Visie op de toekomst van het wetenschappelijk onderzoek [Vision of the Future of Scientific Research]

This volume represents the Executive Summary to the full report, in which RAND Europe conducted a series of four seminar games for the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science to investigate under a variety of possible futures the role of policy in sustaining high quality scientific research. The main dimensions that the researchers varied in these games were: individualised versus collective performance of research, centralised versus decentralised management of major issues, and moderate vs. major internationalisation of research funding and performance. The overall results of the four games may be summarised in three propositions: 1) No revolutionary changes are needed to the Dutch policy vision of scientific research, 2) There are two independent values driving the need for scientific research: science as a tool for improving society (the instrumental value) and scientific knowledge as an inherent good (the non-instrumental value), 3) A lot of the criticism of current science policies results from anxiety arising from uncertainty and confusion about what these policies are and how they are implemented. (Note: This volume is an Executive Summary with a version in English and a version in Dutch.)