Knowledge policies in worlds facing crises

Controversies and polemics have become omnipresent modalities of the relationship to knowledge in modern societies: from their trivial form (fake news on social networks) to their purified form (peer-to-peer debate in the confined world of science), they vary today under a multitude of dynamics. The epistemic ruptures of climate change, health crises or the proliferation of “big data”, on the one hand, the growing distrust of certain governments and political movements towards scientific institutions, on the other hand, call for the reinvestment of questions in the core of STS on the production of knowledge and the socio-political inscription of expertise.

The CSI is interested in the production of knowledge in the face of the climate crisis, and more particularly in the production of greenhouse gas emission scenarios designed to inform and assess climate policies and energy transition. This domain of expertise puts to the test the perimeters and assumptions of economic calculations as well as the links between scientific disciplines; it also upsets the relationship between scientific expertise and political deliberations.

In another vein, several CSI works tackle the disruptions caused by the rise of the open source and hacking communities. On the one hand, they question the way in which ethical issues are renewed by the amateur practice of science, particularly in biology. On the other hand, they seek to grasp the potential transformations in the organization of knowledge production, evaluation and circulation that could result from the integration, through science policies, of requirements for sharing results and data.

Beyond the field of scientific production strictly speaking, the CSI studies how a diversity of actors develop knowledge as a ground for action. In the wake of researches focused on organizations of patients, lay people or amateurs, new research is looking at institutional actors such as the World Bank, led to recreate its expertise, and public authorities, anxious to implement “evidence-based” policies.

Research projects

DoMeSCo – Données et Médiation scientifique : leçons du COVID-19 [Data and Scientific Mediation: Lessons from COVID-19]

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The worldwide epidemic of COVID-19 has had considerable impact on the place and role of data in scientific and technical democracy. Essential to the governmental emergency communication that was invented in most countries of the world, data also found itself at the center of scientific mediation initiatives which were reinvented in a few weeks in a context of radical uncertainty which saw the sources but also the formats of data multiply and transform at a frantic pace. In this landscape, new initiatives have also emerged, which have focused on data visualization, but have also directly participated in the production of new data sets. In France, this scientific mediation specialized in data has been very successful and has become a trusted third party in the eyes of public authorities in a context of great mistrust of political and scientific institutions. Bolstered by their visibility, the people behind these initiatives have also played a driving role in the demand for the opening of many data sets, and have initiated new forms of collaboration with the public administration. This project focuses on the French experience. It aims to structure and disseminate the lessons that can be learned from this period in order to provide tools for future mediation efforts, to guide the production and opening of data within the public administration, and to facilitate collaborations between the two. Designed around a partnership between the Centre de sociologie de l’innovation (Mines ParisTech, i3 – UMR 9217) and the Datactivist cooperative society, it has the official support of the Café des sciences and the Direction Interministérielle de la Transformation Publique.

Website

Contact: Jérôme Denis

DEFERM – Mesures de décontamination visant à restaurer les installations et l’environnement après une libération naturelle ou volontaire de microorganismes pathogènes [Decontamination measures to restore facilities and the environment after a natural or deliberate re-lease of pathogenic microorganisms]

