Report Fewer regulations, more resilience – a “new spirit” for the de-bureaucratisation of science.

One year earlier, a Leopoldina working group presented the paper “More Freedom – Less Regulation” with proposals for reducing bureaucracy in the science and research system, divided into five main areas of action. The discussion gained a lot of attention in scientific circles and in the media.

Leopoldina President Rockenbach already stressed in the first panel that the science system needs bureaucracy. The now common and often simplistic criticisms of bureaucracy in everyday life ignore the fact that it is an important element in the fight against arbitrary decisions and the favouring of individuals. However, it needs to be proportionate and serve the purpose of “prudent management”. Oliver Fromm, Chancellor of the University of Kassel/Germany, has argued for a “new spirit” to replace “reviewing and checking at all costs”, for example with respect to approving business trips and planning with funding. Member of the German Parliament Joachim Ebmeyer (CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group) agreed with this from a science policy perspective, saying: “We need a cultural change in research policy, away from a culture of safeguarding and towards a culture of daring and doing.”

In recent months, the discussion paper’s recommendation, “Focus on core tasks”, has attracted particular attention. The recommendation called for reconsidering the use of numerous legally required officers/commissions. While concerns such as environmental protection, equity, and diversity are important, they run the risk of adding bureaucratic layers. This topic was also discussed in the middle workshop panel. Marietta Auer, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory in Frankfurt am Main/Germany and a participant in the Leopoldina working group, stressed in the discussion that incorporating ever more “secondary aims” was doing a disservice to science. “Are we really helping the cause with such measures, or rather achieving the opposite?” In the view of Susanne Bowen, State Secretary at the Ministry of Science, Culture, Federal and European Affairs of the State of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, power asymmetries remain a significant issue in the science sector. However, the question needs to be asked of each regulation whether it serves a function for science and democracy. 

Due to the threat posed by changes in the political landscape, scientific and research institutions also need to become resilient. “Every attack on democracy is also an attack on science, and vice versa,” says Walter Rosenthal, President of the German Rectors’ Conference. Such attacks are particularly perfidious when disguised as serving scientific freedom. What can be done to boost resilience? In addition to reliable and long-term public basic funding, as well as the ongoing task of ensuring understanding among the general public for the dynamic processes that underlie scientific knowledge, the closing panel also emphasised the need to simplify regulations. “We need fewer rules, but need to take those rules more seriously,” said Rolf-Dieter Jungk, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space. “And we need to re-formalise processes, also because bad faith actors could be sitting at the table,” added Jörg Niewöhner from the Technical University of Munich/Germany with an eye on worrying political developments.

So what is the current state of the plan to “de-bureaucratise the science system”? In her closing comments, Leopoldina President Bettina Rockenbach praised the workshop but voiced the sobering thought that it was an additional contribution to the fact that “this is not so much a problem of recognition as of implementation”. In any case, the following insight from the field of cooperation research, the President’s own specialist area, offers encouragement: “Cooperation becomes stronger when the external threat becomes stronger”. This spirit was very much present on the podiums in “silent green”.