Robert K. Merton Center for Science Studies
The Robert K. Merton Center for Science Studies (RMZ) serves as an interdisciplinary platform for research and teaching in Science Studies in its broadest sense. It provides a place for exchange and cooperation for researchers interested in how science works. Specifically, this includes Science and Technology Studies, Sociology of Science, Library and Information Science, Higher Education Research, History of Science, Meta-Research and others.
At Humboldt-Universität and within the Berlin research environment such expertise is spread across different disciplines and institutions. Furthermore, the diversity of the Berlin research environment, with its universities, non-university research institutions, museums, collections and their cooperations with industry, politics and civil society, provides a wide range of possibilities to work collaboratively and empirically on relevant research questions.
The Berlin metropolitan area and its research activities are of specific importance for research at the RMZ. Incorporating forms of institutional research, the region will be first to benefit from the work realized by the RMZ. Its initial focus will be on the following topics: quality and integrity of research, young researchers and academic careers, higher education governance, knowledge translation, data infrastructures and indicators.
The RMZ strives for a collaborative form of Science Studies which includes its object of research into the research process itself and thereby produces knowledge not only exclusively for Science Studies but also for universities, disciplines, individual researchers, politics, industry or civil society.
The Robert K. Merton Center for Science Studies (RMZ) is part of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin as an interdisciplinary center.