The Role of Scientific Support Staff in the Creation and Dissemination of Knowledge Within and Across Core Infrastructural Facilities

University Of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara CA

Investigators

Abstract

Shared instrumentation facilities, or “core facilities” have become increasingly important to science. Core facilities are often seen as places where scientists share knowledge with each other around common tools, advancing fields and sparking interdisciplinary collaborations. We know, however, that scientists often hesitate to share knowledge about ongoing work— particularly with close peers or competitors— because they seek credit for their own work and want to be the first to publish findings. While prior research has considered how scientists navigate tensions between openness and secrecy in their work, this research has largely overlooked the role that scientific support staff— those who maintain and develop scientific instrumentation and technique— play in diffusing valuable technical knowledge among scientists. This study examines the role of scientific support staff in two core facilities through a fifteen-month ethnographic study. By documenting how scientific support staff in core facilities create and disseminate knowledge among potentially competing researchers, we hope to inform decision makers who seek to increase the productivity of shared research infrastructures. By explicating the various tasks, skills, competencies, and specialties that characterize scientific support staff’s work, our study should also suggest how universities and core facilities might implement better reward structures and careers for scientific staff, thereby strengthening the nation’s STEM workforce. This study examines the role of scientific support staff in core facilities through an ethnographic study of two university nanofabrication facilities, facilities that provide cleanrooms and semiconductor fabrication equipment to a regional community of researchers. Our goals are: (1) to explore in depth the kind of knowledge that scientific support staff in core facilities possess, (2) to document the ways in which (and the points at which) the contributions of staff facilitate the progress of users’ research projects, (3) to explore whether, and if so how and how frequently, support staff disseminate knowledge in ways that counter the deleterious effects of secrecy among users, and (4) to document whether and how knowledge developed by support staff in one core facility is disseminated to other core facilities. Our overall aim is to develop a deeper understanding of how science benefits from shared resources in core facilities by better understanding the role of scientific support staff in creating and disseminating knowledge within and across core facilities. The research will contribute to several fields including science studies, organization studies, public policy and the sociology of work and occupations. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.