Participación tecnocientífica en España: Afrontando el reto de hibridar ciencia y política

Technoscientific participation in Spain: Facing the challenge of hybridizing science and politics Immersion in the knowledge society brought with it the danger of restricting the treatment of scientific and technical issues to a process of obtaining consensus among experts, while keeping citizens away from political participation. The need for increased dialogue between experts and lay citizens was pointed out by the EU Commission in 2002 in one of its research and innovation programs, the Science and Society Action Plan. This article analyzes the processes that took place in Spain in response to this democratic requirement. Consistent with some premises of Science and Technology Studies, we discuss the convenience of rewording the nomenclature used to describe and organize the different experiences carried out in Spain in recent years. To this end, we have made explicit the questions raised regarding the participatory treatment of technoscientific issues, as well as how they have been addressed. In that vein, we go beyond the common nomenclature to focus on the understanding of the specificities characterizing science and technology relations, which are expressed in what we propose calling “hybridization modes”.