@article{4130f30c922d4bfb9ca30a3ffd239091,
title = "Overpromising in Wissenschaft und Technik: Eine evaluative Konzeptualisierung",
abstract = "This research article examines overpromising in scientific discourse that may raise unrealistic expectations in order to gain trust and funding. Drawing on signaling theory, philosophy of promising, and science communication research, a conceptualization of overpromising is presented. This conceptualization facilitates the evaluation of promises in science and technology and highlights the importance of the knowledge context. Further research is needed to explore the broader dimensions and motivations for overpromising.",
keywords = "conceptualization, evaluation, overpromising, promises, signaling",
author = "Stefan Gaillard and Cyrus Mody and Willem Halffman",
note = "Funding Information: Promises occurring between a promiser and a promisee lead to implicit or explicit agreements; through the act of promising, “the promiser commits to the promisee to do what{\textquoteright}s promised” (Sheinman 2011b, p. 3). The promiser and the promisee come to an agreement, often with the promiser committing to a course of action. When a group of researchers promises to a funder that they will “share entire datasets using the open microscopy environment” (Bordignon et al. 2023), and the funder consequently provides funding, the two come to an agreement. These types of agreement are often explicated in legal documents. For example, in Horizon Europe grants, beneficiaries and the funding agency sign a contract outlining the general terms and conditions, as well as the rights and obligations of both parties (Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science 2023). One could argue that in grant applications, all parties understand that not all promises will be fulfilled due to the inherent uncertainty of scientific research and technological development, and thus that the implicit agreement differs from what they would expect if they took the promise literally (White 2017). Indeed, for many grants, funders only check whether promises mentioned in tandem with deliverables and milestones are fulfilled. As one grant applicant put it: “When writing a grant it is important to find a good balance between what you promise to do in the general parts of the grant and what you truly deliver […]. In general, when it comes to scientific work we don{\textquoteright}t tend to overpromise much and activities are usually directly translated into deliver-ables. When it comes to stakeholder engagement, dissemi-nation, communication and exploitation of results however this translation is often less direct and therefore less bal-anced; in general we tend to overpromise in impact sections and purposefully set out to not capture all those promises in concrete deliverables to allow as much room to deviate throughout the project” (Gaillard{\textquoteright}s personal correspondence by e-mail, 03. 04. 2023, anonymized). Funding Information: Funding • This work was funded by ERC NanoBubbles grant 951393. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 by the authors; licensee oekom.",
year = "2023",
doi = "10.14512/tatup.32.3.60",
language = "German",
volume = "32",
pages = "60--65",
journal = "Zeitschrift f{\"u}r Technikfolgenabsch{\"a}tzung in Theorie und Praxis",
issn = "2568-020X",
publisher = "Oekom Verlag GmbH",
number = "3",
}