Research 2.0

One of the more profound iterations on research over the past decade is versioning research 2.0. Yet what is research 2.0? Is it merely that the means of dissemination and translation from basic research to application have changed with new media and technologies? Does research 2.0 mean that we now have research media and technologies that our more senior mentors did not have? Does it mean that we now have open access to a myriad of publications from which we may learn and to which we may contribute? Does it mean that googling and tweeting is research? Or is it something much deeper?

Similarly, one of the more profound insights into this is Latour’s (1998) “From the World of Science to the World of Research?” What does he mean by ‘from science to research’? Doesn’t one imply the other? Things are perhaps worse than they seem: “There is a philosophy of science, but unfortunately there is no philosophy of research,” he says. The difference between science and research begins with a new relationship between science and society: “They are now entangled to the point where they cannot be separated any longer” (p. 208). “That is what has changed most. Science does not enter a chaotic society to put order into it anymore, to simplify its composition, and to put an end to its controversies…. When scientists add their findings to the mix, they do not put an end to politics; they add new ingredients to the collective process” (p. 209).

This changing relationship between science and society is more profound than it seems. It now more importantly can be understood as a “New Deal between research and society” (p. 209). Latour concludes: “Scientists now have the choice of maintaining a 19th-century ideal of science or elaborating with all of us, the hoi polloi-an ideal of research better adjusted to the collective experiment on which we are all embarked.”

Research 2.0?

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