The book offers a new approach to explaining how science works and, above all, aims to overcome the traditional coexistence of scientific theoretical and sociological analysis. Krohn and Küppers start from the fact that scientists, in addition to their research, operate in various ways in non-scientific contexts - in industrial research, in the military sector, in the public health system, in the cultural sector, and in teaching, as well as serving as experts on technopolitical, social, and educational issues. The authors do not disregard activities in these environments as "extraneous" or irrelevant to knowledge production; on the contrary, they are seen as the functions through which the social system of science is built and expanded. A complex network of institutions emerges through which the science system operates.