Knowledge Environments at Universities: Some Theoretical and Methodological Considerations

Abstract

Until the early 1980s most research on scientific creativity had focused on personal attributes of scholars. Few authors found it necessary to include the social, cultural, and scientific environment in their considerations. However, science has not only a history but a geography as well. Creativity is never the result of individual action alone. A stimulating environment and a talented individual must come together and interact before a creative process can occur. A number of milieu factors can promote or hinder both scientific creativity and academic careers. The chapter focuses on five questions: What do we mean by knowledge environment? Which components make up a local knowledge environment? In what way can a local knowledge environment affect goals, decisions, learning, research processes, and careers of academics? How can one verify the consequences of a knowledge environment? Which theoretical concepts can contribute to the understanding of the interaction between the knowledge environment and the individual scholar?

This chapter greatly expands on Meusburger (2015, 2016).

The Spatiality of Learning, Research, and Academic Careers

Until the early 1980s most research on scientific creativity had focused on the personal attributes of scholars. Few authors found it necessary for their theoretical considerations to include the social, cultural, and scientific environment—the seat of socialization , learning, control, and encouragement by supervisors, research activities, and creative processes. Spatial differences in scientific practices and research cultures ; spatial inequalities of career opportunities, financial resources , academic freedom, and other factors influencing the scientific achievements of scholars; and the attractiveness and reputation of universities received little attention. Science was assumed to be placeless. At best, it was admitted that talented individuals could not develop their creativity in repressive societies.

In the 1980s and 1990s researchers studying creativity increasingly accepted that talent, wealth of ideas, motivation, endurance, and other personal traits are not the only factors influencing how well a person’s scholarly pursuits and academic career develops. What people call creative is never the result of individual action alone. The talented student and the creative scientist do not work in a social, cultural, and economic vacuum. A stimulating knowledge environment and a talented individual must come together and interact before a creative process can occur (Amabile, 1979, 1983a, 1983b, 1996; Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby, & Herron, 1996; Amabile, Goldfarb, & Brackfield, 1990; Amabile, & Gryskiewicz, 1989; Hennessey & Amabile, 1988; Meusburger, 2009; Sternberg & Lubart, 1991, 1999). No one can study scientific achievements and academic careers effectively by isolating scholars and their works from the political, social, cultural, and historical milieus in which their academic socialization and research has taken place and in which their achievements have been evaluated, legitimated, or rejected by evaluators and gate-keepers of their research field.

A second line of arguments underlining the importance of places, settings, environments, and spatial relations for research and scientific careers has been put forward by the geography of science (Livingstone, 1995, 2000, 2002, 2003; Withers, 2001, 2002, 2010; Withers, Higgitt, & Finnegan, 2008) and science studies in other disciplines (Collins, 1983, 2008; Collins & Evans, 2002; Collins & Pinch, 1998; Gieryn, 1983, 2000, 2002; Knorr-Cetina, 1999; Matthiesen, 2006, 2007). “Scientific knowledge is a geographical phenomenon. It is acquired in specific sites; it circulates from location to location; it transforms the world” (Livingstone, 2010, p. 18). The geography of science is interested in a variety of questions: Why has a specific research field first developed at university A and not at universities B or C? Why have some universities produced and attracted a host of outstanding scholars, whereas others have not? Which factors, expectations, or institutional logics inhibit or promote the scientific creativity and academic career of scholars? Why do scientific results travel in the selective way they do? Why does it sometimes take decades until outstanding scientific findings are accepted by other scholars? Why have important texts been read and interpreted so differently in specific places and environments? What can and cannot be said in particular venues? What effects do political power , cultural politics , and the geopolitics of science have on the generation and spatial diffusion of science? Why have outstanding centers of research lost their importance in the course of history? How do international networks of scientists evolve and which long-term consequences do they have? What are the preconditions and primary sources of paradigmatic change in various disciplines and places of science? Which local (regional) barriers and facilitators of change can be identified?

A third strand of arguments paving the way for research on the effects that environments have on action and performance originated in organizational research, business studies , and institutional theory . Scholars in these fields became interested in the psychological climate of organizations, in institutional logics, in rules and informal norms that structure behavior, and in organizational learning (Battilana, 2006; Berthoin Antal, Meusburger, & Suarsana, 2014; Bitektine & Miller, 2015; Cummings, 1965; Denison, 1996; Glückler, Lazega, & Hammer, 2017; Lawrence, Suddaby, & Leca, 2011; Mintzberg, 1979; Suddaby, 2010; Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005). They found that creative persons are keenly sensitive and responsive to formal and informal sets of mutual expectations between people, to quality conventions and assessment tools prevailing at their place of work. Institutional theorists have recognized the constraining effect that institutional norms, conventions, and meaning systems have on the emergence of new theories, new research paradigms , and research methods (Bitektine & Miller, 2015, p. 117). Some authors in organizational studies have discussed the social construction of fields (Fligstein, 2013), inhibitory constraints in organizational behavior (Lind & van den Bos, 2013), adaptive leadership theory (DeRue, 2011), the influence of local communities on organizations (Marquis & Battilana, 2009), and implications of the physical work environment on organizations (Zhong & House, 2012).

A key contribution came, fourth, from environmental psychology (Barker, 1968; Bechtel, 1997; Graumann, 1978, 2002a, 2002b, 2002c; Graumann & Kruse, 1990, 2003; Kruse, 1986). Environmental psychologists no longer saw the behavior of the individual agent as the main focus of research in psychology . They were convinced that a behavior could be predicted more from knowledge about the spatiomaterial and social situation in which it occurs than from the knowledge and traits of the actor (Kruse, 1986, p. 135). Further insights have come from psychological studies on complex problem-solving , the decisive role that the environment has in it, the limitations of the corresponding psychological experiments, the tensions between field and laboratory research, and the contextual dependency of strategies (Dörner & Funke, 2017, pp. 4–5; Funke, 2012; Runco, 1994; Runco & Okuda, 1988).

[T]here is no strategy that is so universal that it can be used in many different problem situations. . . . Complex phenomena require complex approaches to understand them. The complex nature of complex systems imposes limitations on psychological experiments : The more complex the environments, the more difficult is it to keep conditions under experimental control. (Dörner & Funke, 2017, pp. 4–5)

Fifth, since the 1980s human geography has developed new concepts of space and place that have facilitated interfaces with the social and behavioral sciences and have helped avoid spatial determinism and ecological fallacies (Harvey, 1969, 2005; Klüter, 1986, 1999, 2003; Lefebvre, 1974/1991; Lippuner, 2005; Lippuner & Lossau, 2004; Massey, 1985, 1999a, 1999b, 2005; Meusburger, 2008; Meusburger & Werlen, 2017; Schmid, 2005; Soja, 1980, 1985; Weichhart, 1996, 1999, 2003; Werlen, 1983, 1987, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997a, 1997b, 2010a, 2010b).

