Society

Legitimacy

Universities educate students, conduct research, and transfer knowledge for the benefit of society. In the Netherlands, this mission is defined in the Higher Education and Scientific Research Act (WHW). Students are taught through both education and research. Ideally, through this process the student learns to think independently and make trade-offs on the wide range of topics and problems one may face as an active citizen in society and can contribute to these from their own discipline together with other disciplines. To achieve this, the university must be a place for students to openly discuss complex problems, bringing in different perspectives and ideas. This involves factual knowledge concerning problems, their history and dependencies, but also the various interpretations people have and the perspectives on possible solutions that have been proposed. In addition to acquiring factual knowledge, students also learn and practice skills such as listening, curiosity, understanding, analysis and logical reasoning. In this educational vision of the university the correct image is: ‘Education is not filling a vessel, but lighting a flame’.

The increasing interaction and relationship that the university enters into with society over the coming years is entirely in line with the times. The old reflex of philosophising about society’s problems in an armchair in the quiet of a book-filled study room, overlooking the courtyard garden, is certainly understandable and appealing. This is certainly a way to conduct science, but other, more interactive ways of research and education are needed too. Introducing cherry-picked problems in controlled doses, without inviting the people who face those problems, creates distance. This way, the academic avoids becoming overwhelmed and involved in the day-to-day complex reality.^[1] This distance worked well for someone like Isaiah Berlin, who did important work in the fields of ethics and political philosophy from the peace and quiet of his own study. But he knew all too well, through his own experience, that putting that philosophy into practice in society, with its political problems and power struggles, was a very different story. As we will discuss below, well before the Open Science movement (as launched since 2016), there have been several movements that sought to strengthen and improve the relationship and interaction between science, academics and society. Those movements encouraged researchers to work with a variety of stakeholders from society on an almost daily basis, to define research questions, draw up and implement research plans, and test the results in the context of the problem and problem owners in society.

Nevertheless, conversations between students and teachers inside the university can also reveal major differences of opinion that are not abstract or theoretical, but relate to societal problems and their possible approaches. They actually touch on ‘that other story’ as referred to above. Some recent examples of such topics include Black Lives Matter, diversity and inclusiveness, racism more broadly, misogyny and sexism, and the colonial past. Conversations and debate on these topics should be allowed to take place in the university with full transparency. These discussions must, however, abide by the Penal Code regarding threats and insults and academic mores regarding the substantiation of statements.^[2] If there is one platform in an open society and democracy where such exchange and discussion should be possible and nurtured, it is the university. It is precisely by delving into the origins, diversity of perspectives, and solutions to problems that students become fully-fledged critical citizens who can make their own choices.

In this process of discussion with fellow students and teachers, students will also learn to reflect on their own intellectual and societal positions, their worldview and perspective on humanity, the assumptions behind these views, and their origins.

Societal relevance

The call for societal relevance, as captured in the WHW, is not new. Among the more extensive structural international movements and programmes that focused on the relationship between the university and society, there is: American pragmatism (1900-1957), the Science and Society movement in England (1935-1950), the Sixties movement: ‘participatory science’ and societal relevance (1960-1980), and Mode-2 research and co-creation (1997-2001). As we will discuss later in this chapter, these movements eventually disappeared, mostly due to external factors such as the rise of positivism after World War II, the reaction to the ‘Sputnik’ moment - the launch of the first artificial satellite by the USSR in 1957 - and the Cold War: the association (especially in the US) of liberal and socialist ideas with Stalinism and Soviet Russia; and then the international neoliberal turn and the affiliated dominance of reductionist ‘hard’ sciences within the academic world.^[3]

