Aant Elzinga (born 22 November 1937,

Bolsward Bolsward (, West Frisian: ''Boalsert'') is a city in Súdwest-Fryslân in the province of Friesland, the Netherlands. Bolsward has a population of just under 10,200. It is located 10 km W.N.W. of Sneek. History The town is founded on th ...

) is professor emeritus at the

University of Gothenburg The University of Gothenburg () is a List of universities in Sweden, university in Sweden's second largest city, Gothenburg. Founded in 1891, the university is the third-oldest of the current List of universities in Sweden#Public universities, S ...

. In 1984 he set up a unit for science and technology foresight at the

Science Council of Canada The Science Council of Canada (SCC) was a Canadian governmental advisory board existing from 1966 to 1993. It originally had 25 scientists and senior civil servants, later expanded to 40 natural and physical scientists, with the civil servants remov ...

. From 1991 to 1997 he was president of the

European Association for the Study of Science and Technology Science and technology studies (STS) or science, technology, and society is an interdisciplinary field that examines the creation, development, and consequences of science and technology in their historical, cultural, and social contexts. Histo ...

. He is a member of the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences in Gothenburg and affiliated with the Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science at University of Gothenburg. He is also a founding member of the

Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is an interdisciplinary body of the International Science Council, International Science Council (ISC). SCAR coordinates international scientific research efforts in Antarctica, including th ...

's (or SCAR's) Action group for history of Antarctic science. Member of International Advisory Board of the Netherlands Research Graduate School of Science, Technology and Modern Culture (WTMC).

Biography

Elzinga studied theoretical physics and applied mathematics, B.A. (1960) at the

University of Western Ontario The University of Western Ontario (UWO; branded as Western University) is a Public university, public research university in London, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land, surrounded by residential neighbourhoods and the Thame ...

in Canada, history and philosophy of science MSc (1964) at

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

(UCL), Fil Lic (1968) and Fil Dr (1971) vetenskapsteori (theory of science and research) at

. He did his doctoral dissertation on a research program in early modern physics with reference to the work of the Dutch 17th-century physicist, mathematician and astronomer

Christiaan Huygens Christiaan Huygens, Halen, Lord of Zeelhem, ( , ; ; also spelled Huyghens; ; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor who is regarded as a key figure in the Scientific Revolution ...

. He has been guest researcher at the Collegium Helveticum of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (

ETH Eth ( , uppercase: ⟨Ð⟩, lowercase: ⟨ð⟩; also spelled edh or eð), known as in Old English, is a letter used in Old English, Middle English, Icelandic, Faroese (in which it is called ), and Elfdalian. It was also used in Sca ...

) in

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

, and a Fellow at the

Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS) is an institute for advanced study in Uppsala, Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It bo ...

( SCASSS),

Uppsala University Uppsala University (UU) () is a public university, public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the List of universities in Sweden, oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. Initially fou ...

Writing

Elzinga has written on

science policy Science policy is concerned with the allocation of resources for the conduct of science towards the goal of best serving the public interest. Topics include the funding of science, the careers of scientists, and the translation of scientific disc ...

from both a conceptual-critical and a practical point of view. Introduced (in 1985) the concept of "epistemic drift". The latter denotes a shift from emphasis on internal quality control to external relevance assessments of research in contexts of strong political and commercial pressures. Analysis builds on studies regarding tensions existing between objectivity and partisanship in research as a human activity and its forms of institutionalization in society. A recent book (2006) was on

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

's bestowal of the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

. Elzinga combines history, philosophy, and the

politics of science Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of status or resources. The branch of social science that studies poli ...

, giving science policy studies a broader, reflexive and more critical framework. Together with Andrew Jamison (1995) written on the concept of "policy cultures", referring to goals and norms associated with four different types of stakeholder groups - academic, commercial, bureaucratic and civil society. Critical studies on the co-production of scientific and social orders also dealt with evaluation procedures used by international development agencies, the interplay of internationalism and science and a brief history of

Unesco The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

Polar research

Since 1986 specialized in the history and politics of polar research in

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

. Also concerned with "climate as research and politics". Introduced the thesis that the

International Geophysical Year The International Geophysical Year (IGY; ), also referred to as the third International Polar Year, was an international scientific project that lasted from 1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War w ...

(IGY 1957/58) and the political regime that followed upon it (i.e., the

Antarctic Treaty System The Antarctic Treaty and related agreements, collectively known as the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), regulate international relations with respect to Antarctica, Earth's only continent without a native human population. It was the first arms ...

) was marked by

geopolitical Geopolitics () is the study of the effects of Earth's geography on politics and international relations. Geopolitics usually refers to countries and relations between them, it may also focus on two other kinds of states: ''de facto'' independen ...

rivalry, no longer in the form of imperialist conflict but by translation of national political agendas into scientific competition and cooperation between participant countries, a "sublimation of politics in science". Thus one can speak of the construction of Antarctica as a continent by and for science. In connection with the Fourth

International Polar Year The International Polar Years (IPY) are collaborative, international efforts with intensive research focus on the polar regions. Karl Weyprecht, an Austro-Hungarian naval officer, motivated the endeavor in 1875, but died before it first occurred ...

(2007–2009) worked on the history of the four international polar years to highlight changing foci, conditions of research, logistics and epistemological characteristics over the past 125 years.

