What's new
Art-science collaborations are emerging as a way to navigate uncertainty and complexity in policymaking.
A new study by Sofia Rafaella Greaves, Mario Pansera, and Javier Lloveras explores how art-science collaborations can support the institutionalisation of post-normal science at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC).
Drawing on institutional theory, the authors analyse how post-normal science, an approach for addressing complex, uncertain, and value-laden challenges, can introduce organisational change. Their ethnographic study focuses on the JRC’s SciArt initiative, which brings together artists and scientists to co-produce knowledge.
The paper shows that SciArt collaborations can transform strategies for future-making in evidence-for-policy processes. They foster reflexivity, recognise complexity, democratise expertise, and empower scientists to engage with uncertainty. Yet, the authors note that the potential of such collaborations to transform institutional logics remains limited by what they call “the enclosure of uncertainty”: the tendency within scientific institutions to reduce uncertainty for policy clarity.
The study concludes that long-term, incremental adaptation in research and policymaking structures is needed to integrate and institutionalise post-normal science practices, and thus SciArt.
Title:
Practicing post-normal science through art-science collaborations: Institutionalising new approaches to future-making at the Joint Research Centre
Highlights:
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Institutional theory enables analysis of how post-normal science introduces organizational change.
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SciArt collaborations transform strategies for future-making in evidence-for-policy processes.
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SciArt sparks reflexivity and empowers scientists to explore uncertainties.
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Uncertainty and time spent in collaboration essential for art-science collaboration to have impact.
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The potential of transdisciplinary projects to transform institutional logics limited by the enclosure of uncertainty.
Dr. Sofia Greaves has been visiting scientist at JRC SciArt 2023-24. Her research in art-science collaborations has also resulted in the publication of SciArt collaborations at the Joint Research Centre: Understanding and evaluating transdisciplinary innovation beyond economic value , Technovation, Volume 143, May 2025, 103229
About Sofia Greaves
I am a freelance arts-based researcher and historian. Broadly, my research explores the roles that artists play within knowledge production processes in the context of urban planning and environmental policymaking.
I recently completed a post-doctoral project focused on Degrowth and Postgrowth with the Postgrowth Innovation Lab, European Research Council, at the University of Vigo, Spain. This project was focused on how to realise futures no longer obsessed by, and requiring of, economic growth, given the socio-political and environmental impacts of Capitalism. I looked at the tangible and intangible outcomes of art-science transdisciplinary projects and their potential to support post-Capitalist futures.
The second strand of my research thinks about cities and the role of artists in "postgrowth planning": how to build inclusive environments which support plural ways of living sustainably rather than profit. I come to this research question with an interdisciplinary background in the history of urban planning and public health, art history and Classics. I hold a Phd from the University of Cambridge completed as part of the 'Impact of the Ancient City' Project, fully funded by the European Research Council. This research examined the importance of ancient Greco-Roman urbanism to modernisation advanced by nineteenth-century urban planning and public health movements, particularly in Liberal Italy through to Fascism.
I hold an MA in art history and a BA in Classics, both of which have focused on urbanism.
Website: www.sofiagreaves.online
Email: Sofia.greaves@yahoo.co.uk
Postgrowth Lab: https://postgrowth-lab.webs.uvigo.es/
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