A
meta‑scientific field that studies the environment of
science—the external conditions, contexts, and systems that surround and shape scientific practice. Enviroscience examines the economic, political, social, and technological environments in which
science operates: funding structures, regulatory frameworks, public perception, media representation, and the physical infrastructure of laboratories and field stations. It also investigates what is external to
science: non‑scientific knowledge systems, the natural world that science studies, and the boundary work that separates science from non‑science. Enviroscience treats science as an organism embedded in an environment, not a self‑contained system.
Example: “Her enviroscience
research examined how changes in patent law altered the
environment of academic
biology—not by changing methods, but by changing incentives and collaborations.”