The Section on Knowledge Politics and Policies continues the work on knowledge policy domains from the past 8 ECPR conferences (previously under the titles ‘Politics of Higher Education, Research and Innovation’ and ‘Europe of Knowledge’) and we are now looking for paper proposals. If you would like to contribute to one of the proposed panels, please contact the panel chairs (see below for panel abstracts and contact details for panel chairs). You can also submit your proposal directly to the Section, but please note that we have very very limited room to incorporate such papers. This means that your chances to have your paper accepted are higher, if the paper fits into one of the proposed panels. Either way, we urge you to do this by end of January. This gives us, as the Section Chairs, time to finalize all of the proposals before the official ECPR deadline. Also, be aware that it is the ECPR Academic Convenors who make the final decision concerning which panels and papers will be accepted. We expect to have this decision in early April. 

Looking forward to seeing many of you in the conference, hopefully in Innsbruck in person,

Martina and Mitchell (Section Co-chairs).

The following panels have all been pre-proposed by the chairs listed:

Politics of higher education and research policy – actors, institutions and processes. Chair: Jens Patrick Wilhelm Jungblut <j.p.w.jungblut@stv.uio.no>

This panel focuses on the political dynamics underlying higher education and research policies. With universities and their main tasks of education and research being of increasing relevance for modern societies and for delivering policy solutions for grand societal challenges, questions regarding the way in which policy is made in this area are also becoming more salient. This panel welcomes proposals that investigate actors, institutions or processes of policy-making for higher education and research policies, either separately or in combination. Papers should be based on empirical analyses and preferably have an international comparative component. 

Studying Science-Policy interfaces in Multilateral Negotiation Settings. Chairs: Alice Vadrot <alice.vadrot@univie.ac.at> and Ina Tessnow – von Wysocki ina.tessnow-vonwysocki@univie.ac.at

This panel focuses on the methodologies for studying Science-Policy interfaces in Multilateral Negotiation Settings. It is particularly interested in case studies from the fields of environmental politics, including biodiversity, climate, and ocean governance; as well as health; trade; and human rights, that deal with research on the legitimacy and recognition of science and knowledge in international negotiations.

Privatization in Higher Education. Chairs: Katja Brøgger <kb@edu.au.dk> and Alexander Mitterle <alexander.mitterle@soziologie.uni-halle.de>

Privatization in higher education not only refers to the increasing number of programs at private education providers but also the more silent privatization of tasks that allow public universities and their students to achieve their goals. The panel aims to shed light on the structural and regulatory conditions that allow the boundaries between public and private to blur and their effect on the increasing importance the private plays even in the most state-centered higher education systems.

Research integrity – practices and policies. Chairs: Mads P. Sørensen <mps@ps.au.dk> and Lise Degn <ld@ps.au.dk>

According to some critics, science is in a crisis (Resnik and Shamoo, 2017; Baker, 2016). Scandals and everyday sloppy research threaten both ‘truth’ finding and ‘trust’ in universities and research institutions (Bouter et al. 2016). This has brought research integrity (RI) to the forefront. RI is about living up to professional standards for conducting research. Focus can be on good and detrimental research practices, on institutional, national or transnational policies, or on the current research culture (‘publish or perish’, hyper-competition, rankings, metrics etc.). The panel welcomes papers that deal with RI in all three ways (practices, policies, or culture). 

Politics and Policies of Artificial Intelligence. Chair: Inga Ulnicane-Ozolina <ingaulnicane@gmail.com> and Tero Erkkilä <tero.erkkila@helsinki.fi>

One of the most powerful technologies of our times – Artificial Intelligence – presents major political and policy challenges from distribution of wealth and power to the future of welfare state and democracy. This panel invites conceptual and empirical contributions which examine firstly, how AI transforms politics and policies and secondly, how politics and policies shape AI and its governance.

Rising China, New World Politics and International Relations in Higher Education. Chair: Susan Lee Robertson <slr69@cam.ac.uk> and Bowen Xu <bx223@cam.ac.uk>

This panel focuses on the changing role and status of China in world politics, and evolving international relations with an implication for international higher education. It investigates

the transformative effects of the wider shift in global political economy on knowledge production and academic relations at national, regional, and international scales across different contexts. 

The role of knowledge in global challenges. Chair: Mitchell Young <young.mitchell@gmail.com>

What is the role of knowledge in the policy processes and governance of global challenges? How do the politics and policies of knowledge shape international affairs? We are interested in papers that draw together public policy, science policy, foreign policy, and global governance in new ways, particularly perspectives that address a complex combination of elements related to actors (epistemic communities and/or policymakers), structures (the challenges themselves, the policy/political context, value systems, institutions) and discourses (framing and narratives). 

Temporal and trans-sectoral knowledge policy linkages. Chair: Martina Vukasovic <Martina.Vukasovic@uib.no>

This panel explores antecedents and consequences of knowledge policy linkages across time and various policy domains. The former concerns historical connections between knowledge policy ideas and instruments in a particular polity, while the latter concerns connections between ideas and instruments in the knowledge policy domain and concurrent policy development in other parts of the public sector. In both cases, the focus is on the role of institutions and actors in establishing these linkages and the impact these linkages have on the politics in the knowledge policy domain.