The world of scientific research is currently experiencing an important normative change, with the implementation of open science policies. This process offers to socio-legal research an excellent opportunity to undertake a reflexive research effort, having to apply the concepts developed for the approach of knowledge and opinion about the law to our own domain of activity. Such reflexive research is likely to enrich our knowledge about a much broader process within the framework of which open science is being implemented, which is the digitalization of our societies. In this context, one more specific issue deserves a special focus, considering its current relevance for scientific practice, in the socio-legal domain as well as in other domains: the relationship between specialists and lay persons. An issue that raises normative questions which discussion is strongly conditioned by open science policies, and by the way these policies are perceived and implemented. My paper will be based on information gathered in the process of implementation of open science policies in France, in particular by the CNRS and by, among others, one university, Université Paris-Saclay, two institutions to the policies of which the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Paris-Saclay, which I am currently running, has actively to contribute.

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Knowledge and Opinion About the Law,Open Science,Digitalization,Reflexivity

• Sociology - Social Sciences
• Law - Social Sciences