Events at universities in the US and Europe since the 1960s, but also elsewhere in the world, are highly relevant for understanding the relationship between science and society. In the 1960s, the Civil Rights movement and opposition to the Cold War arms race and the Vietnam War shook society and universities, both in America and abroad. Student activism occasionally devolved into violence, often followed by a violent police backlash. In Western Europe, students and teachers for the first time came mainly from working-class or middle-class families with liberal or socialist backgrounds. They found themselves in conflict with a more conservative university establishment that traditionally came from the Christian Democrat, upper strata of society. The buzzword at the time was that the university needed more ‘societal relevance’. Many people wanted to draw more attention to society’s problems, the arms race, the environment, nuclear energy, and to the fair distribution of resources and opportunities in our own country, but especially to the relationship with developing countries (The Global South). Fortunately for the Netherlands, these changes did not result in casualties on campus, but there were protests and occupations of university buildings in the Netherlands, with the occupation of the Maagdenhuis building in Amsterdam taking pride of place in the history books.^[4] Students did not get their way on all fronts, but they did get a say and a seat at the table. At the end of the day, it was the university, taking student representation into account, that had final say in what would be dealt with and should be studied. These effects continued to have a demonstrable impact on society at large until the 1980s, and the societal orientation of university programmes could be found in the curriculum and the many extracurricular activities, such as ‘science shops’. There are several views on the origins and impact of the student movement in the Netherlands^[5], but what is clear is that the seeds sown in the previous decades produced a bountiful harvest. A very prominent precursor and example of this was the ‘old’ Utrecht School from 1948 to 1963,

“an inter-faculty collaboration between scholars in medicine, criminal justice, psychology, pedagogy, criminology and biology (Langeveld, Baan, Buytendijk, Kempe, Hudig, Van Lennep, Pompe, Rümke, Van den Berg), who found each other in shared beliefs about how humans and the world should be understood”. ^[6],[7]

The Utrecht School was scientifically progressive, interdisciplinary and politically engaged, and therefore very focused on societal impact, which it had and still has in several areas of society.

With the political turn towards neoliberalism from 1980 onwards, this quickly faded away to make place for a strong focus on the contribution to a competitive national economy, on health and ‘healthy aging’, and their economically profitable combination. Biomedical scientists took the helm and the associated promise that had once been held by physicists.^[8] Until 2010, this was a dominant focus in universities around the world. There was international competition, later based almost entirely on metrics. At first, the competition correlated mainly with academic impact, later complemented with ‘valorisation’; the universities’ ‘third mission’, measured mainly in terms of patents, licences issued, and start-ups with numbers of jobs. It was in this period that cooperation between university, industry and government - ‘The Triple Helix’ - came to fruition all over the world.^[9]

After the 2008 financial crisis, the undesirable effects of the globalised economy and neoliberal thinking in society became apparent. At the same time, the environment returned to the centre of attention due to the accelerating effects of global warming. From 2010 onwards, the discontent and frustration of many students, researchers, and teachers with the neoliberal culture that had become very dominant inside the academy, openly grew.

Public Engagement: a recent history

In the context of our thinking about the University of 2030, it is useful to reflect on how Public Engagement, as it is now incorporated into the Open Science movement, has had numerous precursors in recent years that have had a greater or lesser impact in the university. There have been numerous small, local initiatives that have not been widely institutionalised for a variety of reasons. At Utrecht University, Science in Transition is a case in point. The initiative was absorbed into Open Science after three years, in 2016. The history and philosophy of these movements, and how they were received in the university, have been described in more detail in other works.^[10] Earlier initiatives, such as the EU’s ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’ (RRI) (2000- present) and EU’s ‘Science with and for Society’ (SwafS)^[11] (2014-present) had a difficult time until 2015, when Open Science was declared the standard within the EU. Under the slogan ‘Open to Society’, Citizen Science/Public Engagement finally gained a prominent place. The EU has since launched a comprehensive Open Science policy, with implementation of a number of key aspects now underway in member states. In the Netherlands, the Minister of Education, Culture and Science presented a science vision in November 2014 that was fully in line with the (former) RRI and the Open Science and Public Engagement ideology as it subsequently took shape in the EU.^[12]

Here, there is explicitly a connection that goes beyond the economy and private parties and companies. The public and general interest, ‘The Grand Challenges’ and the Sustainable Development Goals, and how the university can and should contribute to them in the regional and international context, in the EU and abroad, all rose to prominence. In these developments since 2008, culminating in 2015, one could see a conscious strategy and vision that reshaped science’s social contract with society. It involves consciously reacting, proactively responding to an interplay of issues in society, both national and global, and developments within the university and academic community.

