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

共享的仪器设备或“核心设施”对科学越来越重要。核心设施通常被视为科学家围绕共同工具相互分享知识的地方，推进领域并引发跨学科合作。然而，我们知道，科学家们往往不愿意分享正在进行的工作的知识--特别是与亲密的同行或竞争对手--因为他们希望为自己的工作获得荣誉，并希望成为第一个发表研究结果的人。虽然先前的研究已经考虑了科学家如何在他们的工作中处理公开和保密之间的紧张关系，但这项研究在很大程度上忽视了科学支持人员-那些维护和开发科学仪器和技术的人-在科学家中传播有价值的技术知识方面发挥的作用。本研究通过一项为期15个月的人种学研究，探讨了科学支持人员在两个核心设施中的作用。通过记录核心设施的科学支持人员如何在潜在竞争的研究人员中创造和传播知识，我们希望为寻求提高共享研究基础设施生产力的决策者提供信息。通过阐明科学支持人员的工作特点的各种任务，技能，能力和专业，我们的研究还应该建议大学和核心设施如何为科学工作人员实施更好的奖励结构和职业生涯，从而加强国家的STEM劳动力。提供洁净室和半导体制造设备的设施，以区域社区的研究人员。我们的目标是：（1）深入探讨核心设施的科学支持人员所拥有的知识种类，（2）记录工作人员的贡献（以及在哪些方面）促进了用户研究项目的进展，（3）探讨是否支持工作人员传播知识，如果是，如何以及多久传播一次，以消除用户之间保密的有害影响，以及（4）记录一个核心设施中的辅助人员开发的知识是否以及如何传播到其他核心设施。我们的总体目标是通过更好地了解科学支持人员在核心设施内和跨核心设施创造和传播知识方面的作用，更深入地了解科学如何从核心设施的共享资源中受益。该研究将有助于几个领域，包括科学研究，组织研究，公共政策和社会学的工作和职业。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。

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.