A place can be defined as a “discursively constructed setting” (Feld & Basso, 1996, p. 5) having a symbolic and emotional meaning; providing an identity ; and communicating a complex history of events, cultural memories, and emotional attachments (Canter, 1977; Furnham, 1985; Giddens, 1984; Manzo, 2005; Rowles, 2008a, 2008b; Scannel & Gifford, 2010; Werlen, 1983, 1987, 1997a). People are rooted in and attached to places, and places are “metaphorically tied to identities” (Feld & Basso, 1996, p. 11). A place of work often signifies social status or a position in a hierarchy.

Place names of famous universities serve as a kind of shorthand or metonomy ¹ for the inscrutable complexity of research processes taking place at these locations. The achievements and academic reputation earned by generations of individual scholars are ascribed to or projected onto their university. Through these projections, university locations become symbolically charged. Because nobody can unravel the complexity of interaction , learning processes , and institutional decision-making, the appraisal of a scientist’s potential is closely tied to the places at which that person earned his or her doctorate, did postdoctoral work, or received an offer of a professorship. A scholar who has been trained at a distinguished research department has credibility from the outset because the scientific reputation of a place or institution reflects on the scholars working there. The scientific reputation built by scientific institutions stems from their ability to appoint the best candidates available. The identity of scholars is defined not only by what they do but also by where they do it. The scientific career of most scholars is distributed across more than one university. However, the move from one university to the next is rarely random; it is rather a “contingent series of events” (Welskopp, 2002, p. 79)² that follow a definite logic and stem from particular mechanisms .

A place is like a screen on which possibilities, expectations, benefits, and hopes—or fear and anxieties—are projected. People trust the academic reputation of excellent universities or departments even if unfamiliar with any of the scholars working there. The symbolic meaning, reputation, and attractiveness of a university lie not only in its present merits and achievements but also in those of previous scholars no longer belonging to the institution’s knowledge environment. In many university towns these collective memories and narratives are reinforced by regular self-reenactments (e.g., anniversary celebrations and graduation ceremonies) or an iconography of the urban space . Plaques on buildings, museums , and memorials constantly remind people of past achievements by famous scientists or of important local events in the history of science . An awareness of the city’s iconography and recurring contact with places important in the history of science can instill in scholars and students an emotional bond³ and can support personal identification with their university. A university is a junction or intersection where the career paths of academics of various disciplines, generations, and provenances meet, where scholars communicate and (it is hoped) interact with each other for a certain period.⁴ Universities and other research institutions are not simply locations but social spaces , epistemic venues, nodes of scientific discourse, enablers or impediments of actions , and carriers of reputation.

In summary, recent theoretical and methodological trends in a number of scientific disciplines underline the importance of environments for action, learning processes , and problem-solving . This chapter focuses on the role of knowledge environments at universities and their impact on research processes and academic careers. I focus on five questions: What does the term knowledge environment mean? Which components constitute a local knowledge environment? In what way can a local knowledge environment affect goals, decisions, learning, research processes, and the careers of academics? Which theoretical concepts can contribute to the understanding of the interaction between knowledge environment and individual scholar? How can the consequences of a knowledge environment be verified? The main goals of this chapter are to shed light on possible research agendas about knowledge environments and to discuss some of the methodological and theoretical issues connected with knowledge environments.⁵

What Is a Knowledge Environment and Which Caveats Should Be Considered?

Research Needs Specific Environments

Scholars depend on research infrastructure , financial resources , face-to-face contacts with distinguished members of various disciplines, critique and support of peers, and experienced key persons. There is no doubt that cognition, aspirations, motivations, and emotions of scholars can be influenced by the ambience in which they act. New scientific results have to be accepted and legitimated by other scholars. Local knowledge environments can enthuse, support, or frustrate scholars. In each discipline, departments, faculties, and universities differ in resource endowment, the availability of sophisticated and expensive research infrastructure, ⁶ the career opportunities they open up to academics, and the extent to which their scholars are integrated into important national and international scientific networks .

The history of science is rich in examples of creative scholars and innovative research projects having met with rejection, incomprehension, neglect, and hostility at particular universities. However, there are also many examples of scholars of slowly changing or disrupting the knowledge environment of their place of work by altering the rules, conventions, and style of leadership, by upgrading the resources of their institution, and by hiring new academic staff . A knowledge environment is never stable; it is constantly in motion.

Sociology of knowledge , environmental psychology , geography of science , creativity studies , institutional theory , research on organizational behavior, and other fields have studied a great number of particular parameters, conditions , and structures affecting learning and research. Scholars studying knowledge environments build on this kind of research, but they are more interested in the connectivity, interdependencies, interrelations, and interactions of relevant variables at a certain place or environment. These academics focus especially on the scientific outcomes of different environments.

In summary, a university’s knowledge environment is definable as the result of systemic interdependencies and causal interactions of personal, financial, material and nonmaterial resources relevant to the generation, diffusion, and application of scientific knowledge at a specific place or environment. A knowledge environment is a multiscale phenomenon. From the perspective of an individual scholar, it is a subject-centered space of cognition, interaction , and learning. From a systemic perspective, analysis focuses on mutual interdependencies of processes and parameters that influence the production of knowledge . Parameters effective at the local, regional, national, and global level intermingle with each other at a specific place in a particular way and evolve into an inimitable local knowledge environment. Saying that the knowledge environment of a university is a case sui generis does not preclude the generalizability of specific processes and interrelations characterizing knowledge environments. As Mayntz (2002) put it,

systemic interdependences are about mutual dependence and influence in the relations between different simultaneous processes or between different institutions. The discrete processes or institutions are parametrically linked with each other as it were; that is, they can reciprocally change important basic conditions for each other. (p. 33)

Because creativity is domain-specific, agents working in different domains (e.g., science, humanities , arts , industry , and financial services) need different knowledge environments. Some scientific disciplines depend more on research infrastructure and financial resources than others do. Theoretical physicists , for instance, are less place-dependent in their research than experimental physicists, who may find only three locations in Europe where they can conduct their costly experiments.

