ABSTRACT
The process of establishing a National Research Agenda (Nationale Wetenschapsagenda, NWA) that has been undertaken in the Netherlands in 2015-2016 seems to have been both a continuation and a break with the recent past in science policy. A continuation insofar as it fits with the trend of channelling research funds increasingly to certain communally prioritized research topics, instead of leaving this act of priority-setting to individual researchers. Unsurprisingly, this has elicited the usual objections by those who cherish the ideal of ‘academic freedom’ for the individual researcher. However, it seems to have been a break with this trend in that the community deciding the priorities was not the community of scientists themselves, nor organised private interests or private-public partnerships (as has been the case with the establishment of the Topsectoren, or NWO programmes like Socially Responsible Innovation). Instead, a radically bottom-up process was organised in which the public at large could pose its questions to scientists. One might have had the impression that this would be a moment of radical innovation, in which ‘democracy meets science’.
