INTRODUCTION

As indicated by the title of this book, “Forced Migration and Scientific Change,” I shall not discuss the normal case of scientific change - what the internal view would refer to as “cognitive progress” - but scientific change at the social as well as institutional levels. The discussion focuses on three aspects. First, I will concentrate on the forms of scientific systems that existed in the different German-speaking countries before their governments drove many scientists into exile; in this case, the analysis will look at the changes that science and scientific systems underwent in the wake of this “output” of émigrés, and thus assess the situation in terms of social and/or cognitive “losses.” A second approach will focus on the cohort of émigrés and investigate the changes that individuals, scientific schools, or - if evidence for this can be furnished - whole disciplines underwent during the process of emigration. Generally, the level of aggregation of such an analysis will be relatively low - that is, close to the individual. A third course - practically inverse to the first approach - will focus on the changes disciplines and scientific systems experienced in those countries that assimilated larger numbers of émigrés. An analysis of the “input” will be conducted under the heading of “gains.”