Final Report Editor Ulrike Felt June 2003

Austrian policies on Public Understanding of Science 62
to argue for money and to create a far-reaching visibility appear central. On the other
hand even basic financing will not be automatically guaranteed anymore and will need
argumentative strategies in order to assure stability. In that sense raising public
awareness about research being carried out as well as stimulating public debate about
the need of science and technology seems to be an obvious, crucial strategic element
for assuring future development.
The main policy guidelines of the Ministry for Education, Research and Culture make
these issues even more explicit:
Research is funded to a highly significant degree from public funds: as a result there is
an obligation to have a greater problem-oriented approach, where research commits
itself to working on issues which affect society and seeking to provide solutions to
areas of conflict. At the same time, this approach can promote communication with the
general public and can raise the status of research. However, researchers themselves
must contribute to this improved understanding by projecting the results of their
81
activities "to the outside world".TP
PT
Three elements seem clearly present in this statement. First the importance of applied
problem oriented research is underlined. Second both application- orientation and
increased efforts to communicate with the public will assure a higher status of science
in society. Thirdly, scientists should be the ones involved in the communication of their
work.
A further important element triggering an increased need for science communication
can be identified around the referendum against the release of Genetically Modified
Organisms (GMOs) which took place in spring 1997 (and was extremely successful
with over 1.2 million people signing). It became probably the most widely and
emotionally debated "science-issue" in Austria and was only comparable with the
82
debate over civil nuclear energy in the late seventiesTP
PT in which scientific practitioners,
non-governmental organisation members, media-representatives, politicians and all
kinds of other actors engaged. The controversy was triggered by several applications
from national and international research institutes and firms to release various kinds
GMOs in Austria from 1994. It was mainly "settled" by an amendment to the genetics
law in mid-1998, which established very strict (or better: expensive) liability regulations,
and therefore turned GMO releases into a risky enterprise for firms in Austria. In this
conflict two aspects became clearly visible: there was an increasing lack of readiness
from the part of wider publics to simply accept scientific and technological
81
TP
PT BMBWK
82
homepage: TUhttp://www.bmbwk.gv.atUT (2001).
TP
PT Perhaps it would be also relevant to add the "Anti-Temelin" Debate, although the structure of the debate
looks different from a number of perspectives.