한국 과학정책 비 교 연구에 대한 비판적 고찰: 한•미 신경과학계 태동 양상을 중심으로

Typically, comparative research on science policy have focused on new and unique institutions in the field. For example, when comparing brain research policies in different countries, the focus has been on the Decade of the Brain in the US or the Brain Research Promotion Act in South Korea. This was a result of the assumption that new governmental plans, decrees, or laws have an important impact on the field, which made them as the main subject of comparative research. This research expands the horizons - scope and form - of comparative research on science policy by breaking away this institutional (especially new institution) centered perspective through the case of brain research in South Korea and US. This research focuses on the period before the 1990s - before the formation of new institutions in brain research - and put different policy environments in the beginning of neuroscience in each country as the subject of comparative research. In this process, this research reveals the contents and activities of neuroscience in each country, a science that is often black-boxed in institutional-centered approach. It leads to discuss the meaning of opening a black-box, science, in doing comparative research of science policy. By comparing policies in neurosciences in each country from a new perspective and vantage point, this research illuminates, for example, a change in policy environments around basic research policies in each country, its underlying different policy discourses, and its co-evolution with knowledge contexts. By doing so, this study lay the foundation for expanding the scope of research as well as policy practices in science policy comparative research.