The intensity to which scholars need or depend on their knowledge environment also varies over time. In some phases of their research projects, scholars seek intense interaction with their environment, have many face-to-face contacts with experts of other fields, engage as many researchers as possible in multifaceted negotiations, depend on support and critique from peers, “borrow metaphors and notations from epistemic sources as distant as possible to maximize innovative variance” (Fiedler, 2004, p. 126), and seek both controversy with epistemic opponents and inspiration through serendipitous interaction with scholars from other research fields. In other phases scholars try to avoid the noise of their environment, retreating to concentrate on their manuscripts without interference. These processes of opening and narrowing the areas of contact are similar to what Kelly (1955/1991) called the “Creativity Cycle”: “The Creativity Cycle is one which starts with loosened construction and terminates with tightened and validated construction” (Vol. 2, p. 7). As Fiedler (2004) explains, a creativity cycle

encompasses two stages, loosening and tightening. By analogy to evolution theory, loosening corresponds to the production of random variation . . . , whereas tightening corresponds to a subsequent selection stage that serves to separate the strong and weak products of the preceding loosening stage. (p. 124)

Research on Knowledge Environments of Universities Should Address Various Caveats

First, a knowledge environment should not be thought of as an independent variable that directly influences all actors through direct cause and effect (if A, then B). It is rather a locally available potential or local offer of resources, opportunities , incentives, challenges, stimulations, and support networks. What makes a location attractive is its potential for high-level interactions , its possible or imagined advantages, not just the realized ones. This local potential can be used, ignored, or rejected by scholars working at the relevant place. A knowledge environment can operate as it should only if the actors involved appropriate and use the local resources, take advantage of the opportunities, understand and adopt the available knowledge, use the available research infrastructure proficiently, and interact with each other appropriately. Only interested, competent, and talented individuals will be able to take full advantage of a given knowledge environment.⁷ A knowledge environment does not come out of the blue; it is constantly molded and remolded by scholars and other people responsible for a research institution.

Second, the outcomes of human interactions and experiences in life are always indeterminate. No one can predict the results of learning, appropriation , and interaction, the ways in which the relationships between individual scholars of different age groups and disciplines will develop, or whether and how often the local potential for integrating diverse viewpoints and knowledge bases will be activated. It is relatively easy to analyze some of the preconditions for scientific creativity (e.g., financial, personal, and material resources) by multivariate methods,⁸ but a knowledge environment’s significance and effect in a given period are explicable only ex post—after events have taken place, after the scientific careers and research results associated with a place, territory, or environment have become evident.

Third, students of knowledge environments must cope with the contradiction that knowledge environments are both volatile and remarkably robust. Many important elements of a knowledge environment are fleeting—eminent scholars and talented students come and go, research questions and methods change, the creativity of scholars varies over time, financial resources (especially external funding) fluctuate, and internal conflicts or imprudent appointments of professors may detract from a department’s scientific achievements and reputation. Conversely, the scientific quality and reputation of an institution’s knowledge environment in many cases show a remarkable robustness over time. Excluding wars (see Meusburger, 2012a, pp. 19–20, 22; Neumaier, 2012; Rotzoll, 2012, and the chapter by Hotson and Meusburger & Próbald in this volume) and other political disasters (see Mußgnug, 2012), many countries have a remarkably stable hierarchy of universities as self-organizing systems. The hierarchy of universities admits of some upward and downward mobility, but it is rare that a university soars from the lowest to the top rank of a nation’s university hierarchy or plummets from the top to the bottom. This persistence, or “dynamic robustness,”⁹ is usually due to universities’ differential ability to regulate themselves and adapt to new challenges, the so-called Matthew effect (“the more you have, the more you get”), and other factors contributing to a university’s scientific attractiveness.

Fourth, it is necessary to take the time dimension into account. Short-term evaluations of a knowledge environment may be quite biased. With hindsight, most people judge persons, situations, processes, and environments differently than immediately after a certain event has occurred. A senior professor might evaluate the knowledge environment of his or her institution differently than a doctoral student does. A knowledge environment is characterized by multiple realities (Graumann, 1983).

Of What Components Does a Local Knowledge Environment Consist?

Capacities, Characteristics, and Behavior of Persons Significantly Involved in the Activities of a Scientific Institution

The most important element of a knowledge environment at a given place are its human beings (e.g., scholars, students, technical, and administrative staff ) with their cognitive capacities, competencies, skills, experiences, scientific reputation , personal networks, emotions, and manner of interacting with other people. It depends mainly on these stakeholders how the other elements of a knowledge environment (including resources, infrastructure , organizational culture , and scientific reputation) develop and interrelate with each other.

The key quality of a knowledge environment is its power to attract internationally renowned scholars and highly talented students . To become and remain attractive and internationally competitive, a university’s knowledge environment must continually be replenished by the best available candidates bringing in new ideas, new research questions, innovative scientific methods, new constructive criticism on existing research, new bodies of knowledge, professional experience with other settings and research cultures , high quality standards in teaching and research, international personal networks, high social competencies, and appropriate professional value systems. The input of newly appointed scholars may influence the dynamics of the university’s capacity of self-regulation and the range of international networks and communication spaces. Scholars socialized in other knowledge environments may question or subtly change some of the prevailing institutional logics at their new place of work. Scholars criticizing mainstream theoretical discussions in their discipline will have an interest in counterhegemonic practices (see Clegg, 2010, p. 8), and some of them will even be able to affect governance structures in important ways (Dacin, Goodstein, & Scott, 2002, pp. 51–52).

There are several key questions for the success of this process of continuous intellectual renewal: According to which quality standards are academics appointed? How transparent are the recruitment processes? What personal, financial, and material resources is a university able to offer to its newly appointed scholars? Which levels of scholars is a university able to attract? Some universities will be more successful than others in the competition to hire the best candidates.

Intellectual renewal comes about not only through the appointment of new scientists but also through what is known as circular mobility (for details see Jöns, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2017), such as brief periods of study abroad, the invitation of visiting scholars, scientific cooperation with other institutions, and other ways of exchanging and testing new knowledge (e.g., participation in conferences). Mobility is equivalent to gathering experience in different knowledge environments, tackling new challenges, and familiarizing oneself with issues and methods one has not encountered at previous places of work. Mobility can trigger new ways of learning and thinking, enrich a scholar’s capacities, and bring about new cooperation in the world of science.

Financial and Material Resources

Whether distinguished scholars and talented students are attracted to a given university or not partly depends on its basic material wherewithal—its financial strength and the quality of its research infrastructure (libraries, laboratories, computing centers, archives, and other rare or expensive research facilities). Many innovative research questions can be studied empirically only if the latest research equipment and analytical methods are on hand or if a scholar gains access to hitherto unused data sources or archives. The more expensive such research infrastructure is, the fewer universities there are that can acquire it.

To attract the famous chemist Robert Bunsen (1811−1899) to Heidelberg University in 1852, the government of the Grand Duchy of Baden funded a state-of-the-art chemistry laboratory building, in those days the most modern in the world. In the second half of nineteenth century , the Grand Duchy of Baden spent about 4% of its state budget on its two universities and a technical college, and its per capita expenditures on universities exceeded those of any other German state (Pfetsch, 1974). Robert Bunsen was a prime reason why other exceptional scientists, including Hermann Helmholtz (1821−1894) and Robert Kirchhoff (1824−1887) joined Heidelberg University and created a research center of worldwide reputation (for details see Eckart, Hübner, & Nawa, 2012; Hübner, 2010; Meusburger, 2012a, b, Meusburger & Schuch, 2010). Because the government provided Bunsen with eight assistants¹⁰ (most of his colleagues had only two), and because he generously allowed them to pursue their own research interests, his department pioneered a unique variety of new research fields that made Heidelberg the power center of chemistry for some decades.

