Institutional dynamics in Research. Processes of co-creation in Research Infrastructures.

• In Event: International Scientific Consortia: Knowledge Infrastructures and the Role of STS Scholars

Abstract

This paper proposes to consider Research Infrastructures (ERICs) as international scientific consortia.

It can be observed that Research Infrastructures (RI henceforth) are defined by their capacity to connect, bridge communities, resources (scholarly outputs), services (e.g. software) and ultimately knowledge.
In a recent publication, Edmond et al. define RIs as installations, interfaces or structures that "assemble a mediating set of technologies for research and resource discovery, collaboration,
sharing, and dissemination of scientific output" (Edmond et al., 2020). This definition stresses
on the facilitating and mediating role (and in certain cases also on the brokering role) of RIs.
RIs are also strategic instruments from a political standpoint. In the case of the ERIC’s, whose
existence is been made possible by the European Commission, it is evident that their
emergence is based on important investments and it is supported by strategic guidance
especially in their preparatory phase.
Finally, RIs are also complex structures themselves. Their inner dynamics are created by an interplay between socio, technical and political scenarios of different actors inside and partly also outside academia.

The proposed paper introduces a novel theoretical framework to conceptualise the dynamics of knowledge production within RIs. Such framework (currently in development in the context of the author's PhD investigation) builds on four pillars (tentative term): infrastructural, institutional, community, end user. The aim of this paper is to further develop such framework by focussing on the collaborative and co-creative practices that take place in it.

Author

• Francesca Morselli, DANS-KNAW; DARIAH-ERIC; University of Verona