Mediating science, technology, and society at the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre SCK/CEN through hybrid management: The case of PISA

Despite growing recognition that the technical and social dimensions of technology development are coproduced, research and policymaking in the nuclear field is still predicated on the separation between both dimensions. This paper explores how this separation is enacted, and occasionally questioned and transformed, within the Belgian context of nuclear technology. It situates the emergence of a science policy support (SPS) unit and programme (PISA) within the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre SCK•CEN as an institutional response to the need of integrating societal and ethical concerns into nuclear research. The paper elicits how since 1999, SPS/PISA draws together science and technology studies (STS) and technology assessment (TA) approaches, creating links between nuclear research innovation and society in mutually beneficial ways. To this end, it first outlines the four areas in which SPS/PISA researchers are active: 1. Ethics of nuclear technology assessment; 2. Radioactive waste management; 3. Safety governance; 4. Perception and communication of ionising radiation risks. As SPS/PISA research is situated in a trading zone that embeds scholarship, nuclear research and research policy, the paper illuminates the growing entanglement of the natural and social sciences, and the roles social scientists play in the development of contemporary technologies and technology policy. Drawing on the notion of hybrid management (Miller 2001), the paper argues that SPS/PISA researchers must develop a language that underlines the interdependency between science, policy, and politics, while acknowledging that actors (policymakers, industry representatives, natural and social scientists, citizens) recurrently draw distinctions between these domains as a means of collectively managing nuclear issues. SPS/PISA research is therefore best understood as boundary work that mediates between various interests, values, and "knowledges." The paper concludes by discussing the key challenges SPS/PISA researchers face while engaging in work of this kind: maintaining professional independence and credibility, ensuring research continuity, and generating both scientific and policy impacts.