Uncertainty and de facto policy design from below: the case of research security

Abstract

In recent years, governments in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, and Germany have either begun to introduce or to reinforce research security initiatives and frameworks to safeguard intellectual property and protect cutting-edge scientific results. In this article, we investigate what effect the increased attention to and promotion of research security has from a policy design perspective. Synthesizing insights from emerging scholarship and 21 interviews with German research actors, we argue that existing research security initiatives and frameworks create a high level of uncertainty—among administrators and researchers alike—concerning key policy design questions. Mainly drawing on Germany as a case in point, we show how administrators and researchers address this uncertainty in practice and argue that their responses amount to a kind of de facto policy design from below. This de facto policy design from below does not necessarily invalidate regulation from above but instead indicates that top-down regulatory frameworks alone cannot resolve the micro-level challenges that research administrators and researchers face on the ground. In this sense, bottom-up adaptation constitutes not a deviation from policy but a mode of practical coping with its inherent indeterminacy.