Since the worldwide Marches for Science took place in April 2017, the role of science in the society as well as in its members’ everyday lives has become an issue in public discourse again: Originally initiated as a ‘Scientists' March on Washington’ to protest against the Trump agenda on science and ecological policy, it soon spread all over the world. In more than 600 cities marches and rallies were hosted, not only to show solidarity with the American scientists, but also to bring the societal role of science back in public discourse and to address problematic recent developments: How to fight post-facticism in a scientific way? What to do against political encroachment upon the scientific freedom? How to protect the international scientific community against new political nationalism? And how to communicate and discuss findings on ecological, social and economic problems in public without people getting lost in a flood of (alternative) facts?

Therefore, the responsibility of science was addressed in two ways: On the one hand, scientists and academic organizations emphasized their duty to speak up in public to fulfil the reflexive function of science for society. On the other hand, a discussion within the academic field and its organizations arose about the meaning, reason and purpose of the social responsibility of science. This points to a key discourse in which the societal inclusion of science is directly related with the social inclusion in science.

In a wider frame, the current interest in the social responsibility of science can be analysed in the context of a general increase in the significance of responsibility in public discourse. Hence, the discussion in science reflects a general ‘expansion of responsibility’ (Reese-Schäfer 2017), that can be described as a typical practice of producing meaning, context and relations that is of appropriate complexity in modern societies. Ludger Heidbrink (2017) differentiates several dimensions of responsibility: It enables accountability, competence allocation and authority; it leads to a consequence-based decision-making and thus provides legitimation; it functions as a context-sensitive concept of reflection; and it serves as a governance technique. To conclude, it can be said that responsibility generates knowledge that is capable of informing action and structuring practice, it ascribes meaning to institutions and actors and for that it is contested but also over-determined.

In our paper, we reconstruct the self-thematising discourse on social responsibility in the academic field as a vital basis for the inclusion of young researchers, because it gives orientation during the formation of a self-concept as scientist. This is not only important for scientific socialisation, but also for the academic field, which is comprising an increasing diversity of organizations. The over-determination of social responsibility of science on the one hand and the open-ended struggle for significance of the own position on the other hand offer two relevant aspects at once to scientific organizations: They allow for an organizational inclusion of diverse scientific habitus, based on the participation in an open discourse of what makes good science and good scientists and at the same time, it opens possibilities for delimitation against each other. Hence, the discourse on the social responsibility of science will be analysed as a basis both for inclusive organizational practices and for the maintenance of an organized diversity in the academic field.

The paper is based upon empirical data gathered in the research project “Trajectories in the Academic Field”, which was realized at Augsburg University (Dr. Anna Brake) and Philipps-University Marburg (Prof. Dr. Susanne Maria Weber) (Burger/Elven 2016; Schwarz/Weber/Wieners i.E.). It was founded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Science from September 2013 to December 2016. Applying Bourdieu’s practice theory, we explored academic trajectories as a product of the interplay of organizational constellations and the young researchers’ habitus. We conducted qualitative interviews and group discussions with 64 professors and young researchers in total, addressing their scientific careers, their everyday research practice and their perspective on science (Burger/Elven/Schwarz/Teichmann 2016). The data analysis followed core principles and procedures suggested by the documentary method (Bohnsack/Pfaff/Weller 2010). The data were analysed to reconstruct the similarities and differences in practicing science and producing scientific careers according to different gender and social backgrounds of the researchers, but also according to different organizations and research fields they are scientifically socialized in.

The findings show different understandings of the responsibility of science: moral arguments with long traditions meet contemporary political problems, the value of scientific freedom is balanced against the responsibility for the wellbeing of test subjects as well as for social, environmental and economic consequences and the obligation of an ideal research setting is related to a variety of pragmatic requirements. Furthermore, the findings refer to the fact, that social responsibility of science is not only an abstract, more the less deliberated self-image, but a practice based implicit knowledge, which influences the everyday work of a scientist. For that it effects the practice in the scientific field overall. Finally, the data show systematic differences on practice and understanding of scientific responsibility between different academic organizations: While the participation in the discourse on social responsibility of science appears as an inclusive aspect of the academic field in general and its organizations in particular, it provides a huge potential for distinctive practices of the organizations within the academic field. At the same time the analysis can show, that for young researchers, the social responsibility of science is a crucial topic in their socialisation in the academic field and in specific academic organizations, that is often addressed very critically. This opens up learning opportunities for young researchers between adaptation and protest but at the same time promotes processes of organization learning between unity and diversity.

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