organisations

Cooperation and Competition

Lectures

Publications

Further links

[Translate to English:] LMU „Kooperation und Konkurrenz in den Wissenschaften“

Cooperation partners

Ludwig Maximilian University Munich

Institute for Contemporary History

Friedrich Schiller University Jena

Research Program “History of the Max Planck Society”, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

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