The increasing awareness of the main stakeholders - the citizens - played a major role in this redefinition of the contract with society. Science was seen more and more as a societal activity, and less and less as the isolated or disconnected ‘ivory tower’ technocracy that we had become wary of sixty years ago. The transition to Open Science will make the academic community more receptive, proactive and more aware in this new relationship with diverse citizens, governments, businesses and their problems.

Engagement, involvement

“Drawing on current events, Wieger Bakker (in his 2016 inaugural lecture^[13]) illustrated that in our society, groups are still excluded, rejected or insufficiently seen and heard. In a committed and impassioned speech, he therefore argued that universities should work harder on their educational mission to promote societal responsibility. According to him, this includes educating students to actively contribute to an open society. A society in which democracy, rule of law, citizenship and respect for diversity are central and in which every citizen is a full member of the community.” ^[14]

In most academic disciplines, choosing to study the big and small problems of society, anywhere in the world, is also choosing to participate in ‘public engagement’. By that, we mean a reciprocal relationship that allows both parties, the researcher, and an ‘owner’ of a problem from society, to truly understand each other, which in turn facilitates the conduct of good research. In such a long-term, respectful relationship, the results of the research can be optimally tested for their impact and value in the appropriate societal context.^[15] That, in turn, facilitates the production of significant and robust results.^[16],[17] This is easy to imagine for biomedical research on concrete psychiatric or somatic problems, such as depression and heart failure. But it equally concerns educational science, which is dominated by the study of problems related to inequality of access and educational success opportunities of children from an immigration background, for example.

This view of transdisciplinary research, as highlighted above, obviously applies just as much to education, which, as Bakker argued in his oration, should also be transdisciplinary. Like research, education at the university starts with a problem. Research and education start where things are not going well, or where things are not as they should be, which in turn inhibits people in a particular environment or context. Learning to think, analyse, and come up with syntheses and solutions based on problems is the essence of education.^[18] It is how we prepare our students to function in society as citizens. There are already wonderful examples in many universities where this philosophy is currently being applied.

This is also the mission and strategy that Utrecht University explicitly chose in 2020. You can see it as a fundamental rethinking of the societal legitimacy of the university and science in general. While science and the functioning of university may be essentially societal activities, through which reliable and useful knowledge is produced in the ‘community of inquiry’, it is precisely this social activity that connects it to society.^[19] As a result, the science conducted by universities is what makes them important actors who can share responsibility for the design, norms and values of a modern open society, and support, underpin, innovate and guard democracy.

Autonomy and neutrality

From the perspective of Open Science and Public Engagement, academics make justified choices about the content, quality and impact of research and education. Choices about the university’s research agenda are based on the mission-driven thinking about research and education, and the various analyses of society’s questions and problems, both regional and international. There is plenty of room for regional and national priorities, but the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) also serve as inspiration for research and education about global pressing problems.^[20]

As we have seen above, the normative side of ‘responsible research and innovation’ is increasingly entering the picture with regard to the interpretation of the research agenda at lower levels of abstraction. But that raises a variety of questions. What aspects of economic inequality do we want to study? Which parts of the energy transition? Which new medicines will we work on? And do we do this with private parties, ‘big pharma’, or rather with public bodies and governments? Will we work on military projects? If so, in what political situations will our products be used? Or in our opinion, misused? These questions are not unique to the 21st century.

