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Users and unicorns: a discussion of mythical beasts
between users and unicorns. Both are easy to imagine
and both are difficult to track down in the real world.
In this paper we argue that users, like unicorns, fulfil
heraldic functions for researchers and their funders.
We also suggest that those who invoke abstract con-
cepts of use and user deal in images and ideographs,
one purpose of which is to legitimate particular prac-
tices eitherof research or of research management.
That does not mean there are no real users or that
use is mythical. Not at all. However, it does remind us
of the analytic importance of distinguishing between
the process of use (as an everyday feature of interac-
tive social science), the characterisation of potential
users, and efforts to embody that potential in real peo-
ple referred to as users (as required by research
funders and non-academic agencies). We argue that it
is this mixing of meanings and in particular the slip-
page between the process of use, on the one hand, and
the ascription of user identities, on the other, which
explains both the prevalence and absence of users at
the interactive social science conference in Brighton,
and in the university departments and centres in which
social science research is undertaken.
Elizabeth Shove, Director of the Centre for Science Studies,
University of Lancaster, was involved in organising the con-
ference on interactive social science on which this special
issue is based. She has undertaken a number of studies
relating to research and science policy and is especially
interested in the uses of social science and the institutional
contexts in which social research is produced and con-
sumed. Elizabeth has also investigated the circulation of
resources and ideas through national and international
research systems and is co-author of Social Environmental
Research in the European Union: Research Networks and
New Agendas (Elgar, 2000).
Arie Rip is involved in science, technology and society
teaching and research, nationally and internationally. He
was Professor of Science Dynamics at the University of Am-
sterdam (1984-1987) and is now Professor of Philosophy of
Science and Technology at the University of Twente. His
own research focuses on science and technology dynamics
and science and technology policy analysis. He has advised
on science policy in the UK, Australia and South Africa, and
is active in R&D evaluation, technology assessment and sci-
ence and technology foresight.
research supported by research council funding as our
point of reference.
We begin with a key moment at the interactive so-
cial science conference, held in January 1999. The
conference included an afternoon panel session at
which users were invited to reflect and comment on
interactive research from their side of table. This
session proved to be extremely instructive but for
entirely unanticipated reasons. Despite careful
searching of the hall, there were no users to be found.
Those who had been invited to contribute simply
failed to materialise and others who might have been
pressed into that role resisted the label.
In this paper, we review instances, examples and
references to user involvement, first hunting
through the fertile territory of official ESRC docu-
ments, then considering researchers’ aims and aspi-
rations and finally reflecting on retrospective
accounts of how social science has been appropri-
ated and used in practice. In the process, we catch
sight of different interpretations of use and through
this thicket of meanings, glimpse the shadowy
outlines of shifting populations of actual, potential
and imaginary users.
Although somewhat embarrassing, particularly
given the topic of the conference, the case of the
missing user is not especially unusual. Some of the
UK Research Assessment Exercise panels are also
finding it hard to identify individuals who might
qualify and serve as appropriate user representatives
(Times Higher Education Supplement, 1999, page
64). These intriguing instances of absence provide
the spark and the starting point for the discussion
which follows.
User interest is increasingly taken as a measure of
the value and relevance of research yet it seems that
people are reluctant to step forward and identify them-
selves as the users of social science. This is puzzling.
How are we to explain such frequent reference to us-
ers and such persistent failure to find them?
One explanation is that the notion of the user is of
symbolic importance and that it dominates the rheto-
ric but not always the reality of research life. De-
veloping this idea, we suggest that users do not simply
exist in the world beyond the conference hall or the
research department. They have to be defined and
constructed, and their characteristics vary depending
upon the purposes which they, and the concept of use,
are required to fulfil.
ESRC’s users
As set out in the 1993 White Paper, the ESRC’s mis-
sion requires it to place “special emphasis on meeting
the needs of the users of its research and training out-
put” (HMSO, 1993, page 29), but what does this mean
in practice? The Chairman’s opening statements to
the ESRC’s 1995–96 (ESRC, 1996) and 1997–98
(ESRC, 1998) annual reports contain important clues.
The first page of the 1995–96 report invokes users no
less than nine times, while the rather longer introduc-
tion to the 1997–98 version contains six such refer-
ences. These documents suggest that the ESRC has
taken its mission to heart and that responding to users’
needs is a central concern. These formal documents
also show how the concept of the user has been
worked into the fabric of research funding.
The 1997–98 statement begins with an all-
encompassing observation. Bruce Smith writes
that: “A successful society is one that understands
itself — as a nation, as an economy, as users of tech-
nology, as a community among many” (ESRC,
1998, page 1). Here “users” is an innocent term in-
corporated in a broad-brush description of society
at large. This neutral vocabulary acquires more
Reflecting on this mixture of symbolic significance
and practical elusiveness we noticed certain similarities
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Science and Public Policy June 2000