Steering with big words: articulating ideographs in research programs

摘要: Nowadays, science should address societal challenges, such as ‘sustainability’, or ‘responsible research and innovation’. This emerging form of steering toward broad generic goals involves the use ‘big words’: encompassing concepts that are uncontested themselves, but allow for multiple interpretations specifications. paper is based on premise big words matter in structuring scientific practice it empirically traces how three words’ – innovation’ ‘valorization’ (a term closely linked to knowledge utilization) steer activities within a Dutch program nanotechnology explicitly related challenges. To do so, theory articulation extended with concept ideographs. We report top-down ambitions policy countervailed by bottom-up dynamics logics researchers. also conclude when used an organizational administrative setting, changes their effects