Chasing Neutrinos through Networks of Science: University Collaborations and Scientization

• In Event: National, Transnational & Global University Collaborations and Interdisciplinary

Proposal

Research and scientific publication have departed the age of scientific nationalism and entered an era in which collaboratively produced research across national and cultural boundaries is increasingly prominent. Such international, intercultural teamwork facilitated the unprecedented exponential growth in scientific knowledge at least since the 1980s, if not over the entire course of the 20th century (Powell, Baker & Fernandez 2017). Various forms of collaboration beyond one scientist, or, in many cases, even beyond the small team, increasingly drive every aspect of the scientific process: theory development and conceptualization; methodological design and operationalization; gathering, sharing, and interpreting data; and finally publishing results after peer review for communication with evermore interconnected communities of investigators. This process, which is repeated over and over, builds capacity upon which scientific inquiry expands – well beyond what would have been the case if most research were done less collaboratively. Science is often portrayed as a steady accretion of very small packages of new knowledge punctuated by sporadic, singular breakthrough discoveries and theory. Yet, despite considerable costs and challenges, maturing patterns of collaboration and their diverse benefits make intentionally planned, regular boosts in knowledge from large-scale investigations a normal feature of global science. If breakthroughs cannot be fully anticipated, the explicitly supported, well planned, and consistently executed collaborations speed both the accretion of findings and the identification of innovations with the potential for expanding new and established areas of inquiry as never before (Baker & Powell, forthcoming).
In this presentation, on these phenomena will be shown based upon the case study of the “IceCube”: a super-collaborative project known as the IceCube Neutrino Observatory that engages more than 300 astrophysicists, physicists, and engineers from 52 institutions, mostly universities, across a dozen countries who intensively coordinate their scientific activities to jointly chase evidence of neutrinos (see IceCube Neutrino Observatory, https://icecube.wisc.edu/). At the heart of the collaboration is a laboratory, a small dorm, and a basic airplane runway in Antarctica, but for this infrastructure is merely the physical gathering place of a global network of scientists collaborating continuously across time and space. This case manifests how collaborative scaffolding of research produces data open to new analyses by large numbers of scientists worldwide who were not necessarily directly involved in the data collection at the South Pole nor the tracking via observations using rare and expensive telescopes. Such sharing maximizes the potential for new discoveries.
The average collaboration may be neither as massive nor as spectacular as the IceCube project and other super collaborations; however, working in teams of scientists across vast distances and many time zones is now thoroughly routine. The once-familiar image of the scientist plodding alone in a laboratory, if ever true, is now very far off the mark. Collaborations of various kinds spread with what we call “global mega-science,” and in turn deepens the dimensions of future science. And this is not just science done with more and more assistants, but rather collective efforts, massive amounts of shared data, and the common use of sophisticated instruments across many teams working together across numerous borders to solve similar problems – and thus further expanding scientific networks and the potential for discoveries. Even the results from prior studies on a particular topic are now turned into data for other scientists’ meta-analysis to reveal new statistical patterns not observable from any one study. A collaborative environment also raises the standards of research so that working in teams becomes more than an option. In a number of fields of science today, the work is so complex that individual scientists cannot achieve meaningful results without collaborating—the so-called “collaboration imperative” (Bozeman and Boardman 2014). Indeed, this has become the established way to conduct research, particularly for those aspiring to conduct the most cutting-edge and influential research.

Author

• Justin J.W. Powell, University of Luxembourg