Research: Focus on sociology
Empirical testing and further development of sociological middle-range theories
For several years now, there has been a debate in sociological research about the relationship between theory and empirical research. On the one hand, this debate concerns the question of what is meant by "theory" or "good theory" and what significance empirical studies should have in further developing and testing theories. On the other hand, it concerns quality assurance in sociological research. These issues have also been debated in the field of quantitative empirical science research, with regard to middle-range theories. Such theories, as defined by sociologist Robert K. Merton, are a prerequisite for gradual, cumulative knowledge advancement in empirical-analytical sociological research. In this regard, it has been argued that there are middle-range theories that have not yet been subjected to empirical testing. Instead of constantly formulating new ones, existing theories should be examined more closely through empirical analysis using concrete examples, thereby consolidating and further developing them. The following section explains which middle-range sociological theories are empirically tested in Prof. Thomas Heinze's research group or used for analytically structuring empirical research questions. Dissertation projects from the DFG-funded Research Training Group "Trans-formations of Science and Technology since 1800: Topics, Processes, Institutions" are also important in this context.
1.1 Theory and sociology of professions
1.2 Organizational theory and organizational sociology
1.3 Gradual transformations from a historical-sociological perspective
Institutional context factors for efficient research organisations
Groundbreaking research achievements are rare and unevenly distributed across research institutions and countries. In addition, national research systems are institutionally stratified, i.e. divided into a core area of elite institutions and a peripheral area of all other research institutions. Sociologists Joseph Ben-David and Rogers Hollingsworth have analysed the connection between global top-level research and institutional stratification using the example of biomedicine. Professor Thomas Heinze's working group is following up on this work with specific third-party funded and dissertation projects, including as part of the DFG-funded Research Training Group "Transformations of Science and Technology since 1800: Themes, Processes, Institutions". An important part of this work consists of establishing high-quality repositories and making them available to the research community. This includes a data set with all Nobel Prize winners and their career stages, a repository of all available Nobel Prize nominators and nominees and a repository on the development of subject structures at state universities in Germany. The empirical analyses conducted refer to medium-range sociological theories.
2.1 The United States as a global centre of science
2.2 Persistence factors and performance deficits in the German university system
2.3 Prestige stratification in the German university system
