VOSS: Flexible Research Infrastructure: A Comparative Study

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Using ethnographic and archival methods, this study will develop a comparative case analysis of two successful long-term cyberinfrastructures that have been supporting scientific research for nearly thirty years, in ecology and medical science: the Long-term Ecological Research Network (LTER) and the Multi-Center AIDS Cohort Study (MACS). Archival research will provide a backdrop to current events that will be investigated ethnographically. The project addresses a significant gap in comparative studies of infrastructure, refocusing attention on the implications of the always-changing technologies, sociotechnical-organization, and institutional environments that make up contemporary research infrastructures. The central research questions is: How are "old organizations" renewing themselves to sustain value for "new science"? By investigating the past and present of cyberinfrastructures that have weathered many transformations, this research seeks to inform future cyberinfrastructure development efforts. The findings will identify successful "strategies of the long-term" -- organizational forms and methods of design with a track-record of facilitating responsiveness to change. These insights will be a contribution to the fields of Science and Technology Studies (STS), science policy, organization science, and the sociotechnical design of research infrastructure.The purpose of this research is to understand the challenges that long-term scientific organizations face over time, and the strategies they employ to manage these challenges. The development of scientific research infrastructure is central to the NSF?s vision of science; however there has as yet been little or sporadic empirical attention to the dynamics of flexible long-term infrastructure in the face of changing social organization, information technology (IT) and scientific interests. This research will fill that gap, contributing to new, practical, and boundary-spanning knowledge about the characteristics of infrastructure in the making and over the long-term. This project will inform efforts to build more open, effective, and sustainable cyberinfrastructure in the sciences, leading to smarter and more sustainable investment and design choices on the part of cyberinfrastructure project leaders, participants, tool builders, and funders. This research will also inform science policy and regulatory environments, to help foster a sustainable and productive research infrastructure across multiple fields of inquiry.