ArticleMinerva2018
The Grand Challenges Discourse: Transforming Identity Work in Science and Science Policy.
Article in Minerva, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Starting from hopelessness - grand challenges, sustainable development goals, and responsible research and innovation under urgency and uncertainty.Journal of responsible innovation · 2025Article
- Toward a Values-Informed Approach to Complexity in Health Care: Hermeneutic Review.The Milbank quarterly · 2023Review
- Record DNA: reconceptualising digital records as the future evidence base.Archival science · 2023Article
- A patent-based analysis of the evolution of basic, mission-oriented, and applied research in European universities.The Journal of technology transfer · 2023Article
- Predicting ecosystem metaphenome from community metagenome: A grand challenge for environmental biology.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Grand challenges and living labs: toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- The attachments of 'autonomous' vehicles.Social studies of science · 2021Article
- Toward Sustainable Environmental Quality: Priority Research Questions for North America.Environmental toxicology and chemistry · 2019Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This article analyzes the concept of "grand challenges" as part of a shift in how scientists and policymakers frame and communicate their respective agendas. The history of the grand challenges discourse helps to understand how identity work in science and science policy has been transformed in recent decades. Furthermore, the question is raised whether this discourse is only an indicator, or also a factor in this transformation. Building on conceptual history and historical semantics, the two parts of the article reconstruct two discursive shifts. First, the observation that in scientific communication references to "problems" are increasingly substituted by references to "challenges" indicates a broader cultural trend of how attitudes towards what is problematic have shifted in the last decades. Second, as the grand challenges discourse is rooted in the sphere of sports and competition, it introduces a specific new set of societal values and practices into the spheres of science and technology. The article concludes that this process can be characterized as the sportification of science, which contributes to self-mobilization and, ultimately, to self-optimization of the participating scientists, engineers, and policymakers.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.