Academics have asked themselves these questions since 1945, following the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The first atomic weapons were conceived and produced in the now-famous Manhattan Project. That project had been suggested to F.D. Roosevelt in 1939 by Szilard and Einstein, shortly after the scientific discovery of nuclear fission and nuclear reactions in Berlin. Einstein signed the letter because of his enormous authority, as he felt responsible that not Nazi Germany, but the US should be the first to have weapons based on nuclear fission and nuclear reactions. The idea, though, was to use the weapons as a deterrent.^[21] After their first use by the US in August 1945, which happened against his will, Einstein was very active in international initiatives to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation, out of that same sense of responsibility as a scientist and expert. In Germany, too, former physicist colleagues of Einstein had worked hard to develop atomic bombs and long-range missiles during the war. After the war, these scientists invoked the neutrality of science:

“Use by wrong parties with the wrong political aims is beyond the responsibility of researchers who produce pure knowledge. The ethical and political choice of how they are used lies outside the scientific community.” ^[22]

Not surprisingly, the appeal to the neutrality and complete autonomy of science, without any interference from non-academic parties, was made by a group of positivist philosophers and academics.^[23] They used philosophical arguments and criteria of science to keep cognitive, inter-scientific arguments strictly separated from values, norms, and considerations of an external societal nature. These philosophers of science also had their own personal motivations. They all had bad experiences with these external influences, as they had fled the Nazi regime before the war, from Vienna mainly to the US and England. The terrifying experiences after 1945 with Stalinism, as well as the military-industrial complex in the West, was grist to their mill. They therefore believed that science - at the time primarily the natural sciences - had to be completely detached from the external influences of society and its problems. Their traumatic experiences and philosophy had led them to be strongly opposed to socialist and (neo-)Marxist Science for Society movements, but also fundamentally opposed to government-driven research agendas. They maintained this attitude well into the 1960s. After all, they had experienced how government was not a stable factor that always had the population’s best interests at heart. From 1920 to 1970, positivism had a decisive influence on the way we think about science, specifically from the limited perspective of the exact natural sciences.^[24]

Shaped by this powerful ideal of autonomous science that had won the war for the Allies, many academics in the US after the Second World War argued that government funding of science should be substantial, but that universities should be autonomous in the use of those funds. This was against the wishes of politicians who, precisely during the war years, had good experiences and observed many tangible results in all kinds of fields through government control of research. The natural science lobby decisively won this debate in the 1950s, paradoxically by touting their achievements in the war. Society, the lobby claimed, could trust that eventually, they would produce interesting knowledge that would prove useful and applicable. Others, outside the academy, could then take care of those applications.^[25],[26]

But the paradoxes continued to accumulate. In the US, fuelled by the Cold War and the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the Department of Defence soon became the biggest funder of research. The budget was mainly spent on the natural sciences and technological research at first, eventually followed by more funding for the biomedical- and later the social sciences, though to a lesser extent. Among others, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA grew significantly thanks to government funding.

In the Netherlands, too, the field of physics successfully lobbied for government funding immediately after the war, with the Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie (Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM)) being established as early as 1946. This was an explicit response to developments in nuclear physics, which could have obvious military and civilian implications. One does not readily associate this powerful defence and commercial lobby of the time with ‘Strings, mirrors and tape’, the romantic title of the booklet celebrating the 70th anniversary of the FOM, but which perfectly matches the romantic ideology of pure science.^[27] Until very recently, FOM’s budget was earmarked by the government, and it increased by 27% annually until 1968. Much of the Foundation’s research, as its name implies, was always advertised as fundamental. But it actually came about in close collaboration with government and industry and was actually highly applied and technological. After many years of institutional infighting, FOM was finally incorporated into NWO in 2015 and lost its own funding model. The Cold War and a strategy that deliberately aligned it with industry, with ‘user-inspired research’, was actually quite lucrative for FOM until its dissolution. This unique position of FOM, including its tremendously rapid growth, was taken over by the Life Sciences and research in the field of Environmental Science, and later Sustainability, in response to the major problems that arose in society at large. That research in these domains increasingly has to take the form of multidisciplinary and problem-driven research, is a reaction to the complexity, non-linear nature, and socio-economic interconnectedness of these problems. This trend is obviously not limited to the Netherlands but is, in fact, a substantial international development that is still ongoing. In that context, the classical claim for neutrality is also increasingly being disputed. In fact, there is an increasingly strong call for universities to speak out regarding major societal problems, such as for instance collaboration with the fossil fuel industries or with objectionable political regimes. It is critical that in these debates about topical political issues, the university facilitates and sees to it that these academic debates will be held in a safe way according to academic mores, offering a platform to the diversity of insights and opinions. The university as institute, the Board of the University, and its leadership, takes on a neutral and unbiased position, to optimally facilitate these diverse academic debates. The university may express opinions about issues that violate human rights and the democratic legal order, especially in the national context, and may for that reason terminate education and research collaborations on a national and international level.

