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Next Generation Scientists

Fri, November 13, 8:30 to 10:00am, Denver Sheraton, Governor's Square 12

Abstract

In the wake of on-going changes of university landscapes, transitions in imaginations from an “ivory
tower scientist” towards a “scientific entrepreneur” are affecting how researchers are living and
working in the life sciences. Those changes are often represented as being engrained within
transforming boundaries or asymmetric convergence between academia and industry (Kleinman
and Vallas 2001). While we can debate the way knowledge gets produced, a critical reflection on how
scientific identities become reconfigured within changing value systems in the
life sciences is largely absent. Based on participant observations within microbiology departments
in the United States and Austria and interviews with life scientists in different stages of their career, I will contrast narratives of PhD students, post-doctoral scholars and group leaders for asking how and which concepts of ideal type scientists become traded and negotiated. Doing so, I will investigate how scientific identities become reconfigured within current academia by contrasting (conflicting) conceptualizations of life scientists as excellent researchers, as “corporate resource”, as family members, as role models, etc. By using identity work as vantage point for understanding a multiplicity of academic selves, I will critically reflect on what arrives as “valuable scientific identity” within academic work. As a result, my paper will contribute to an understanding of the “next generation scientist´s” socio-epistemic reference system in the life sciences and advance STS knowledge on identity work within contemporary academia.

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