This example confirms that financial and material resources should not be isolated from the scientific achievements and reputation of a university’s scientists. In most countries research money does not flow automatically. It must be acquired by scholars in keen national and international competition or negotiated during an appointment process. The fact that only a small share of distinguished scientists will be successful in these hard competitions for research grants and expensive research equipment feeds the ascending spiral of attractiveness and the effect of “the more you have, the more you get.” This is one of the main reasons why the university system has a relatively stable hierarchic structure—at both the national and global levels.

Empirical data from almost every country documents that most research funding goes to only a few universities. In Germany, for instance, the 40 universities (9.4% of all the country’s universities) that were most successful at securing external funds from the German Research Foundation (DFG) received 86.6% of all DFG funding from 2011 through 2013 (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, 2015, p. 60). Of the approximately 420 German universities (average from 2011 through 2013), 230 still did not have the right to award doctorates in 2013, which of course has a negative effect on research performance (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, 2015, p. 33). Expensive new research infrastructure is usually first introduced at leading research universities , so these repeatedly gain advantage, enhancing the Matthew effect.

Organizational Structures, Institutional Rules and Logics, and Scientific Cultures

Although above-average financial and material endowment is crucial to a university’s attractiveness, it by no means guarantees excellent scholarship. Organizational structures, institutional logics, scientific or epistemic¹¹ cultures, and other immaterial factors influencing communication, interaction , practices , and scientific ethics at a scientific institution or among the members of a research group can have great impact on the success of research processes and on the academic careers of junior scientists .

Evaluation of scientific cultures and the organizational behavior of departments or universities raises some decisive questions: What kind of positive and negative role models exist in a department or faculty and how influential are they? What kind of motivation, intellectual encouragement, and emotional and financial support do doctoral students and junior scientists receive in their department? How do research groups cope with dynamic complexity and uncertainty? What are the quality standards for research, teaching , and administration ?¹² What kind of publication culture prevails in a department or faculty? What kind of assessment tools are used to measure the quality and impact of research?¹³ Is research evaluation institutionalized by a standard protocolization of assessments (see overview by Wouters & Costas, 2012) or is there respect for diversity of assessment tools? How do key decisions on structural changes, resource distribution, and new research fields come about within a department, faculty, or university, and what criteria apply? How are conflicts of interests solved? To what extent do established scholars exploit the research of their doctoral students and junior scientists ? How great is the scientific autonomy of doctoral students and junior scientists? To what extent are they free to follow their own research interests and to choose their theoretical concepts and methodologies?¹⁴ The influence of assessment practices on publication strategies can hardly be overestimated. In some departments, unfortunately, publication is tied less to scientific principles than to the number of points it will bring the authors for their next assessment or promotion.

Studies in business administration , organizational and institutional theory , and complex problem-solving yield interesting findings about the impact of organizational climate and institutional expectations on performance in industrial firms and the service industry. However, the decisive question is the extent to which these findings can be transferred to basic research of top universities—especially in the early phases of a creative process. Universities should not be confounded with industrial companies. They cannot be organized, coordinated, and evaluated like a company manufacturing sausages (for details see Beck, 2005, pp. 99−100; Weichhart, 2012a, pp. 14−15). The problems with which universities must cope are much more ill defined¹⁵ than those confronting industrial firms. The issues that universities grapple with incorporate all the typical attributes of complex systems described in detail by Dörner and Funke (2017):

According to Funke (2012), the typical attributes of complex systems are (a) complexity of the problem situation which is usually represented by the sheer number of involved variables; (b) connectivity and mutual dependencies between involved variables; (c) dynamics of the situation, which reflects the role of time and developments within a system; (d) intransparency (in part or full) about the involved variables and their current values; and (e) polytely (Greek term for “many goals”), representing goal conflicts on different levels of analysis. (p. 2)

The university is a complex, dynamic system characterized by intransparency, a high degree of self-governance of its single elements (e.g., departments and research groups), and a vast multiplicity of goals.¹⁶ Unlike top managers of industrial firms or public administration , who set forth clearly defined objectives to all its actors (at least for specified period), a rector, dean, or the administration of a university cannot prescribe the research topics its scholars are to study, which methods they are to use, or which cooperations and networks they have to join. Basically, each scholar can follow his or her own objectives or, in commercial terms, can pursue his or her own product and marketing as desired. Scholars often try to solve on their own the complex problems that they have found or created and that were not known before (for details about problem-solving , see Dörner, 1996; Dörner & Funke, 2017; Funke, 2012).¹⁷

Croissant (chapter in this volume) draws attention to a famous dictum of Albert Einstein: If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be research. This statement applies especially to high-level basic research in the first phase of the innovation S-curve—where pioneering scientists study important topics only very few people, if any, have tackled. This kind of pioneering basic research must be distinguished from applied research, which has explicit goals, and from basic research in late phases of the S-curve on topics that have been on the table for many years and are already being tackled by large clusters of scientists all over the world.¹⁸

Goal-oriented , applied research can be managed and organized to a greater extent than pioneering, high-level basic research, which involves much more uncertainty (e.g., uncontrollable conditions and unexpected events). The problematic term “organized creativity ”¹⁹ should be used only, if at all, for research conducted in the late phases of the S-curve. Pioneering, high-level basic research in the first phase of the S-curve is difficult to manage or coordinate because most upcoming research questions, methodological problems, and outcomes of research processes are not yet foreseeable. Applied researchers at least know their main research questions. In high-level basic research, it is possible to organize financial resources , research infrastructure , and safety regulations for some of the work processes but not the generation of new ideas, the outcome of interactions , or the behavior and scientific ethics of supervisors.²⁰

The key issue for creating an optimal research culture is to find a balance between two positions that initially seem to contradict each other. On the one hand, certain institutional rules, guidelines, best practices , and evaluation mechanisms are indispensable for enforcing and sustaining high-quality research and teaching and for avoiding misbehavior and unethical practices . On the other hand, creative scholars need a great deal of academic freedom and personal autonomy to achieve outstanding scientific achievements . Without this freedom and autonomy, without being allowed phases of search and orientation that may fail (Weichhart, 2012a, p. 15), they will not have the courage to abandon outmoded thought structures; to forsake beloved scientific routines; or to criticize departmentally esteemed, but superficial, assessment tools²¹ that may even dominate the core of their discipline. Creative scholars stand out not just by having new, original, and valuable research results but also by showing the courage to break through institutional constraints and expectations of their social environment . They do so not from ignorance of the rules or leading paradigms but rather from their personal experience that those rules and paradigms are no longer adequate (helpful) in their field and now only stifle creativity or obstruct efforts to advance scientific knowledge and insight. Being creative thus also means having courage to resist the mainstream in their discipline or least being able to endure for a while without the applause of colleagues.

