Science Policy and Freedom to Conduct Research

As scientific progress becomes ever more rapid, it is essential for those engaged in research to take the time to look critically at the activity itself, its purposes and its potential consequences. However, as Pierre Boistard argues, researchers have less and less time to devote to such issues or perhaps lack the right tools for the job. For this reason, the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) set up a working group in 1994 on “Sciences in questions”, one of whose main aims was to help clarify the current debates about science and research in an accessible and attractive form. The lectures arranged by the working group were originally intended only for researchers working for INRA, but they were later published as a series under the same title. The success of this series confirmed the need for such reflections on the relationships between researchers, science and society. Pierre Boistard presents here the origins, working methods and aims of the working group, as well as the main debates that it has organized. Lastly, he discusses the value of such reflections for scientific foresight studies.