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The aim of the project is to work along different case scenarios in order to address concrete procedures and processes of first responders with actual political focus based on threats caused bypathogenic microorganisms. The scenarios include accidental, deliberate or natural release. This focus grants us the possibility to draw on German and French expertise on first responder side and harmonize procedures between the first responders. We will address one of the capability challenges mentioned frequently after exercises and also in EU projects such as FIRE-IN (www.fire-in.eu). First responders are in the spotlight of this project. Main focus will be on the recovery pHSe including decontamination measures to restore facilities and the environment, an aspect that is important but still a bottle neck in operations. So far, no clear recommendations or standard operational procedures have been developed for such scenarios in Europe. In order to fit that goal, the project addresses two interconnected issues: the improvement of operational processes and the (further) development of technical methods or devices for detection and decontamination. The operational processes themselves will be explored in two directions. On the one hand, based on the two scenarios, their embedding in institutional and legal structures of biological emergency response will be examined in a Franco-German comparison (referring to responsibilities, internal alarm chains, population warning, reporting channels, deployment of the operational organization etc.). At the other hand the safety culture of the responsible first responders will be investigated. Referring to the technological developments in automated detection, microfluidic cartridges based on nucleic acid analysis will allow for rapid, sensitive and specific identification and quantification of the pathogens. This enables the development and evaluation of whole procedures and technical processes focused on the operational tactical part and the approach in a societal dimension. For the operational tactical level to pave the ground for a larger test scale on a joint French-German exercise, learning about procedures, basic investigations will be performed in small up to large work space. The work will be focused on the relevant procedures for the biological security relevant scenarios “technical accident during transportation of pathogens” and “accidental release of pathogens from a production facility in the environment. The aim is to identify relevant parameters for the development of operational process data. This will help to elaborate a parameter map for decontamination processes, in order to respond adequately to biological threats. Additionally, procedures for special decontamination requirements, like different materials in sensitive rooms to be recovered, as well as vehicle decontamination (here we use existing equipment) will be developed and evaluated in a test environment. Finally, a scale-up to a large room will be investigated, and procedures will also be developed and evaluated in a test environment in order to develop recommendations to be applied in possible scenarios posing biological threats.

Contact: Morgan Meyer

DIAMAS – Developing Institutional open Access publishing Models to Advance Scholarly communication

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In the transition towards Open Access (OA), institutional publishing is challenged by fragmentation and varying service quality, visibility,and sustainability. To address this issue, DIAMAS gathers 23 organisations from 12 European countries, well-versed in OA academic publishing and scholarly communication. The project will:
1. Map the current landscape of Institutional Publishing Service Providers (IPSPs) in 25 countries of the ERA with special attention for IPSPs that do not charge fees for publishing or reading. This will yield a taxonomy of IPSPs and an IPSP landscape report, a basis for the rest of the project.
2. Coordinate and improve the efficiency and quality of IPSPs by developing a European Quality Standard for Institutional Publishing (EQSIP). This quality seal will professionalize, strengthen and reduce the fragmentation of institutional publishing in Europe. EQSIP will serve as a benchmark for a gap analysis of the data. Buy-in and capacity-building is ensured by co-creation with the relevant IPSP communities of practice, creating a Common Access Point for IPSPs, an IPSP registry with 80% of IPSPs in the ERA, publishing guidelines, training materials, self-assessment tools, financial models, and shared cost frameworks. DIAMAS embraces diversity, equity, and inclusion by addressing gender equity in OA publishing OA publishing and multilingualism in 15 European languages. Special attention is paid to building and enabling the financial sustainability of IPSPs.
3. Formulate community-led, actionable recommendations and strategies for institutional leaders, funders/sponsors/donors, and policymakers in the European Research Area (ERA). Workshops and targeted networking actions will reach and engage institutional decision-makers.
DIAMAS will deliver an aligned, high-quality, and sustainable institutional OA scholarly publication ecosystem for the ERA, setting a new standard for OA publishing, shared and co-designed with all stakeholders.

Website

Contact: David Pontille

Innovation au CNRS

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In progress

Contact:

ESPADON – Espace d’actionnabilité de Données en Oncologie [Data landscapes and actionability in precision oncology]

