[Digital futures of the university: Scenarios of sociotechnical change]. / Digitale Zukünfte der Universität: Szenarien soziotechnischen Wandels.

For the university, digital technologies proved to be a central element of crisis management during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is especially true for teaching. From a "multi-level perspective" (Geels 2004), the disruptive effects of the pandemic open a "window of opportunity" for profound and lasting sociotechnical change. Against this backdrop, this article discusses how members of the university assess the future significance of digital technologies. On the basis of qualitative, empirical research, five scenarios can be distinguished, each of which outlines digital futures in a different way. However, with our analysis of these future scenarios we do not scrutinise the probability of their occurrence, but their desirability. In this way, we identify justifications diploid to argue why further steps towards a digital university should be taken or why not. At this point in time, it is impossible to assess which scenarios of digital universities will ultimately prevail. Not least for this reason, this article is intended as a basis for a broad debate that is yet to be conducted.

Open science at the science-policy interface: bringing in the evidence?

Part of the current enthusiasm about open science stems from its promises to reform scientific practice in service of the common good, to ensure that scientific outputs will be found and reused more easily, and to enhance scientific impact on policy and society. With this article, we question this optimism by analysing the potential for open science practices to enhance research uptake at the science-policy interface. Science advice is critical to help policy-makers make informed decisions. Likewise, some interpretations of open science hold that making research processes and outputs more transparent and accessible will also enhance the uptake of results by policy and society at large. However, we argue that this hope is based on an unjustifiably simplistic understanding of the science-policy interface that leaves key terms ("impact", "uptake") undefined. We show that this understanding-based upon linear models of research uptake-likewise grounds the influential "evidence-policy gap" diagnosis which holds that to improve research uptake, communication and interaction between researchers and policy-makers need to be improved. The overall normative stance of both discussions has sidelined empirical description of the science-policy interface, ignoring questions about the underlying differences between the policy domain and academia. Importantly, both open science and literature on closing the evidence-policy gap recommend improving communication (in terms of either the content or the means) as a viable strategy. To correct some of these views, we combine insights from policy theory with a narrative review of the literature on the evidence-policy gap in the health domain and find that removing barriers to access by itself will not be enough to foster research uptake.

It's not just about speed: Reviewing the recumbent bicycle once more.

Why did the recumbent bicycle never become a dominant design, despite the fact that it was faster than the safety bicycle on the racetrack? Hassaan Ahmed et al. argue in their recently published paper that the main reason for the marginalization of the recumbent bicycle was semiotic power deployed by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). Here, I demonstrate that the authors drew their conclusions from an incomplete application of the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) framework. Understanding the diffusion of alternative bicycle designs requires considering more than speed, and more than the UCI as a powerful actor. The recumbent bicycle was fast, but rather tricky to ride, and was not really feasible for the transport needs of the working classes, which constituted the most relevant social group of bicycle users during the 1930s.

The microphysics of accountability.

How is it possible to deploy the law to create and perform accountability? To answer this question, I address the argumentative function of the law in order to legitimize genetic medicine. Using interview data, I will in particular elaborate on how medical experts strive to convince interviewing social scientists that their own professional action is above all ethical reproach. For this purpose, medical experts capitalize on the law in specific ways. It is the aim of this article to expound exactly how this happens during qualitative research interviews. The analysis of the interview data is informed by the works of Sheila Jasanoff and Michel Foucault. The former provides an instructive conceptual background for demonstrating how the law serves as an important element of accountability practices. The latter is known for his plea not to understand the law in repressive terms. Accordingly, the law does not prohibit specific medical practices, but in a specific sense it rather makes medical practice socially robust. Based on qualitative analysis of interview data, I conclude that referring to the law allows experts of genetic medicine to evade engaging with ethical and social aspects of their work. The law was rhetorically utilized to bring a discussion on such issues to a communicative closure. For that purpose, the existence of the law was presented as proof that undesirable practices would not be possible and consequently further discussions of the matter would be unnecessary. The law allows medical experts to transfer ethical problems to other places and actors and also to promote their professional interests.

Public accountability of newborn screening: collective knowing and deciding.

A number of European countries have expanded their screening programme considerably during the last decade. Other countries have, however, not expanded their programme substantially. In this paper, I will compare UK and Austria, two countries representing two ends of the European spectrum. Focussing on the decision-making processes behind the design and expansion of newborn screening, I draw on Sheila Jasanoff's concept of "civic epistemology" (Jasanoff, S. (2005). Designs on Nature. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.) to investigate how the chosen countries provide information in order to give account for their respective screening policies. In particular, I analyse how key institutions in the UK and Austria use scientific expertise to explain and justify national screening programmes. For this purpose, I compare the material that is made available to the public, including policy documents, scientific studies, medical guidelines, legal regulation, advisory committee reports and public engagement exercises. It was found that the observed differences in the accountability practices are rooted in nationally traditional forms of policy making. However, whether or not these repertoires become indeed realised is a more contingent matter and is often triggered by events which evoke a response from the medical and policy-making actors.