Introduction to discussion paper on 'The sciences are different and the differences are important'

摘要

Research Policy includes provision for the occasional publication of 'discussion papers'. Criteria for such discussion papers include not only that the subject is important and topical but also that the nature of the issue is such that there is, as yet, no consensus (i.e. different researchers may hold quite different views) and a discussion paper with invited responses may help advance the debate in a fruitful manner. One example of such a discussion paper in the past was the article by Mowery et al. (2010) on global climate change and why advocacy of a 'Manhattan Program' to deal with this problem is probably misguided. Another discussion paper focussed on the continuing debate over the emergence of the QWERTY keyboard (Kay, 2013).