Third spaces for science: reimagining research beyond academia and industry

Paper by Meike Ramon, Bigna Lenggenhager, Marte Roel Lesur, Dila Suay, Linda Baines, and Amanda J. Haste: “Contemporary research systems are increasingly shaped by structural constraints that limit how and where scientific knowledge can be produced. Academic institutions, historically associated with intellectual autonomy, are now frequently governed by metric-driven evaluation, administrative burdens, and competitive funding regimes that prioritize economic productivity over cultural and epistemic value. At the same time, they offer limited and inflexible employment opportunities—often due to funding constraints or a predominant focus on teaching. Public or government-funded laboratories have traditionally been more akin to universities in culture and approach, while industry laboratories, though often well-resourced, prioritize commercial outputs. Between these worlds lies a growing population of practitioners, independent scholars, citizen scientists, individuals working at the intersection of art and science, and retired researchers, who—despite losing formal institutional affiliation—retain deep domain expertise and a continued drive to develop new research ideas. All possess the expertise to conduct meaningful research yet lack access to the institutional conditions required to do so, leading them to seek environments grounded in curiosity, collaboration, and shared inquiry. Despite the widely recognized societal importance of scientific research, very few spaces exist for independent researchers to pursue practices that reach the public in meaningful and sustainable ways…(More)”.