Of course, the question arises at the outset as to whether a project to define “research” is itself “research”… I think a preliminary study was required here to determine whether something which is itself “research” can serve as a defining referent for “research” itself, ontologically speaking.

In practical terms, should the Ministry of Deciding Whether It Really Is Research decide in advance on each proposal or simply field inquires presented by the Ministry of Funding Acceptable Inquiries if and when a grey area arises. We should probably have a study….

Re #5 – Is interesting that the entire author site was more on policy side of things, but I don’t think that is uncommon.

Maybe Roger could comment on similar studies in the US that don’t involve the actual sciences. I guess it is feasible that the authors got inputs from actual scientist doing work, but in this case it was a policy document written by policy geared authors.

Re #1 – People that get funded to write it, that is who. It is likely someone above them in the food chain wanted it. While I could not find the exact funding source it seems amongst these 3 on page 2: Directorate-General for Research, Directorate L – Science, Economy and Society, Unit L.3 – Governance and Ethics. But on Page 3 the closest direct link appears to be to DIRECTORATE-GENERAL FOR RESEARCH SCIENCE, ECONOMY AND SOCIETY. While I did not find the funding source on the EU site, it is likely to have come from this funding line http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html. What was interesting is they did a similar study in fp6 – http://tinyurl.com/pro-fp6

God save us from European principles of good governance and fundamental rights.

Government governs best that governs least, especially regarding science.

These Europeans don’t appreciate that one of the biggest problems, even in Europe, is the low level of public understanding of what science is, and how although it tries to reduce uncertainty – it can never deliver absolute truth about the ‘real’ world. And that no other discipline can do better.

So they give NO attention to promoting science education to improve global governance of science. The teaching of scepticism, moderated by empirical testing of models, as it might apply to the practice of global governance, in general, seems not to be appreciated. And although they emphasize the importance of involving ALL kinds of stake-holders in discussions of science policy, NOT ONE NATURAL SCIENTIST participated in preparing this document!

Does anyone remember the Lisbon Goals of 2000? By 2010 the EU would overtake the US as the most competitive economy in the world. The bureaucrats and experts developed a plan but the economy refused to cooperate. Not only has it not succeeded but they have fallen further behind in most metrics. If only the economy would have been smart enough to listen to the experts.

The US control of science is working out really well to get global control of energy use. Let’s try it for everything.