External Factors of Influence

Universities have never been able to withdraw from the influence of national and local politics. Private universities may be less affected by the science policy of a state than public universities are, but no university is able to remain unaffected by politics . In some countries the decision-making community tends to distribute funding for public universities according to criteria shaped by industrial policy rather than science. Politicians often lack the willingness to acknowledge the difference in quality between public universities and to take account of it when allocating financial resources . Many times, the bargaining process in governments seems to be guided by the motto, “If your region receives money, then my region has to get some, too.” This approach is defended with the argument that the allocation of research funding is intended to offset disequilibria in regional development. Such regional policy has had little success and has hurt the good universities in international competition for scientific standing.

Equally important are the attitudes of the local population (and their politicians) toward science in general and toward their university in particular, local principles of urban development planning, potential expansion of an existing campus, a university’s relations to the region’s economy , the support of a university by philanthropists , and many other factors.²²

Paradoxically, the knowledge society of the twenty-first century is characterized by the simultaneous and unprecedented increase in both scientific knowledge and ignorance (not-knowing ). The gaps between experts and nonexperts are widening dramatically. Leading scientific institutions must cope with more ignorance and lack of understanding from some local and national politicians than ever before. In the twenty-first century presidents of important nations deny climate change, and vice presidents deny evolution and adhere to creationism. In Heidelberg some politicians of the town council (e.g., members of the leftist party Bunte Linke) maintain that scientists no longer need face-to-face contacts because they communicate primarily via the Internet. Scientific institutions would, therefore, no longer need proximity to each other; they could be localized anywhere. The attitude of local politics and urban planning toward the needs of scientific institutions will become an increasingly important locational factor.

Another important location factor for universities are the activities of philanthropists in their region. According to Glückler and Ries (2012), Heidelberg University has long enjoyed privileged status in this respect because most of the local philanthropists identify with the oldest university in Germany even if they are not Heidelberg University alumni.

Almost half of all the grants [of philanthropists and local foundations] went straight into academia and research (48%) and another 41% favoured charity and society. The area of culture and arts received no more than 11%, respectively. This distribution of philanthropy contradicts with general trends in the non-profit sector. At the national and European level philanthropic investments largely flow into charitable social welfare projects. Only 13% of all foundations in Germany declare science and academia as their primary target group (Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen, 2010). And according to a recent survey on European foundations in seven EU member states, only 3% of all grants benefit the realm of academia (European Foundation Centre, 2008). (Glückler & Ries, 2012, p. 522)

These statements are additional evidence that place matters and that the identification of high-level local decision-makers with their university is a valuable asset.

How Can a Knowledge Environment Affect Learning and Research Processes at a Given Place?

Universities Offer Unequal Learning and Research Opportunities

In principle, cognition and thought processes of individuals can take place everywhere. Why should a situation, setting, place, venue, spatial configuration , or environment affect cognition, motivation, learning, and research processes ? The answer is relatively simple. Different places and work environments open different opportunities to learn, different possibilities for face-to-face contact , different resources for research and access to different networks, and different incentives and obstacles enabling or impeding specific learning processes and actions .

Universities vary in academic reputation , scientific achievements , the resources they offer, domain-specific authority, innovativeness, and the attractiveness of their location. Different departments (faculties, universities) consist of different research cultures . They train students in different fields and methodologies, exert different amounts of control, allow different degrees of autonomy, and present different truths. Some departments belong to the innovators or early adopters of a new research field, theory, or methodology; others, to the late adopters. Some of these actors do not even realize that they have overlooked important developments in their field of research.

At the top of the hierarchy are research universities and nonuniversity research institutions that enjoy an excellent international scientific reputation , have extensive research funds, and can attract the best talent worldwide. At the base are universities that have little or no research funding, are unable to engage scientifically renowned scholars, are not entitled to submit applications to important research foundations, have no right to award doctorates, primarily teach, and draw a large percentage of their students from a relatively small catchment area . The higher the scientific reputation of a university , the more it acts as a magnet attracting the best candidates available and the more impressive are its global networks and recruitment areas. Highly successful scholars can choose between many job opportunities²³ and vote with their feet.

Do outstanding candidates accept a university’s call because the university has a sterling scientific reputation and provides an attractive research infrastructure ? Or does the university have a high reputation and an attractive research infrastructure because it has had outstanding success for decades in appointing outstanding scholars? These questions indicate that two intertwined mechanisms are responsible for the quality and development of a knowledge environment. If a faculty or university is capable of recognizing²⁴ and attracting outstanding scholars over a lengthy period, then the probability is very high that these scholars will create the resources, incentives, and research cultures necessary for an attractive knowledge environment and an upward spiral of attractiveness. If many search and appointment procedures fail to produce the desired positive results, then the knowledge environment of that institution will deteriorate. Mediocre scholars will later recruit mediocre colleagues. If this downward spiral continues for long and falls below a certain level, the university will no longer receive applications from promising applicants.

Environment Related Mechanisms and Processes that Influence Learning and Research ?

“Introduction to a field of knowledge is a kind of initiation that is performed by others” (Fleck, 1935/1979, p. 96). A teacher–student relationship is characterized by asymmetries of power, experience, and knowledge, but it is also subject to cultural influences.²⁵ Many doctoral students depend on financial resources and research infrastructure to which senior scientists give them access. Doctoral students and junior scientists are subject to a certain measure of disciplinary control and are influenced by what the prominent members of their department or discipline view as established knowledge, appropriate methods acceptable experiments, and desirable forms of publication.

Which elements and processes of the environment are able to affect learning processes ? Supervisors, reviewers, role models, critical audiences, institutional regulations, informal expectations of their social environment , and a multitude of other factors shape the goals, research interests , and fields of interaction of young scholars. “Actors perceive the meaning of institutions and infuse their actions with meaning based upon these perceptions” (Dacin et al. 2002, p. 47). Very few prospective scientists can ignore a dominant paradigm ²⁶ or thought style and the expectations communicated in their social environment , at least not in the first years of their academic career . Therefore, students and young scholars operate in an environment of “preorganized knowledge ” (Knoblauch, 1995, p. 15), they are being socialized in epistemic and scientific communities and specific “thought styles” (as defined by Fleck, 1935/1979; Trenn & Merton, 1979).

A thought style functions by constraining, inhibiting, and determining the way of thinking. Under the influence of a thought style, one cannot think in any other way. It also excludes alternative modes of perception. Accordingly, no proper communication can arise between different thought styles. A thought style functions at such a fundamental level that the individual seems generally unaware of it. It exerts a compulsive force upon his thinking, so that he normally remains unconscious both of the thought style as such and of its constraining character. Yet such a style can be revealed in practice by an examination of how it is applied. The existence of stable thought collectives suggests the presence of a rather permanent thought style. (Trenn & Merton, 1979, p. 159)

According to Kuhn (1962), the process by which scientific disciplines change and develop is not characterized by a cumulation of knowledge but rather by fundamental crises and discontinuities, each of which eventually causes one paradigm to be replaced by another. There is broad agreement today, however, that several paradigms can coexist and compete with each other in a given period (for details see Schurz, 1998; Weichhart, 2012b, pp. 54−55).

