Abstract

What Determines the Emergence and Establishment of an Academic Discipline? The Development of Pharmacy at German Universities from 1880 to 1970. At universities new specialist subjects are developing steadily, but they rarely become established sub‐disciplines. The leading mechanisms of these processes seldom have been analyzed. The article investigates this problem, the development of the discipline of pharmacy at German universities from 1880 to 1970, from three different viewpoints: the processes inside the university structures, the politics of the organizations of professional pharmacists, and the research promotion invested by the industry. The analysis is based on archival data. It results in the chokepoint that the proximity of neighbouring disciplines and their behaviour are essential. They limited the ways of getting academic reputation and the award of a new specialisation. The professional pharmaceutical organizations rather hindered processes of disciplinary differentiation. The research promotion by the industry had only marginal effect on the development of disciplinary structures.