Responsible and engaged

This brief historical digression makes clear that in many cases of government cooperation and funding since World War II, universities, and academics, despite their claims about academic neutrality and independence, do not walk away from such lucrative proposals. Not even when huge financial resources are involved, to serve military objectives. Contemporary discussion and arguments for autonomy and neutrality are always dependent on the political and cultural context. In an open democratic society, there are many topics that can rely on a widely shared consensus, for example because they are based on unchallenged norms, values, and problems. However, there are also many topics that are the subject of fierce social debates.

As we discussed above, when academics find problems relevant, they will research them and come up with results. In these situations, they will present that knowledge, and the advantages and disadvantages of the available choices, based on the academic’s insight into the new knowledge. The ideal position for the neutral academic in these debates seems to be that of the so-called ‘honest broker’.^[28] The academic here leaves their own political preferences for a proposed scenario out of the debate. The fact that the researcher, as a citizen, may have a specific preference, does not matter. Of course, we should not be too naive about that. Things are usually not easy to separate in human thought and action. We know all too well how, indirectly, and often unconsciously, our personal preferences, experiences, and opinions can come into play. This should always be discussed and made explicit in critical discussions with the help of fellow academics and others and should be contested where necessary. This necessary reflexivity has been dealt with above.

The political considerations involve science, but also very different, external policy arguments and considerations. As we mentioned above, the researcher can expect to face fierce debates and is sometimes accused of being biased by third parties, such as politicians or opinion makers in the media, because of a seemingly personal preference for a scenario and policy choice, or the selective use of scientific data. If the academic takes too activist of a stance and operates explicitly from a personal political conviction, it often poses problems for weighing scientific advice regarding societal issues. In contrast, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) act from an explicitly political framework that is openly professed and supported in part by scientific knowledge. In that situation, the NGO must convince others that it has processed and considered all the available knowledge in its judgements and actions. The same applies to companies touting that their products are based on scientific findings. The stakes in this interaction have been highlighted by the years of debate between proponents and opponents, activists, and deniers, of the health risks of smoking. Another contemporary example is the debate about the climate crisis, particularly the collaboration with the fossil fuel industry, but also the relationships with Israeli universities given the human rights violations against the Palestinians.

The university will have to pay considerable attention to the problems described above in the coming years, in its education and research, and in guiding and coaching employees who engage in the public arena on behalf of science. Scientific arguments and knowledge play an important role in many societal problems, like the COVID-19 pandemic, the effects of nitrogen and global warming, where parties will try to cast doubt on the scientific consensus when it earns them points in the debate. There is no room for levity and naivety in the public debate anymore in our time, with the hardening and polarisation of political debates at regional, national, and international levels, and with the immediate and major impact of social media.

Another question that arises is: can we, in the university,

as conscientious citizens and as the institution that is expected to make a constructive contribution to society, afford to be neutral? Can we adopt the role of ‘honest broker’? That very much depends on the context. Clearly, there is a wide range of issues and problems that touch on the basic principles of our society, on the norms and values that we should actively stand for in an open democracy. There are also many issues that may not be immediately deducible from those values and fundamental principles, but which touch on the future, the design and quality of society, and the life we want to live. If there is scientific consensus that there are issues at play in politics and society, whether locally or internationally, that threaten the quality of life, then we should take action, precisely because of our responsibility as academics and as universities. That involves open discussions within the university community, but also with concerned citizens, political parties, governments, etc. It is in that spirit that the UN has chosen the Sustainable Development Goals’.^[29] These are big themes of this very order, which the EU, in Mariana Mazzucato’s report, sees as the framework of its overall mission for research and innovation.^[30] This is where all the elements of Public Engagement, as we currently implement them in the Open Science programme, come into play. Mazzucato gives a few examples of these missions in the fields of sustainability and health. But there are also burning questions in the fields of social sciences, humanities, and economics. Consider the looming disruption caused by socio-economic inequalities in work, education, and access to healthcare; and our worries regarding safeguarding of our institutions in the democratic rule of law and free speech. This is where fundamental principles, norms and values, and our insights regarding the design of and decision-making in democratic societies, come together. This is where choices will have to be made based on commitment and engagement, a sense of responsibility, and by taking that responsibility in our actions.

