Crossdisciplinary practices in a specialty of bionanotechnology

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Cross-disciplinary practices in a specialty of
bionanotechnology
SSTNET, Manchester, April 7th 2006

• Ismael Rafols and Martin Meyer, SPRU
• University of Sussex, Brighton

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Interdisciplinarity in the policy discourse

• Introduction

• New modes of knowledge production (Gibbons et
  al.)
• Mode 2 is interdisciplinary (trans-) and
  problem-oriented research.
• Emerging technologies (biotech,nanotech)
• viewed as a result of convergence of disciplines

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Bionanotechnology

• BBSRC multidisciplinary area that sits at the
  interface between engineering and the biological
  and physical sciences.
• OECD it covers the interface between physics,
  biology, chemistry and engineering sciences.

However Schummer (2004) found that publishing
practices in nanotech are essentially
mono-disciplinary
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Research questions

• Challenging the normative discourses of
• new modes of knowledge production
• Is bionanotechnology as
• cross-disciplinary as it is claimed?
• In which sense?
• How is this cross-disciplinarity achieved?

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2. Conceptual and methodological approach

• Discipline A social construct
• Specialty The arena of research
• Laboratory The repository of tacit knowledge
• Research-project Sequential and coherent set of
  publications by () same authors.
• Not a hierarchical (Russian dolls) scheme
• Multiple overlaps between units at different
  levels

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How to measure cross-disciplinarity?

• Need to operationalise concepts proposed by
  sociology of science
• (J.T. Klein, 1990 Weingart, 2000)
• Bibliometric indicators
• Lack of consensus concerning the adequate
  indicators
• (Porter and Chubin, 1985 Bordons et al. 2004)
• Multi-dimensional approach
• (Sanz-Menendez et al., 2001 Grigg et al., 2003)
• Various aspects Affiliation, researchers
  background, references, citations

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Operational research questions

• In which dimensions is Molecular motors
• cross-disciplinary?
• Which strategies are pursued in research projects
  in order to garner cross-disciplinarity?

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Multiple-case study

• Bionanotechnology is a mixed bag with very
  different research specialties. For meaningful
  comparison we need research projects in one
  specialty of bionanotechnology.
• Molecular motors
• study of proteins that use chemical energy to
  generate movement at a subcellular level
• Selection criteria
• Important contributions of Japanese researchers
  on the mechanistic dynamics of any of any of the
  biological molecular motors.
• Data Interviews, publications and other
  published sources.

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3. Empirical findings
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Affiliations
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Background of researchers
Classification Method Question in interview
and publication record Background of each
research Main discipline of practice
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References
Classification Method Examination of title and
abstract of each reference
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Instrumentalities
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Summary empirical findings
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Knowledge-sourcing strategies
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4. Conclusions

• Difference between
• Social practices (less cross-disciplinary)
• Cognitive practices (consistently
  cross-disciplinary)
• A variety of strategies to garner knowledge
• Recruitment
• In-house development
• Collaboration

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Trade-off between cross-disciplinarity and
integration

• Cost of integration
• Coordination and communication extra effort.
• Attribution of authorship
• Hypothesis
• Labs seek the maximum cognitive diversity at the
  minimum cost
• Various possible successful strategies
• Some labs try to achieve cognitive diversity
  without going through the costs of social
  cross-disciplinary
• Other labs engage into social cross-disciplinarity
  managing well the effort for integration.

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5. Discussion

• Mode 1 (organic) vs. Mode 2 (policy-driven)
• cross-disciplinarity
• (Fujigaki 2002 Bruce et al. 2004)
• Dynamics found suggest dominance of Mode 1
• Driven by researchers (not institution)
• Social aspects of discipline still important

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Caveats

• This is an exploratory study.
• Results will be checked with further bibliometric
  analysis.
• Just one specialty (invisible college) of
  Bionanotechnology To be compared with results in
  other invisible colleges.
• Anecdotal observation suggests that dominance of
  Mode 1 or Mode 2 is contingent on the type of
  research
• even for research communities carrying similar
  research.

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Acknowledgements

• Thanks for fruitful comments to Nick von
  Tunzelmann, Jacky Senker and Paul Nightingale.
• Funded by a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship
  (2006-08) and the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation
  (2005).