The Science Council as an arena for science policy

Science policy is a relatively new field, not only in Germany, being developed systematically with the appropriate consulting structures only in the second half of the twentieth century. There may have been attempts at the level of university policy in Germany or, more precisely, in Prussia as early as in the nineteenth century (System Althoff), in the form of long-term planning of professorial appointments. But that kind of policy was fundamentally different from science policy as it took shape in Germany in the second half of the twentieth century, leading to the establishment of the first systematic funding procedures for scientific research and the foundation of new scientific organisations (for an overview, see Stichweh 1994). From 1945, almost all developed industrial nations started long-term scientific research programmes, significantly increased their investment in research and development, created new, centralised agencies of national science policy (ministries, coordination and funding bodies), and established forms of finance allocation for scientific research. In this context, there also emerged institutions to provide science policy advice, such as the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC, US), the Council for Science and Technology (CST, UK) or the Wissenschaftsrat (Science Council, Germany).

The Science Council (founded in 1957) is one of the first science policy advisory bodies in Europe. For Germany it is – even after the significant and noticeable broadening of the science policy advisory scene over the last decade – the central consulting institution for a national science policy for the federal government and the federal states (Länder).