PODCAST

RMZ Science Works

Robert K. Merton Zentrum für Wissenschaftsforschung

Der Podcast des Robert K. Merton Zentrums für Wissenschaftsforschung

science

All Episodes

00:41:25

Willem Halffman/Serge Horbach: The library and the...

RMZ Science Works ·

2026/02/04

Two competing imaginaries inform the current wave of innovations in research publishing: one that perceives ‘the literature’ as a library of research accounts, and one that sees it as a gigantic database. While the library portrays acquiring knowledge as an act of reading texts informed by an understanding of their inter-textual setting, the database sees the literature as a collection of verified facts that can be extracted, or ‘mined’. Both imaginaries present different understandings of what the

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00:50:03

Sebastian Büttner: In der Wissenskrise? Politisierung...

RMZ Science Works ·

2026/01/21

In aktuellen politischen Debatten etwa zur Klimapolitik oder zu Corona ist einmal mehr deutlich geworden, dass es sehr unterschiedliche Vorstellungen zur Rolle, zum Status und zur Geltung von Wissen und Expertise bei gesellschaftlichen Grundsatzfragen gibt. Zwei Extrempositionen markieren dabei den Korridor der aktuellen Debattenlandschaft: Es gibt einerseits die Verfechter:innen einer konsequent wissensbasierten Politik, verkörpert im Slogan “follow the sciences”, andererseits betont

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00:47:04

Sheena F. Bartscherer/Sven Ulpts/Bart...

RMZ Science Works ·

2026/01/07

Since claims about a ‘replication crisis’ started to circulate, the concept and practice of replication have gained new momentum. Some communities have started to promote replication indiscriminately as a practice and criterion for research quality irrespective of the diverse research communities’ various conditions and ways of knowledge production. Others have identified a replication drive, which involves moving replication into various research communities. This drive is enacted by incentivizing

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00:38:37

Marco Seeber: The evolution of the scientific...

RMZ Science Works ·

2025/12/10

The seminar describes the dramatic transformation of the scientific publishing market in the last 30 years. It discusses the forces underpinning this process, its implications for science and scientists, and proposes individual and policy actions to counter some of its problematic aspects.

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00:47:01

Chérifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri & Jie Xu: The big...

RMZ Science Works ·

2025/11/26

In the ever-changing world of Academia, rules and values are at stake. These form the basis of new regulations, including openness. The Harbinger research project was a six-year international research project investigating the extent to which early career researchers (ECRs) are contributing uniquely to this change, allowing to identify continuums or cracks. This presentation focuses on the results from France and China, shedding light on the shared values of ECRs, their compliance with open science

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00:42:05

Jesper W. Schneider: Questionable Research Practices,...

RMZ Science Works ·

2025/11/12

Prof. Jesper W. Schneider (Aarhus University, Denmark) will introduce and discuss the concepts of questionable research practices and misconduct. We will discuss their alleged widespread use, the suggested reasons why, and the presumed effects they have on the science system, not least their role in the so-called replication crisis. Examples will be given, and we will end by discussing suggested remedies to the challenges. The talk is based on the preprint "Is something rotten in the state of

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00:48:18

Christian Greiffenhagen: Judging importance before...

RMZ Science Works ·

2025/10/29

Peer review has never been a uniform practice, but is now more diverse than ever. Despite a vast literature, little is known of how different disciplines organise peer review. This paper draws on 95 qualitative interviews with editors and publishers and several hundred written reports to analyse the organisation of peer review in pure mathematics. This article focuses on the practice of ‘quick opinions’ at top journals in mathematics: asking (senior) experts about a paper’s importance, and only

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00:58:03

Monika Krause: The model systems of global science

RMZ Science Works ·

2025/10/15

The talk explores the role of models and model systems in the production of scientific knowledge in the context of the institutions and inequalities of internationalised science. It discusses formal models and model systems as vehicles for findings that circulate as of relevance across geographic and cultural contexts and asks: How do researchers access these in different geographical contexts and different disciplines? What are the consequences of access and non-access for researchers and the

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00:38:10

Julian Hamann: Orientierung und Überlastung: Postdocs...

RMZ Science Works ·

2025/10/01

Der Postdoc-Phase wurde als zentraler Qualifizierungsphase zuletzt auch wissenschaftspolitisch viel Aufmerksamkeit zuteil. Doch die Rolle von Postdocs ist offen und unterbestimmt. Die Aufgaben, mit denen Postdocs betraut werden, sind vielfältiger und komplexer als in der Promotionsphase, gleichzeitig erfahren sie weniger Orientierung und Anleitung. Der Vortrag befasst sich mit der Frage, wie Postdocs lernen was es heißt, "ein Postdoc" zu sein. Dabei wird auf eine bisher vernachlässigte Funktion

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00:46:25

Tanja Bogusz: Meereswissen explorieren. Heterogene...

RMZ Science Works ·

2025/08/20

Biologische Stationen wurden in den STS bislang maßgeblich als „Grenzobjekte“ (Star & Griesemer) zwischen Feld und Labor (Kohler) untersucht. Im Gegensatz zu zeitlich begrenzten Expeditionen, oder zur „reinen“ Laborforschung praktizieren Meeres-Stationen folglich „Wissenschaft mit den Füßen im Wasser" und sind zugleich in konkreten lokalen Gesellschaften verortet. Durch ihren spezifischen Standort befinden sie sich somit am Kreuzpunkt zwischen zwei Gebieten, die in der modernen

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00:53:31

Berna Devezer: Claims about scientific rigour require...