In the 1960s and ‘70s, there was a strong academic movement that expressed criticism of society as it developed in the post-war years, based on the perspective of ‘Critical Theory’.^[31] This movement certainly did not ignore self-criticism regarding the role of the academic community and universities. The ideas of that movement now resonate again in modern forms in Open Science.^[32] Because of its critical stance, some fear that Open Science and Public Engagement present a danger to their interests. After all, it opens the door of the academic community to public parties - the public and its problems. That is fine. But it also opens the door to private and financially powerful parties. They include the big ‘tech’ companies, other multinationals, and as described above, the Ministries of Defence and its subcontractors. Moreover, it rightly highlights the huge disparity between countries in the wealthy Northwest and in ‘The Global South’, in terms of the financial and technical capabilities to use Open Data and Software and bring them to market. As a result, in current practice, Open Access, FAIR DATA and public engagement do not entirely benefit the countries in the Global South and their inhabitants.

The suspicion and distaste for ‘valorisation’ and public engagement as illustrated above and still experienced by many, is palpable and understandable. After all, for at least the three decades since 1980, the emphasis on this one-sided economic type of public engagement has been very dominant in the overall neoliberal organisation of society. But we now find ourselves in a different era. After the financial crisis and the failure of the neoliberal economists’ experiment, there has been a global reflection on the idea of the free market, on the regulatory role of government and ‘the global village’. This has also been going on in the academy and university since 2014. The debate was sparked by the economic and social sciences, but it was also fuelled by the humanities concerning the choices we can and should make about how we organise society. This is where scientific arguments, ethics, political philosophy, and our political or religious beliefs come together and create a dialogue. Ultimately, this issue deals with policy decisions in a deliberative democratic context, where the academic community converses with the citizens and usually does not have the last, decisive word.

A global society

Although some liked to claim that the world is ‘one big village’ where everyone is constantly connected, we in the North, Europe and the US often still pay too little thought to the Global South. In November 2021, UNESCO, after a long and thorough consultation period, established perhaps the best expression of the Global Perspective in its ‘Recommendations on Open Science’.^[33] In the preamble, we find powerful statements that clearly summarise the justification, the expectation, and the promise of the transition to Open Science. The first two propositions are clear:

“Recognizing the urgency of addressing complex and interconnected environmental, social, and economic challenges for the people and the planet, including poverty, health issues, access to education, rising inequalities and disparities of opportunity, increasing science, technology and innovation gaps, natural resource depletion, loss of biodiversity, land degradation, climate change, natural and human-made disasters, spiralling conflicts and related humanitarian crises, Acknowledging the vital importance of science, technology, and innovation (STI) to respond to these challenges by providing solutions to improve human well-being, advance environmental sustainability and respect for the planet’s biological and cultural diversity, foster sustainable social and economic development and promote democracy and peace.”

A glaring current example of this economic inequality is our failure regarding the global availability of COVID-19 vaccines, and the lack of necessary facilities in poor developing countries to deliver vaccinations to the population effectively and quickly. This is happening, even though we know that this is precisely how new variants can emerge that could pose a threat to the entire world, with immense public health effects. It also has enormous socio-economic effects.^[34]

Inset 5.1. UNESCO Recommendations on Open Science.

“The aim of this Recommendation is to provide an international framework for Open Science policy and practice that recognizes disciplinary and regional differences in Open Science perspectives, takes into account academic freedom, gender-transformative approaches and the specific challenges of scientists and other Open Science actors in different countries and in particular in developing countries, and contributes to reducing the digital, technological and knowledge divides existing between and within countries.

