INTERDISCIPLINARY and inter-institutional collaborative networking in the area of agricultural biotechnology has become the hallmark of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime. As research in agricultural biotechnology has potential for attaining patents, the practitioners seem to reorient their approach towards their own research vis-à-vis the protocols enshrined in the IPR documents. The agricultural biotechnologists located in various institutional settings in India seem to be engaged in collaborative networking with the industry. As a corollary, we witness a shift from science as a public resource to science as an intellectual property. The present study, through in-depth personal interviews with agricultural biotechnologists in India, attempts to capture the transition in scientific practices reflected in the attitudes, interests, values and ideologies of the scientific community in India.

The present study dwells upon the unpredictable nature of change in science, taking into account a number of factors – social, technological, conceptual and natural – that interact to influence the production and application of scientific knowledge. According to Pickering, machines, instruments, facts, theories, conceptual and mathematical structures, disciplined practices and institutional/organizational structures are in constantly shifting relationships with one another – ‘mangled’ together in unforeseeable ways that are shaped by the contingencies of culture, time and place.¹

Research practice too could be reconceptualized as a ‘mangle’, an open-ended, evolutionary and performative interplay of social, economic, political, cultural, ethical, legal, institutional and ideological factors. Since the 1990s we observe a radical transformation in the ways of understanding the relationship between science, university and society. In science studies, the transformation of university research was discussed in terms of changing norms of science and the changing contract between science and society. In research policy and higher education research, the societal role of science and university was redefined in terms of academic capitalism, the entrepreneurial university, mode 2 and triple helix models of knowledge production.

Research also began to address risks and ethical problems created by scientific and technological advancement as well as the roles of scientists as advisors and experts in different areas of the society. In more ways than one, science, as a dynamic force, has to go beyond an absolutist-idealist conception of the immanent development of science, on the one hand and, historical relativism of those who consider science as purely a conventional social construct, on the other.²

 

Historically, the culture of patenting originated in the West and was then introduced into India during the colonial period. The Indian Patents Act of 1970 was subject to process patents as a result of which one could manufacture the same product by using different processes. However, we witness a shift from the process patent regime to the product patent regime under the New Patents Act adopted by the Government of India (GoI) in 2005. This shift was influenced by both external and internal factors. The external factors were related to the IPR regime and GoI’s compliance with the international patent regime: how do international and national patent protocols affect knowledge production? The internal factors include the limits placed by available knowledge and the unknown and uncertainties.

The implications of such changes in the new institutional set-up include: (a) organization of the scientific community as a paradigm-bound group, (b) organization of knowledge production in institutional settings and its linkages with industry and government, and (c) collaborative work of scientists involving R&D institutions (both public and private) located in different institutional settings like industries.

 

Some significant questions that need to be addressed are:

1. In what ways and to what extent are scientists in India responding to the WTO provisions on the IPR in terms of the choice of research areas/problems and the associated practices at the individual level and at the level of collaborative research?

2. How does the national product patent policy, which dovetails with the WTO provisions on the IPR, influence research in agricultural biotechnology in India? Do practitioners of scientific research recognize/identify scientific areas of research in the Indian context that enhance the prospect of producing novelties – processes and/or products?

3. To what extent have R&D organizations internalized the changed context, and what steps have they initiated in managing change?

4. It is important to understand: (a) changes in research thrust in Indian universities after adopting the principles of the WTO and, as a corollary, to assess the change in attitudes, values and practices in doing research in this changing institutional context; (b) patterns of collaboration between scientists in universities, on the one hand and scientists in other R&D institutions, both public and private, on the other; (c) institutional mechanisms that have been created to enable scientists to reorient their approach towards research in the changed and changing contexts of knowledge production.

Table I indicates significant patenting activity in the current period (1999-2002). Out of 669 patents, 492 (74%) patents were granted in the current period. Further, it would be pertinent to note that patenting activity in India has been on the rise since the Government of India became signatory to the WTO on the IPR on 1 January 1995.