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In recent years, oncology transitioned from its traditional, organ-based approach to ‘precision oncology’ centred on molecular alterations, thus becoming a ‘data-centric’ domain that generates more information than can be readily interpreted by individual practitioners. The purpose of the present project is to provide an analytical understanding of the complex dynamics of data-centric oncology by investigating it from the privileged viewpoint of actionable clinical activities. We will explore the following questions:
• How do clinicians, molecular biologists, pathologists, bioinformatics specialists, and patient activists collectively contribute to the shaping of the data resources ecosystem that acts as a condition of possibility for actionable interventions?
• How are new kinds of evidence interfaced with traditional clinical systems and how does they redefine clinical judgment and clinical expertise?
• How do these processes reconfigure the relations between research and care and transform experimental and routine clinical activities?
Using a combination of qualitative sociological methodologies with innovative computational methods, we will investigate key settings involved in the management of genomic data, including local data interpretation institutions such as clinical trial and routine molecular tumour boards, national data harmonization and standardization initiatives (e.g. FMG 2025), and international initiatives (e.g. Project GENIE, data taskforce of Cancer Core Europe). Given oncology’s pioneering role as a data-centric domain, our project has relevance for the broader biomedical community and will inform the debate on the social and organizational implications of ‘big data’, thus contributing to policy making. It will produce insights on the emergence of new forms of collective expertise characterizing complex trans-disciplinary and lay-expert interactions in collaborative research settings.

Contact: Madeleine Akrich

FiTeGe – Fichiers et Témoins Génétiques [Genetic Databases and Witnesses: Genealogy, Social issues, Circulation]

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While the vast majority of social science studies in the field of genetics relate to biomedicine, our project offers a different approach as it concerns the police and legal sphere. In a context of the increasing technicisation of police investigations, the emergence of genetic analyses has substantially changed practices. More generally, new professional tools are being developed, which evolve, give rise to new moral and political controversies, and circulate between different national and international professional spaces (scientific, legal, political, industrial, etc.). Our project lies at the intersection of sociology, anthropology and law, but also, more peripherally, forensics, and will not analyse these stakes separately from the content and concrete forms of these innovations. More specifically, it aims to trace the genealogy of these innovations and analyse the practices they shape (and that shape them) as well as the controversies to which they give rise. While the question of the regime of evidence is central and will provide our common theme, it will also be examined from a variety of angles: what types of knowledge led to the development of these innovations? What is their supposed nature and what role do they play in defining categories of identification (suspect, potential suspect, person of a certain “origin”, etc.)? How do they influence how individuals and populations are governed? How do they come to circulate within the European Union?
The project calls upon four research centres with complementary areas of expertise and is composed of three scientific tasks, in addition to a task devoted to coordination and technology transfer. The first scientific task will look at the genealogy of DNA fingerprinting in France; the second will analyse new forms of knowledge in genetics and forensics, and the related social effects; the third will focus on the practices and stakes of the circulation of genetic data between France and the other European countries. Sociologists, anthropologists, legal specialists, and, more occasionally, a forensic scientist, will work collaboratively within each task. On a methodological level, we will conduct a series of interviews with judges, police officers, political officials, geneticists, victim support organisations, opponents to the database, etc. as well as observations of trials calling upon genetics expertise. We will collect and analyse several corpora composed of documents from the mainstream press, scientific articles in forensics, legal and regulatory texts, and records of parliamentary commission debates.
All in all, our project will develop: 1. An innovative nature: this field of research in the social sciences has never been studied in France. 2. An interdisciplinary approach: it lies at the intersection between sociology and anthropology, law and forensics. 3. International visibility: publications will be written for international journals and an international conference will be organised. 4. Technology transfer: our results will be disseminated among relevant actors (judges, lawyers, geneticists, etc.) through a Workshop, a training seminar aimed at judges and a lecture for the general public. Legal recommendations will be drawn up for public authorities. 5. Inclusion in teaching: participants who run seminars in the field of innovations and genetics, law and forensics will include their research in their teaching.