Particular research groups and subdisciplines are repeatedly marked by the emergence of dogmatic convictions indisputable and seemingly unassailable among their adherents but sharply criticized by proponents of other paradigms. Paradigms thus not only reflect developmental processes of sciences, they also have great societal significance (Weichart, 2012b, p. 56). They promote cohesion and loyalty within research groups and can simultaneously exclude representatives of other paradigms.

Established scientists who are convinced that their theoretical and methodological approaches are superior to those of others tend to exert a measure of control within their research group or intellectual community . Within a thought collective (e.g., among the members of a research group) doctoral students and junior scientists repeatedly confirm that their group is on the right track and will be successful with its research. “A special feeling of dependence therefore dominates all communication of thought within a collective” (Fleck, 1935/1979, p. 106).

Between two members of the same thought collective on the same mental level, there is always a certain solidarity of thought in the service of a super-individual idea which causes both intellectual interdependence and a shared mood between the two individuals. (p. 51)

Intellectual solidarity and mutual confirmation reduce uncertainty about the value of one’s research , but they also reduce the willingness of self-criticism and the ability to learn.

The Significance of Social Spaces

Livingstone (1995, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2010) has called attention to the critical significance of social spaces—especially spaces of speech and spaces of reading —for the generation and distribution of new research results . “[S]cience is made and remade by how it is talked about” (Livingstone, 2010, p. 18).

What can and cannot be said in particular venues, how things are said, and the way they are heard are all implicated in the production of knowledge spaces . In different arenas there are protocols for speech management; there are subjects that are trendy and subjects that are taboo. In public spaces and in camera, in formal gatherings and in private salons, in conferences and consultations, in courtrooms and churches, in clinics and clubs—in all these venues different things are speakable (and unspeakable) about scientific claims. In every case the setting sets limits on what can be spoken; the social space conditions what is heard. . . . [T]he control of speech space is intimately connected with the maintenance of identity . Spaces of speech, of course, are also spaces of silence. There are always voices that are absent, or are not allowed to speak, or are denied access. In colonial societies , as Scott (1985) powerfully reminds his readers, the oppressed can rarely let their voices be heard. No doubt for different reasons, but with not dissimilar effects, those people marginalized in scientific debates find their voices unwelcome in science’s privileged sites. (p. 16)

A textbook example often cited in science studies (e.g., Livingstone, 2003, 2010) concerns the reception of Darwin’s main work, On the Origin of Species (1859). The book was interpreted differently in Belfast than in Edinburgh . In Charleston it was seen as an argument for racism; in Auckland, as one against it. “Darwinian language was embraced to a much greater degree in Canada than it was in Russia ” (Livingstone, 2010, p. 10). “In Boston , the students of Louis Agassiz could talk about the new Darwinian theory only in secrecy for fear of their teacher’s ire” (p. 17). Meusburger (2012b) has continued the narrative:

Immediately after the book was published, the Heidelberg paleontologist Heinrich Georg Bronn (1800–1862), who was also the prorector of Heidelberg University at the time, translated On the Origin of Species into German, a version that appeared in 1860. Bronn enjoyed a good personal relationship with Darwin. Their bond, though, did not keep Bronn from reading Darwin’s work very selectively and incorporating elements of his own perspectives into the translation. (p. 16)

Darwin’s breakthrough in German-speaking countries was accomplished by Haeckel (1866, especially 1868). In a lecture entitled “Darwin’s Theory of Evolution ” and delivered in Stettin on September 19, 1863, at the meeting of the Society of German Naturalists and Physicians (founded in 1822), Haeckel made it clear that science was undergoing a profound change of paradigm .

The institutional, cultural, and social context in which a young person studies or a young scientist does research and teaches can be elemental in determining the research topics they will find of interest, the methodological skills they will acquire, the scientific networks they are able to join, the kind of critique and support they will encounter, and the interesting, unsolved problems they will notice. The knowledge environment of a university can have a bearing on whether and how soon new scientific concepts, practices , or technical innovations are accepted and acted upon and whether it is possible to discuss contested ideas, conduct expensive experiments, become part of important international networks, hear promptly of crucial developments, meet with agreement or criticism upon airing new ideas, or get away with straying from rigid regulations of a discipline’s gatekeepers (Meusburger, 2012b, pp. 12–14).

Support from key figures in their discipline will affect the initiative and resilience of these young academics and will shape the subsequent perception they have of their roles as lecturers or researchers (Meusburger, 2012b, p. 14). Prominent scholars indisputably play a major part in shaping the development and careers of talented students . The history of science is replete with evidence of how a head start translates into a crucial advantage in a scholar’s later career and creates important path dependencies. Just as certain time periods offer unique windows of opportunities, certain places and knowledge environments engender superior learning opportunities and role models, specific value systems, specific challenges, and outstanding prospects for professional careers.

Daily interaction with positive (or negative) role models and personal relationships have lost none of their significance in the age of the internet. On the contrary, the overwhelming flood of information and questionable publications have only increased the importance of face-to-face contacts with leading thinkers from the relevant disciplines (Meusburger, 2012b, p. 14).

Theoretical Concepts Contributing to the Understanding of How Knowledge Environments Function

“Knowledge Travels in a Selective Way”

The functioning of a knowledge environment depends , first, on the quality of the information exchange at the given place. This statement may seem trivial, but a local cluster of illustrious and globally networked scientists does not automatically equate with creative environments, knowledge exchange , scientific cooperation, or mutual inspiration across disciplines. Although proximity facilitates unplanned, spontaneous, face-to-face contact , it does not guarantee interaction and exchange of knowledge. Scientific insights and acquisition of scientific knowledge rely on dialogue, scholarly debate, and other forms of communication and interaction . What counts is whether and to what extent the scientists at a university interact and engage in cross-disciplinary discussion (Christmann, 2016; Keller, Knoblauch, & Reichertz, 2013; Knoblauch, 2016) and how they manage their social relations in that environment. A knowledge environment does not emerge until the actors communicate and interact with each other; come to grips with the structural conditions, institutional regulations, and organizational cultures in which they find themselves; and prove themselves willing and able to activate the locally available potential.

The key words are not cluster or proximity but communicative interaction and ways to transcend the silo principle. The silo mentality is a condition or attitude marked by an absence of open and cross-disciplinary communication and a disinterest or unwillingness to learn from other disciplines and thought communities .²⁷ It is combined with so-called boundary-work²⁸ and the persistence of staunch commitments to retaining and preserving established scientific concepts and methods of one’s own research field. The difficulties posed by knowledge exchange between scholars of different disciplines, thought communities, or languages are vastly underestimated. The exchange of information between sender and recipient must overcome a number of filters . Even if a piece of information is understood by the recipient and might be valuable for his or her research, it may be rejected for various—also unscientific—reasons (see communication model in Meusburger, 2017, pp. 38–43).

