Avenues of Contact and Collaboration for Philosophy of Science with STI Policy

Philosophy of science considers science as a system including conceptual and propositional structures and as processes like explanation, problem-solving, discovery, and evaluation. It studies truth, falsehood, meaningfulness, and justification. On the other hand, science, technology, and innovation (STI) policy is a field that considers science as an economic-social-political institution and studies its relationships with economic growth, competitiveness, security, employment, and welfare. Applying documentary research and conceptual analysis, this paper investigates possible paths of collaboration between these two research fields. The main conclusion of the paper is that, despite their apparent difference and separation, these two fields could cooperate in at least four productive ways: Providing philosophical analysis about epistemic constructs and common methods in STI policy, developing concepts of innovation and economic growth to include responsible and ethical dimensions, helping to the formation of a deeper understanding of the creational aspects of innovation process borrowing from cognitive science, and lastly but not least, helping to the formation of a critical approach to technology applying resources from philosophy of technology, are four directions that sketch landscapes of collaboration between these two fields.