Research is realized in social and cultural context, it is established in institutions, as far as different forms and conditions of practice are concerned. In this article some German examples demonstrate how flexible and varied the institutions of research can be during the course of history of science. The first part deals with historically grown, yet chronologically overlapping institutions of research: beginning with the lonely scholar, going on to hierarchally organized big science and ending up with virtual institutions. In the (...) second part, at the intersection of political‐social administration and styles of scientific thought terms like German Realpolitik, science in context, and science policy are discussed within the modernization process. (shrink)