This Recommendation outlines a common definition, shared values, principles and standards for Open Science at the international level and proposes a set of actions conducive to a fair and equitable operationalization of Open Science for all at the individual, institutional, national, regional and international levels.”

UNESCO does not stop at fine words and colourful sketches of inviting horizons. The problems are stated in a business-like way, along with the actions needed to address these problems. For the record: they include Open Education in Open Science, with explicit mention of Open Education resources and tools. In every issue, UNESCO consistently delves into the yawning gap that exists in the Global South with regard to qualified personnel, the financial resources to train and retain staff, for infrastructure, buildings, heating, power and water. But, even more so for all kinds of facilities, including digital infrastructure, that we, in the rich North, have now come to regard as the absolute minimum conditions for our daily existence. Not to mention access to scientific literature for example for doctors, paramedics, and other professionals in Africa, Middle and South America and Indonesia. In our thinking about the legitimacy and responsibility of science and the university towards global society, we should always keep that in mind. After all, knowledge produced with public funds should be available everywhere, which implies that we should actively address the inequalities highlighted above and by UNESCO.

The latter also ties in with the discussion about dealing with the colonial histories of Western countries, and what roles governments, churches, businesses, and citizens played in those histories. At the same time, we must also gain more insight into the histories of countries around the world, to truly understand the roots of their cultural, religious, and political differences.

With the return of geopolitics as we now see it in all its political, military, and economic manifestations, we need to reconsider how the university should deal with it. Renewed attention to the academic disciplines that should lead the way in this effort is certainly called for in our education and research.

Conclusion

As we explained, the transition to Open Science is explicitly about improving the relationship and interaction of academics and their institutions with society. The ultimate goal of Open Science is Public Engagement and Citizen Science, open co-creation by researchers, and society’s stakeholders. Its intended purpose is to improve the quality of research and its scientific and societal impact. The Open Science programme in the Netherlands, the EU, and elsewhere, including UNESCO, pays considerable attention to organisational and institutional interventions that facilitate this transition. Initiatives are currently being deployed around the world to facilitate Open Science in the areas of Open Education, Open Access, FAIR/Open Data and Code, Public Engagement, and Recognition and Rewards - adjusting the way research and researchers are assessed. As we have discussed above, these Open Science practices, especially Open Data, raise important questions and issues, both in the practice of science and the academic community, as well as in interactions with stakeholders in society. We should not be naive and simply idealise Open Data, but rather start addressing those questions and issues. For example, by joining together with researchers from LMIC countries to test solutions that can protect their interests in collaborations with researchers and institutions with more financial clout. This also applies to collaborations with the fossil and military industries. Here, we must pay very close attention to the major differences in how data are used and valued in different fields and disciplines. For this, see EU initiatives and Sabina Leonelli’s recent book.^[35] Finally, with the return of global geopolitics in all its political, military, and economic manifestations, we need to rethink how researchers and their universities, as public institutions, can and should deal with it. The open relationship with society is of great importance, but we, in the academic community, will always have to keep a sharp eye on the form, content, and conditions of those collaborations, both as an institute and as researchers. Open Science, therefore, stands for ‘critical’ public engagement.

1. See the ironic description by Huxley, A. (1928). Chapter XXVI, From Philip Quarle’s Notebook. In Huxley, A. (Ed.) Point Counter Point. Chatto & Windus. ↑

2. Kummeling, H. R. B. M. (2022). Academische vrijheid in tijden van wakkerte en cancelcultuur. Nederlandse rechtsstaat. nederlandrechtsstaat.nl/academische-vrijheid-in-tijden-van-wakkerte-en-cancelcultuur/ ↑

3. Miedema, F. (2022). Open Science: The Very Idea. Springer. ↑

4. Incidentally, it was mainly the earlier occupation of the Tilburg university that sparked the political movement. See Chapter 6, Section 2. ↑