Website

Contact: Vololona Rabeharisoa

TRT-CSVD – From Target Identification to Next Generation Therapies for Cerebral Small Vessel Diseases

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Cerebral small vessel diseases of the brain (SVDs) are involved in one-third of ischemic strokes and contribute significantly to cognitive decline and disability occurring with aging in the general population. Despite the profound impact of SVDs on human health, no specific treatments are currently available, outside the management of vascular risk factors. Among the important advances in the field of SVDs has been the identification of genes involved in Mendelian forms of adult-onset SVD, which share a number of clinical and pathological features with common forms of SVDs. The identification of these genes allows, not only the development of diagnostic tests, but offers an unprecedented opportunity to develop disease-modifying drugs, and conduct clinical trials in very homogeneous groups of patients. The ultimate goal of TRT_cSVD is to develop effective therapies for SVDs. Our overarching concept is that genetic SVDs – especially CADASIL, the most frequent such condition – provide a unique opportunity to develop new therapeutic solutions. Our specific objectives are: 1) to identify new genes in SVDs and validate druggable targets; 2) to identify innovative biomarkers and clinical tools for therapeutic evaluation in patients; 3) to develop innovative evaluation and rehabilitation approaches targeting early deficits and disability, and 4) to validate our findings in early-stage clinical studies and facilitate their translation to the real world. TRT_cSVD gathers in a transdisciplinary consortium 25 partners: 6 experimental research labs; 14 clinical and imaging research teams; 1 sociologists team; 3 industry partners.

Contact : Madeleine Akrich

HyTrend – Hydrogène et transition énergétique décarbonnée [Hydrogen and carbon-free energy transition]

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The HyTrEnD project combines the skills of the H2MINES group to draw on their synergies in the context of a targeted application: the production of heat from renewable gases. Some key stages of the process are being studied: H2/syngas production, CO2 recovery, methanation, gas detection and storage, interactions between electricity, gas and heat networks, analysis of environmental, territorial and social risks and impacts.
Financed for 3 years by the Carnot funding, the project gathers 13 centres/laboratories (CES, CTP, Geosciences, CSI, PERSEE and other labs of the Mines schools…) of 5 Carnot schools, Mines Paris, IMT Mines Albi-Carmaux, IMT Atlantique, IMT Mines Alès, Mines Saint-Etienne.

Contact: Alexandre Mallard

MATILDA – Construire un outil bibliographique/métrique pour la science ouverte [Building a bibliographic/metric tool for open science]

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Our project to build a bibliographic/metric tool for open science aims to change the situation of reference/citation data as the poor relation of open science, with two main objectives. First, although we are part of the emerging “open citations” movement, we are not simply seeking to unlock existing closed information, but to give a fair place to academic content excluded from the proprietary tools currently used, WoS and Scopus, by adopting a principle of equal treatment of all scientific texts and their metadata. The literature has indeed shown that the scarcity principles at the heart of bibliometrics and the disciplinary and linguistic biases of the core producers have led to a massive invisibilisation of part of the scientific literature, with the current commercial databases creating a “filter bubble”. Secondly, we want to provide academics and researchers with as much control as possible over the way they search for textual information and metadata, as we consider that the closed design of current tools encapsulates an objectifying view of research processes rather than relying on technologies co-constructed by their users. While very little work has been published on the uses of bibliometric tools, our hypothesis is that not only are the needs of users varied, but in addition the singular nature of scientific texts must be taken into account, by favoring forms of prioritization and recommendations of articles by users.
To do so, after the development of a proof of concept in progress, with the support of the CNRS through a short-term contract, we will build a first functional version of the computer architecture of Matilda on the basis of pre-selected corpora (ArXiv, PubMed, CrossRef, RePEc), and enrich and expose all the data that can be legally shared. Based on this public interface, we will recruit user researchers in order to obtain as much information as possible on the concrete uses of this type of tool and to experiment with new functionalities and services (citation tracking methods, alerts, recommendations, etc.). These users will be given a dedicated account in their name, and a CNIL procedure, similar to the one developed for the ISIDORE engine, will allow us to obtain their agreement for the collection of information from different tools (usage traces, usage questionnaires and in-depth interviews). Through the combination of the unique skills of a Huma-Num team for the design of research tools and the expertise of a team from the Centre de sociologie de l’innovation in the study of science and the role of users in technological devices, Matilda aims to redefine what a bibliographic/metric tool is by taking full advantage of the current and future openness of metadata. This project is thus at the heart of the ANR’s “Open Data” call for projects, taking into account the provisions of public policies on open citations (national open science plan, Plan S). By developing a tool for the commons, based on the metadata of scientific texts, and in particular their reference/citation data, we aim to make these open citations useful to all scientific communities, in particular by making citation tracking fully available as a method of intertextual circulation.