International knowledge exchange , scientific cooperation, and scientific travel are influenced by even more factors than individual communication, including state fellowships, selective international research cooperation, old colonial relations, the quality of diplomatic relations, political goals, and shared denominations (Ellis, 2017; Heffernan, 1994; Heffernan & Jöns, 2013; Jöns, 2009, 2017; see also chapters by Hotson and Meusburger & Probáld in this volume).

Concepts Focusing on Structure, Agency, Interaction , and Interrelations

This chapter is not the place to discuss and value all the theoretical concepts that can help answer the question of how knowledge environments function. A brief overview will have to suffice. The first group of approaches centers on structure and agency and on relations between environment and behavior, social relations , interactions , and networks of the scholars working at a given place. Focusing on these facets, researchers study the “dialectical interplay between . . . actions (practices and structures), meanings, and actors” (Zilber, 2002, p. 235; emphasis in the original; see also Dacin et al., 2002, p. 48). The best known of these concepts are structuration theory (Giddens, 1979, 1984; Werlen, 1997a, 1997b, 2017), actor-network theory (Latour, 1987, 1999), communicative constructivism (Berger & Luckmann, 1967; Christmann, 2016; Keller et al., 2013), environmental psychology (Clitheroe, Stokols, & Zmuidzinas, 1998; Graumann, 1978; Kruse, Graumann, & Lantermann, 1990), concepts of appropriation (Graumann, 1996, 2002a, 2002b, 2002c; Graumann & Kruse, 2003), environmental phenomenology (Seamon, 1982, 1987), interaction analysis (Argyle, 1957, 1969, 1991; Scharpf, 2002), network analysis (for an overview see Glückler et al., 2017), and organizational and institutional theory (Lawrence et al., 2011; Mintzberg, 1979; Suddaby, 2010; Suddaby, Elsbach, Greenwood, Meyer, & Zilber, 2010). However, each of these theories or concepts leads to only a partial understanding of how knowledge environments function; each has its specific strengths and shortcomings. Many of these studies remain abstract and are place-blind, that is, they ignore not only the historicity of places but also what Raffestin (1989) calls the geographicity of knowledge production . Moreover, they do little to address the question of why norms, conventions, mutual expectations, and institutional logics may vary in the spatial dimension and, especially, why their correlations with other variables differ according to types of environments.

This is evident in institutional theory , which provides “new understandings of the manner in which institutions are created, transformed, and extinguished and the way in which institutional processes interact to affect institutional change” (Dacin et al., 2002, p. 45).

The concept of institutional work insists on the need to consider the permanent recursive and dialectical interaction between agency and institutions. This invites researchers to not only account for the institutional embeddedness of actors but also for their capacity to reflect on this embeddedness, relate to their own self, and develop conscious intentionality . Agency is neither just an effect of the actors’ institutional embeddedness nor isolated from this embeddedness. It is an ongoing activity whereby actors reflect on and strategically operate within the institutional context where they are embedded. (Lawrence et al., 2011, p. 55)

A major shortcoming of institutional theory is the fact that its macroperspectives largely exclude issues of power and dominance (see Hudson, Okhuysen, & Creed, 2015; Willmott, 2015).

In most institutional theory , examination of the relatedness of knowledge and power is deemed to be largely irrelevant; the self-understanding of institutional theory as politically neutral is self-evident; and the silence of institutional theory on contentious issues, such as the institutionalization of domination, oppression, and exploitation in modern work organizations, passes unnoticed. (Willmott, 2015, p. 106)

Theoretical Concepts Focusing on Life Worlds and Holistic Interpretations

Because the numerous components of a knowledge environment are strongly interwoven and interconnected, a knowledge environment is more than the sum of its single elements. Studying venues, environments, and social spaces of academic knowledge generation opens new horizons for explaining interrelations and path dependencies of academic careers and academic achievements .

Given the complexity and historicity entailed, the students of knowledge environments are less concerned with the discovery of causalities in the sense of universal laws than with the causal reconstruction of the network of interactions (see Mayntz, 2002, p. 22). The main interest lies in describing and interpreting a system’s functionality and in identifying the “normative epistemological and discursive conditions” (Welskopp, 2002, p. 78) under which scientific achievement was scored. What is sought in the empirical analysis of social macrophenomena—such as knowledge environments—is

not abstraction and maximal simplification but rather specification and adequate complexity of the explanation. . . . Causal reconstruction is not about seeking statistical relations between variables but rather about explaining the macrophenomenon by identifying the processes and interdependencies involved in its having arisen. (Mayntz, 2002, p. 13)

Phenomenological approaches hold that cognitive processes should be thought of holistically and that one cannot describe place experience, knowledge environments, or life worlds by precisely dissecting them into constituent parts and then quantitatively measuring and modeling the significance of the discrete variables.

Gestalt psychology views perception and other mental processes as holistic rather than atomistic in nature. That is, complex perceptual and cognitive patterns are grasped in their entirety as integral wholes (gestalts), rather than being pieced together from simpler sensations or “atoms of experience.” A musical melody, for example, is not simply a summation of the individual notes that it contains. The melody is given in experience as a whole, and the character of each individual note is determined by its place within that whole. . . . (Schroeder, 2007, p. 295).

The starting point for Fuller’s (1990) phenomenological account of gestalt psychology is the life world of human experience. ‘Life world’ (Lebenswelt) is a term coined by Husserl and Schütz to denote the original, meaningful, everyday world in which people actually live. The task of phenomenological description and interpretation is to explicate hidden structures of life world meaning that hitherto have been lived only in an implicit, unreflective way. (Schroeder, 2007, p. 299)

Seamon (1987) characterizes environmental phenomenology as “striving for a holistic view of place, in which the various parts of environmental experience are understood as reciprocally related to each other and to the larger geographical whole to which they belong” (p. 20). He describes the phenomenological essence of place as “a psycho-social environmental whole larger than the sum of its parts ” (p. 20; see also Keen, 1975; McCall, 1983; Schroeder, 2007, pp. 295–296; Seamon, 1982, 1987).

How Can the Quality and Influences of a Knowledge Environments be Verified?

Research about knowledge environments uses at least two different perspectives. The first one is the life world of individual scholars: How do individuals subjectively cognize, experience, and evaluate the knowledge environment of their research group, department, or university?

According to Welskopp (2002) “All structural interrelations must . . . be tracked through the consciousness of the participants as it were, although multiple discerning rounds of translation and decoding will be necessary” (p. 76). Depending on the objectives, cognitive abilities, motivation, scientific productiveness, and social relations of an individual, that person will find his or her own widely diverse positive role models or deterrent examples, selectively follow up on various ideas, and draw different lessons from personal experience but will also be able to deal flexibly with obstacles and personal liabilities.

Most scholars have been influenced by more than one knowledge environment during their academic career . Even so, scientific careers are not a “random sequence of events” but rather a “contingent series of events” (Welskopp, 2002, p. 79) that follow a definite logic and rest on particular mechanisms. In individual cases, certain events are therefore linked with each other, and a rationale can be found for the sequence of events (e.g., the steps in a scientist’s career).