5. Kennedy, J. (2017). Nieuw Babylon in Aanbouw: Nederland in de Jaren Zestig. Boom. ↑

6. See: uu.nl/onderzoek/de-nieuwe-utrechtse-school ↑

7. Weijers, I. (1991). Terug Naar het Behouden Huis; Romanschrijvers en Wetenschappers in de Jaren Vijftig. SUA. ↑

8. See Chapter 2. ↑

9. Etzkowitz, H. (2008). The Triple Helix University–Industry–Government Innovation in Action. Routledge. ↑

10. Owen, R., Von Schomberg, R. & Macnaghten, P. (2021). An unfinished journey? Reflections on a decade of responsible research and innovation. Journal of Responsible Innovation, 8(2), 217-33. ↑

11. Miedema, F. (2022). Open Science: The Very Idea (Chapter 7). Springer. ↑

12. Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur & Wetenschap (OCW). (2014). Wetenschapsvisie 2025. ↑

13. Bakker, W. (2016). Opleiden voor de samenleving [Inaugural lecture]. Retrieved from: uu.nl ↑

14. Bakker, W. (2016). Opleiden voor de samenleving [Inaugural lecture]. Retrieved from: uu.nl ↑

15. Nowotny H., Scott, S. & Gibbons, M. (2003). Introduction: ‘Mode 2’ Revisited: The New Production of Knowledge. Minerva, 41(3), 179-94. ↑

16. Kitcher, P. (2011). Science in a Democratic Society. Prometheus Books. ↑

17. Miedema, F. (2022). Open Science: The Very Idea (Chapter 4). Springer. ↑

18. Dewey, J. (2016). The Public and its Problems: An Essay in Political Inquiry. Swallow Press. ↑

19. Miedema, F. (2022). Open Science: The Very Idea (Chapter 4). Springer. ↑

20. Rijksoverheid. (z.d.). Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s): 17 doelen voor een duurzamere wereld. rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/ontwikkelingshulp/internationale-afspraken-ontwikkelingshulp ↑

21. Hewlett, R. G. & Anderson, O. E. (1962). The New World, 1939 – 1946. Pennyslvania State University Press 1962. ↑

22. Miedema, F. (2022). Open Science: The Very Idea (Chapters 1 & 5). Springer. ↑

23. Edmonds, D. (2020). The Murder of Professor Schlick: The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle. Princeton University Press. ↑

24. Miedema, F. (2022). Open Science: The Very Idea. Springer. ↑

25. Kleinman, D. L. (1995). Politics on the Endless Frontier: Postwar Research Policy in the United States. Durham Duke University Press. ↑

26. Greenberg, D. S. (1999). The Politics of Pure Science. University of Chicago Press. ↑

27. Van Stel, A., Vrouwe, A., Van Delft, D., Zegers, G., & Eggen, H. (2016). Snaren, Spiegels en Plakband: 70 jaar Nederlandse Natuurkunde. WBooks. ↑

28. Pielke, R. A. (2012). The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics. Chicago University Press. ↑

29. Rijksoverheid. (n.d.). Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s): 17 doelen voor een duurzamere wereld. rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/ontwikkelingssamenwerking/internationale-afspraken-ontwikkelingssamenwerking ↑

30. Mazzucato, M. (2018). Mission-Oriented Research & Innovation in the European Union: A Problem-Solving Approach to Fuel Innovation-Led Growth. European Commission. Retrieved from: op.europa.eu ↑

31. Miedema, F. (2022). Open Science: The Very Idea (Chapter 5.1). Springer. ↑

32. Miedema, F. (2022). Open Science: The Very Idea (Chapters 5 and 7). Springer. ↑

33. UNESCO. (2023). UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science. unesco.org/en/open-science/about ↑

34. Hunter, D. J., Abdool Karim, S. S., Baden, L. R., Farrar, J. J., Hamel, M. B., Longo, D. L., Morrisey, S. & Rubin, E. J. (2022). Addressing Vaccine Inequity — Covid-19 Vaccines as a Global Public Good. New England Journal of Medicine, 386(12), 1176-9. doi.org/10.1056/NEJMe2202547 ↑

35. Leonelli, S. (2023). Philosophy of Open Science. Cambridge University Press. ↑