Works

Also see https://web.archive.org/web/20091001024402/http://www.flov.gu.se/om/personal/aant_elzinga/ * (Co-author with

Ronny Ambjörnsson Ronny is a given name, sometimes a short form (hypocorism) of Ronald. It may refer to: * Ronny (footballer, born 1986), Brazilian footballer Ronny Heberson Furtado de Araújo * Ronny (footballer, born 1991), Brazilian footballer Ronieri da Silva Pi ...

and Gunnar Andersson) ''Forskning och politik i Sverige, Sovjet och USA'', Aldus/Bonniers, Stockholm 1968. * (Co-author with Ronny Ambjörnsson and Anna Törngren) Tradition och revolution. Huvuddrag i det europeiska tänkandet, Cavefors publ. Staffanstorp 1969 & several later editions. * On a Research Program in Early Modern Physics, Scan. Univ. Bks Göteborg 1972. . * Evaluating the Evaluation Game. On the methodology of project evaluation. SAREC-Report R:1 Stockholm 1980. ISSN 0348-2626. * (Co-editor) In Science We Trust? Moral and Political Issues of Science in Society. Lund University Press, Lund 1990. * (Editor) Changing Trends in Antarctic Research, Kluwer Ac. Publ. Dordrecht 1993. / 9780792322672 / 0-7923-2267-3 * (Editor with Catharina Landström) Internationalism and Science. Taylor Graham, London and Los Angeles 1996. . * "Objectivity and Partisanship in Science", Ethnos (Stockholm) 1975:1-4: 406–427. http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/aant1.html * "Science Policy in Sweden, sectorization and adjustment to crisis", Research Policy, vol. 9, no. 2 (April 1980): 116 * 146. * "Research, Bureaucracy and the Drift of Epistemic Criteria", in Björn Wittrock and Aant Elzinga, eds. The University Research System. The Public Policies of the Home of Scientist. Almqvist & Wiksell International Stockholm (1985): 191–220. ; ISSN 0280-2988. * "Bernalism, Comintern and the Science of Science: Critical Movements Then and Now", in Jan Annerstedt & Andrew Jamison eds., From Research Policy to Social Intelligence. MacMillan Press, London (1988): 87-113. 0-333-45275-5 (Hardback), (Paperback). * "The interplay of science and politics: the case of Antarctica", in Uno Svedin and Britt Hägerhäll Aniasson, (eds.): Society and the Environment: A Swedish Perspective. Kluwer, Dordrecht (1992): 257 – 283. * (with Andrew Jamison) "Science Studies", in Encyclopedia of Higher Education. Vol. 3. Analytical Perspectives. B. Clark & G.Naeve, (eds.). Pergamon Press, (1992): 1943–1956. . * "Science as the continuation of politics by other means" in Thomas Brante, Steve Fuller and William Lynch, (eds.): Controversial Science. From content to contention. State University New York Press, Albany (1993): 127 * 152. . * "Antarctica: the construction of a continent by and for science", in Elisabeth Crawford et al., (eds.): Denationalizing Science. The Context of International Scientific Practice. Kluwer Ac. Publ. Dordrecht (1993):73 – 106. . with Andrew Jamison "Changing Policy Agendas in Science and Technology", in

Sheila Jasanoff Sheila Sen Jasanoff is an Indian American academic in the field of Science and Technology Studies. In 2021 she was elected to the American Philosophical Society. Her research has been recognized with many awards, including the 2022 Holberg Prize " ...

et al. (eds) ''Handbook of Science and Technology Studies'', London etc. Sage Publications (1995). . * "Reflections on Research Evaluation", ''Science Studies'' (Helsinki) vol. 8 no. 1, 1995: 5-23. * "Unesco and the Politics of Scientific Internationalism", in Elzinga & Landström eds. (1996): 89-131. . * "Shaping Worldwide Consensus: the Orchestration of Global Change Research", in Elzinga & Landström eds. (1996): 223–255. . * "The Science-Society Contract in historical transformation with special reference to 'epistemic drift'", Social Science Information; Sur les sciences sociales, vol. 36, no. 3 (Sept 1997), pp. 411–446. * "Making Ice Talk: Notes from a Participant Observer on Climate Research in Antarctica", in Sabina Maasen & Matthias Winterhagen eds. Science Studies. Probing the Dynamics of Scientific Knowledge. Transcript Verlag 2001, pp. 181–211. . * "From Arrhenius to Megascience. Interplay between Science and Decisionmaking", Ambio, vol. 26 no. 1 (Feb. 1997), pp. 72–80 (also in Chinese). * "Internationalisation of Science and Technology", in Neil J. Schmelser & Paul B. Baltes eds.

International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences The ''International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences'', originally edited by Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes, is a 26-volume work published by Elsevier. It has some 4,000 signed articles (commissioned by around 50 subject edi ...

, Elsevier, Amsterdam 2001, vol. 20: 13633–13638. * "The New Production of Reductionism in Models Relating to Research Policy", in Karl Grandin, Nina Wormbs and Sven Widmalm, eds., The Science-Industry Nexus. History, Policy, Implications, Sagamore Beach, MA, Science History Publications/USA (2004): 277–304. . https://web.archive.org/web/20061202021554/http://www.csi.ensmp.fr/WebCSI/4S/download_paper/download_paper.php?paper=elzinga.pdf * (Editor with Torgny Nordin, David Turner and Urban Wråkberg) Antarctic Challenges. Historical and Current Perspectives on Otto Nordenskjöld's Antarctic Expedition 1901–1903. Göteborg, Royal Society of Arts and Sciences in Göteborg 2004. , ISSN 0347-4925. * Einstein's Nobel Prize, A Glimpse Behind Closed Doors. The Archival Evidence (Sagamaore Beach Ma/USA – Science History International 2006). . https://web.archive.org/web/20090216145213/http://shpusa.com/books/einsteinsnobel.html * "Through the lens of the polar years: changing characteristics of polar research in historical perspective",

Polar Record ''Polar Record'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of Arctic and Antarctic exploration and research. It is managed by the Scott Polar Research Institute and published by Cambridge University Press. The journal was ...

45 (235): 313-336 (2009).

Notes

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