Research socially responsible: may we speak of a Mode 3 knowledge production?

Abstract

A collateral effect of the globalization of the economy is the “globalization of science”, in the sense that part of it works at the service of the global economy. Part of the scientific production thus appears to be linked to the needs of the global markets. However, in the past 20 years, new alternative ways of “doing science” have emerged throughout the world whose most important characteristic is their intimate relationship with the solution of felt problems linked to local or regional communities. Although they share some of the characteristics of “Mode 2” research, as defined by GIBBONS et al (1994), they differ drastically in the sense that they really are socially responsible. These new forms are a response to the need to make scientific research more participative, more closely linked to the groups that would be affected by its results, incorporating thus in the decision-making process, not only the researchers themselves, but also those agents that would be directly affected by its products. This paper reflects upon an experience that currently takes place in Mexico, where research is intimately linked to the learning function, and is strongly rooted into the New Information and Communication Technologies (NICT). This form of doing “research in the service of humanity” is consistent with an alternative definition of development that is not necessarily linked to “growth”, as traditionally reflected in economic statistics. Development is not a question of what one has, but of what one can do with what one has. Development is the ability and desire to use what is available to continuously improve one’s quality of life (ACKOFF, 1974). Projects like the one described here provide a sense of progress in the right direction, in the direction of true development. We call this way of knowledge generation “Mode 3”, to differentiate it from Mertonian (Mode 1) and Gibbons’ (Mode 2) way of doing science. Mode 3 is a mode of knowledge production whose distinctive characteristic is a commitment to be at the service of mankind.