The career and mobility of a scholar represents a first important hint at his or her scientific reputation (for details see Pietsch, 2017; Weick, 1995). If two or more faculties have confirmed that the scientific achievements , personal competence, and other merits of a scholar warrant that person’s appointment as professor, then the uncertainty about that persons scientific potential is much lower than if the confirmation were only issued by the same faculty where the candidate had studied and graduated. From experience it can be assumed that an academic who has worked successfully at more than one university has a greater wealth of experience, more extensive personal networks, a broader methodological spectrum, and a better academic reputation in general than one who has worked in only one institutional setting. The analysis of a scholar’s professional career is also a precondition to understand his or her networks and scientific interests. There exist many studies about the professional careers of scholars (Meusburger & Schuch, 2010, 2012; Weick, 1995) but very few about the question of how they have personally experienced and evaluated the knowledge environments at various stages of their career (Demm, 2010; Hübner, 2010).

This approach involves the attempt to reconstruct the influences and watersheds that shaped the academic aspirations, research interests, methodological expertise, and career trajectory in various phases of the scholar’s career. Most (senior) academics are able to recall with relative accuracy who decisively influenced and inspired them as students; what personal strengths and weaknesses their professors had; what intellectual standard the doctoral seminars had; the times, places, and people of the critical junctures in their professional success or failure; the time and circumstances relating to their development of a new scientific idea; the way in which their immediate social environment and their academic discipline responded to new ideas; and the reasons that particular research projects could not be pursued. The research taking this approach is based on interviews, memoires, and correspondence; the scholar’s own account of his or her professional career; biographies and autobiographies; minutes of meetings; and reports by persons from the social context. This approach has a long tradition in the history of science but has rarely been used to describe knowledge environments.

The second perspective is the view from the outside. Researchers adopting it scrutinize a knowledge environment’s particular elements , structures, and interrelations; analyze the long-term historical, political, and economic influences that have contributed to a department’s or university’s reputation and knowledge environment. They try to discern how a specific knowledge environment has come about over time and who has been and is responsible for specific positive or negative developments.

This approach can be further differentiated into two procedural methods. First, the quality of a knowledge environment of an academic institution can be studied for the scientific accomplishments, professional success, or academic reputation attained by its scholars or graduates in a given period. There are numerous questions to pursue in this regard. For instance, what pioneering publications have originated in a particular institute? What new ideas, methods, and theoretical concepts have come from a given department or faculty? How many of a department’s graduates have been appointed to professorships at other universities or prominent positions outside academia ? How many of a university’s scholars have received outstanding scientific awards (e.g., Nobel Prize, Fields Medal,²⁹ or honorary doctorates)? How often have its members been engaged as reviewers by major institutions of research funding or in important evaluation procedures? This first procedure allows inferences about the quality of the knowledge environment without opening the black box of causes and relations and without discussing the personal experiences of the given scholars. The method communicates the external perspective and is useful especially at the highest level of aggregation or with comparative studies that cannot delve into the biographies of numerous individual scholars. Figure 7.1 shows, for example, that former doctoral candidates and assistants of Heidelberg chemist Robert Bunsen came to occupy numerous chairs and other prominent positions in the chemistry departments throughout Europe (Eckart et al., 2012, p. 98). In addition, a number of prominent U.S. chemists had studied under Bunsen (Honeck & Meusburger, 2012).

Fig. 7.1

Chairs and other prominent research positions of former doctoral candidates and assistants of Heidelberg chemist Robert Bunsen (1811–1899). Source: Eckart et al. (2012, p. 98). Reprinted with permission from Heidelberg University and IfL Leipzig.

If so many successful scientists hail from one department, one may legitimately conclude that a very stimulating and unusually creative knowledge environment had existed there during a certain period. Such recruitment of scientists to other universities not only promotes knowledge transfer and creates important networks but generally intensifies the sway that the home institutes have over their discipline. Figure 7.1 also suggests what an international power center Heidelberg must have been in the field of chemistry during the second half of the nineteenth century . Such internationally important nodes of scientific networks often dominate the review process in appointment procedures and have a strong influence on scientific journals.

A second approach turns attention to interactions , social relations , networks of scholars , and processes of appropriation . It raises a different set of questions. For example, how do (or did) scholars interact with each other? For what reasons have some scholars been included in and other excluded from important local networks or regular jours fixes? How much are the life worlds of various disciplines at a university or in a knowledge city communicatively interlinked? Which persons or departments are the ones bridging between disciplines or serving as the key nodes in networks? How do scholars get along with the basic local conditions and power structures under which they try to reach their objectives? Processes of appropriation should not be taken for granted.

Many universities offer local resources, support networks, and opportunities that some of their academics fail to use to their own advantage. Research equipment whose potential is not fully exploited, important data bases that go unused, outstanding publications that remain unread, and potential contacts that are not activated cannot have an effect on learning and research processes . The earlier mentioned silo mentality of some academics often prevents interaction and appropriation . Therefore, the second approach focuses on personal friendships and networks of scholars (Meusburger & Schuch, 2010), on scientific circles (Lepsius, 2012), joint publications, and various other forms of more or less regular interaction.

Conclusion

Research on knowledge environments will replace neither traditional science studies nor studies about the biographies and careers of individual scholars. However, there is a need for concepts focusing on social macrophenomena, holistic explanations, and environmental clues in the sense of Gigerenzer and his coauthors (Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier, 2011, 2015; Gigerenzer & Selten, 2001). Authors studying knowledge environments should be able to deal with the tension between a knowledge environment’s conditionality, which is in principle historical and local, and “efforts to formulate generalizing concepts and generic explanations” (Esser, 1999, p. 128; 2002).

With the knowledge-environments approach, it is possible to analyze and reconstruct the conditions under which outstanding scientific achievements were achieved or prevented in an institute or at a university over an extended period. One begins by analyzing the recruitment of professors (Pietsch, 2017; Weick, 1995) and continues by asking what human, financial, and infrastructural resources are available and what paradigms and research cultures are dominant. It is also necessary to inquire how hostile the assessment is toward scientific project proposals and research results at certain universities (or entire states) and to what extent standardized assessment tools have curtailed the originality and creativity of academics.³⁰

Project proposals and manuscript submissions alike have the best chances of being accepted if they conform as closely as possible to whatever the mainstream paradigm is, not contradicting it in any way and taking care not to suggest anything incommensurate with the reviewers’ horizon of expectation defined by that paradigm. (Weichhart, 2012b, p. 20)

As with historical theories, knowledge environments can be credited with “a retrospective forecasting ability” (Welskopp, 2002, p. 83). In other words, it is possible to formulate a post hoc explanation of how relational networks between human and institutional agents have affected observable scientific practice (pp. 76−77). The reconstruction and description of knowledge environments after the events have taken place, however, is tied to “epistemological and discursive conditions of the present” (p. 78) and can therefore be revised the moment new information surfaces or scientific standards and criteria of judgment change.