After WWII all western industrial states but also the international organization such as UNESCO, OECD, and European Council etc. established institutions that were in charge of educational research and planning. Scientific experts became important in dealing with the identification of social problems; scientific knowledge on the other hand was seen as tool for social progress. New forms of expertise where data and scientific knowledge played a more significant role emerged and were mixed with bureaucratic routines. The scientific explosion of the 1960s was a transnational phenomenon with local formations (Rohstock 2015; Tröhler 2014; Landsheere 1986; Brückweh 2012; Raphael 1996). As answer or as part of the international movement towards research based improvement in education, more than 40 research institutions for educational documentation, research or planning were founded in Switzerland between 1965 and 1975 (Gretler 2001). Mostly, they were part of the cantonal educational administration. The stuff of the research institutions was faced with a new task between research and administration. As part of the administration they had to produce directly usable knowledge, as researchers they had to meet the methodological and theoretical standards of modern science. The question is, how the actors managed to deal with this two requirements and how they handled the period of almost simultaneously occurring research and planning resignation (O’Hara 2007; van Laak 2008). First results show that the intercantonal and international networks were very important during crisis with regard to content and institutional legitimation. Scientific networking was part of the boundary work between science and administration that help the researchers to profile them as actors’ in-between. The research question of this paper asks about the influence of the international and intercantonal scientific network on local research institutions. Who was part of the network? What were important practices within the network? And what benefits were taken out of the network? Were scientific networks helpful in legitimizing the own practice?

To answer these questions two research institutions, that were founded 1970, are analyzed: The Pädagogische Abteilung (PA) in Zurich and the Institut romand de recherche et documentation pédagogique (IRDP), a cooperation of the French speaking cantons in Neuchâtel. These two institutions are chosen firstly because they represent the German and French speaking part of Switzerland and secondly because the archives of both institutions are open, available and promise a good insight into the institutionalization process and the administrational practices.

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