This ANR-funded project gathers 2 partners: the Centre for the Sociology of Innovation (I3, UMR9217), the Humanum (UMS 3598).

Contact: Didier Torny

Seminars

Economic expertise and environmental actions

This joint seminar of the Center for the Study of Social Movements (EHESS, IFRIS) and the Center for the Sociology of Innovation (Mines Paris-PSL, i3), brings together researchers who are interested in understanding how economic knowledge is produced, mobilized and contested when it comes to environmental action. Organizers: Nassima Abdelghafour, Béatrice Cointe, Kewan Mertens and Alexandre Violle. More about »

Digital Environmental Policies

The seminar is organized by Clément Marquet (CSI, Mines Paris / PSL, i3) and Sophie Quinton (Inria, GDS EcoInfo), as part of the Politiques environnementales du numérique [Digital Environmental Policies] working group of the GDR Internet, AI and Society. For the past few years, the environmental consequences of digital technologies have been the subject of increasing attention, calling into question the promise of a convergence between ecological and digital transition. More about »

PhD theses 

Theses in progress

Guillaume Louvet, Politiques de l’évaluation coût bénéfice / Cost-benefit assessment policies

Defended theses

Mathieu Rajaoba, 2022, Politiques des données agricoles. Plateformes et projets d’innovation dans l’émergence de l’agriculture numérique en France / Dataland. The politics of digital agriculture in France

Sophie Tabouret, 2021, Les cépages résistants, du labo à la vigne. Quand l’expérimentation met à l’épreuve les pratiques vitivinicoles, les variétés de vigne et les propriétés du vin  / Resistant grape varieties, from the lab to the vineyard. When experimentation puts wine-making practices, vine varieties and wine properties to the test

Félix Boilève, 2020, Une “Banque du savoir” ? Enquête sur la nature et la politique de l’expertise de la Banque mondiale  / A “Knowledge Bank” ? An inquiry into the nature and the politics of World Bank expertise

Quentin Dufour, 2019, L’objectivation comptable de l’économie nationale : Enquête sur la fabrique du PIB et des comptes nationaux français / The accounting objectification of the National Economy : An inquiry into the French GDP and national accounts production process

Post-doc

Marine Boisson, DoMeSCo

Publications

Madeleine Akrich, Vololona Rabeharisoa, 2023, On the multiplicity of lay expertise. An empirical and analytical overview of patients associations’ achievements and challenges, in Gil Eyal, Thomas Medvetz (Eds.), Oxford Handbook on Expertise and Democratic Politics, Oxford University Press.

Béatrice Cointe, Hélène Guillemot, 2023, A History of the 1.5°C target. WIREs Climate Change.

Vololona Rabeharisoa, Florence Paterson, 2022, Matérialité et juridicité. À propos du Fichier national automatisé des empreintes génétiques, Droit et Société, (110), 21-36.

Morgan Meyer, 2021, Experimenting and documenting low tech, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 33 (10), 1147-1158.

Morgan Meyer, Frédéric Vergnaud, 2020, The rise of biohacking: Tracing the emergence and evolution of DIY biology through online discussions, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, (160).

David Pontille, Didier Torny, 2017, Beyond Fact Checking: Reconsidering the Status of Truth of Published Articles, EASST Review, 36 (1), 14-16.

Vololona Rabeharisoa, 2017, La multiplicité des connaissances et le tremblement des institutions, Revue d’Anthropologie des Connaissances, 11 (2), 141-147.

Vololona Rabeharisoa, Tiago Moreira, Madeleine Akrich, 2014, Evidence-based activism: Patients’, users’ and activists’ groups in knowledge society, BioSocieties, 9, 111–128.