RMZ Science Works ·

2025/07/16

Protzko et al. describe a project in which internal tests of pilot-tested hypotheses and independent replications embraced “rigour-enhancing practices” such as confirmatory tests, large sample sizes, preregistration and methodological transparency. The authors report a high estimate of replicability, which, in their appraisal, “justifies confidence in rigour-enhancing methods to increase the replicability of new discoveries”. However, replicability was not the original outcome of interest in the

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00:39:53

Amelia Acker: Platform Power and Data Integration...

RMZ Science Works ·

2025/07/02

This talk examines how commercial cloud services and data integration platforms are shaping scientific knowledge infrastructure and institutional approaches to digital preservation and archival access. Drawing on findings from two collaborative research projects—a decadal analysis of data management plans from NSF funded scientists and the Palantir Files, a public interest archive documenting the firm's data integration services—I explore how platforms are transforming traditional roles of

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01:01:59

Martin Reinhart & Felicitas Hesselmann: From scandal...

RMZ Science Works ·

2025/06/18

This talk explores the historical evolution of scandals related to academic integrity and their implications for the relationship between science and politics. We argue that there are three distinctive waves of scandalization since the postwar era: The first wave, starting in the 1970s, led to governance measures addressing public trust issues in science funding. The 1980s and 1990s witnessed a second wave centered on research misconduct, prompting the establishment of boundary organizations such as

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00:37:27

Björn Hammarfelt & Gustaf Nelhans: Styles of...

RMZ Science Works ·

2025/06/04

Academic disciplines have distinctive ways of valuing research. These differences exist not only across fields but also between collegial and organisational evaluations. This presentation draws on recent empirical studies of assessment processes in Swedish academia. By analysing guidelines and peer review reports across four domains: humanities, social sciences, medicine, and natural sciences, we identify five key dimensions of publication assessment: (1) Work attribution, (2) Content quality, (3)

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00:32:15

Catalina Quiroz-Niño, Ana María Villafuerte &...

RMZ Science Works ·

2025/05/21

International research collaborations can base their research focus, questions and interpretations of the issue on Western assumptions of knowledge. This can delegitimise the potential contributions of some project partners, such as those located in the global South, and silence their interpretations of the issue. International projects can therefore be spaces of what Fricker calls "hermeneutical injustice". This presentation is based on Quijano´s work on Coloniality to identify enduring

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00:41:11

Justo Serrano Zamora: Liberal Epistemologies,...

RMZ Science Works ·

2025/05/07

In my talk, I explore two main responses to democracy’s current existential crisis and their mutual relation. On the one hand, many argue that we should address the phenomenon of post-truth and its negative effects on democratic politics by cultivating citizens’ capacity to build their own, autonomous, judgements. On the other hand, many defend the need of participatory initiatives as a way of bringing citizens to identify with their political institutions. I argue that participatory initiatives are

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00:33:41

Sarah Schönbauer: Meeresforschung zwischen...

RMZ Science Works ·

2025/04/30

Der Klimawandel führt zu vielschichtigen und komplexen Veränderungen. Diese Veränderungen bringen unter anderem soziale, epistemische, ökonomische und politische Auswirkungen mit sich. In diesem Vortrag konzentriere ich mich insbesondere auf die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels auf die Wissenschaftswelt und die Positionierungsarbeit von Wissenschaftler*innen. Ich frage: wie nehmen Wissenschaftler*innen Umweltveränderungen wahr und was sind die sozialen und erkenntnistheoretischen Dimensionen dieser

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00:27:02

Stefan Skupien: Defining science for and in ‘Eastern...

RMZ Science Works ·

2025/04/23

Defining Science for and in ‘Eastern Germany’ in right-wing populism “Eastern Germany”, as a socio-political and geographical region, hosts significant scientific infrastructure and innovation funding, yet it has also seen a marked rise in populist voting patterns. Parties such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and emerging movements like Bündnis Sarah Wagenknecht (BSW) position themselves as challengers to established societal frameworks. Within populist rhetoric, a recurring theme is the

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00:51:39

Malte Jansen/ Aishvarya Aravindan Rajagopal: The...

RMZ Science Works ·

2025/04/09

Many educational researchers conduct secondary data analysis using large-scale school assessment studies that usually include various variables based on representative samples. To access such data, researchers must often apply by submitting a research proposal. Our project aims to examine the reproducibility and robustness of secondary data analyses from a research data center that offers over 70 educational studies for secondary analyses. This approach provides us with a unique database of data

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00:49:17

Stefanie Haustein: Challenges of closed vs...

RMZ Science Works ·

2025/03/26

For decades, research assessment infrastructure has been shaped by closed, centralized systems that prioritize selectivity, reinforce hierarchies, and define what counts as scholarly impact. This talk traces the historical evolution of bibliometrics, from the first citation analysis in the early 20th century via the revolutionary development of the Science Citation Index to the dominance of commercial data analytics companies like Clarivate and Elsevier today. The talk will highlight how these

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