Only a few organizations are involved in patenting activity in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). A report prepared by the National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies (NISTADS), New Delhi entitled The Indian Patenting Activity in International and Domestic Patent System: Contemporary Scenario (2005), mentions that 93 entities were granted patents during the period, 1990-2002. In comparison to other entities, industry is most predominant. Overall, 73 firms are involved in patenting activity. Among other organizational types involved in patenting activity, there are 10 research institutes, seven universities and two from ministries/departments (non-scientific ministries) and one specialized research institute. Table II illustrates the number of distinct organizations over different time periods. The increase in the number of new organizations that are involved in patenting activity in the current period (1999-2002) is highlighted in Table II.

Out of 73 industrial firms, there are 59 Indian private industries, nine MNCs and five public sector undertakings (PSUs). Pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms are predominantly involved in patenting activity. Among 73 industrial firms, there are 23 firms in the ‘pharmaceutical’ and/or ‘biotechnology’ sector. Only seven universities in India were involved in patenting activity during the period, 1990-2002. Even institutions of excellence like IITs were not granted any patents. Also, major scientific agencies such as the ICAR and the DAE had no patents granted during this period.

 

Further, patenting activity across organizations in India exhibits a skewed pattern. Fifty organizations were awarded only one patent, and fifteen were awarded two patents for the overall period, 1990-2002. This indicates that for a considerably large number of organizations in India, patenting in the US is only a one-time activity. Only eight organizations in India have more than ten patents during the entire period. These eight organizations account for 522 patents (80%) of the total number of patents granted. These organizations, classified as prolific organizations, comprise four from industry, two research institutes and one public sector undertaking. Even within these eight organizations, the patenting activity is skewed given that the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) accounts for 378 patents.

 

The broader classification of research institutions under scientific agencies highlights the stark contrasts. Among scientific agencies, except for the CSIR with 378 patents, the other scientific agencies have a limited role in the patenting activity in the USPTO. Table III presents the patents filed by different scientific agencies. Patents shown by the DBT and the DST are also likely to have originated from research organizations that are affiliated to them.

The other scientific agencies, namely the Department of Electronics (DoE), the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) had no patents granted during the entire period, 1990-2002. Further, only a few firms account for a majority of the patents within the industry. Indian private industries have a major share, as they account for 201 (78%) of the total (258) patents granted to industries. The PSUs and MNCs account for 36 (14 per cent) and 21 (8 per cent) patents respectively. The share within the Indian industry is highlighted in Table IV.

We observe that patenting activity is moderate to insignificant in the other sectors, apart from pharmaceuticals and chemicals. Firms in developing countries including India have dominated innovations in biotechnology with extensive patenting. These innovations are possible due to the joint partnerships between industry and university. Table V indicates details of patenting activity in the three defined time periods: pre-WTO (1990-94), post-WTO (1995-98) and the current period (1999-2002).

Thus, the nature and extent of influence that the IPR regime has on scientific research in general and research in biotechnology in particular, now becomes clear.

According to Kurt Lewin [collaboration can be achieved] if the theorist does not look towards applied problems with an aversion or with a fear of social problems, and if the applied psychologist realizes that there is nothing as practical as a good theory.³ Edward J. Hackett points out that the landscape of scientific collaboration is changing in terms of social organization, intellectual content and cultural reach, technologies of collaboration and understanding of collaboration.⁴ In the Indian context it is important to address such questions as (a) What is collaboration? (b) Why do scientists collaborate? (c) What are the motivations and interests underlying collaboration? (d) How do collaborations work? (e) How productive are they? (f) What is collaboration becoming? and (g) What is driving the transformation?

 

Two profoundly destabilizing changes – cognitive and political – may be seen in the context of scientific collaboration in India. At the cognitive level, the shift occurs from monovalent to polyvalent knowledge. In metatheoretical terms the triple helix model supercedes both traditional disciplinary boundaries and mode 2 knowledge production created in the context of application. At the political level, there is a marked shift towards a fracturing of the authority of nation states, with consequent pressures to rethink the forms of democratic governance.

 

An attempt is made to understand how scientists encounter the science–policy boundaries in the ordinary course of doing their research. Scientists, in the present study, refer to institutions that mediate between policy or decision makers and scientists; these are called ‘boundary organizations’ in the social studies of science⁵ but given their proper names and acronyms by scientists. Empirical evidence suggests that there are often occasions when such boundary organizations remain absent from the drawing up of contracts, agreements and the negotiation of research boundaries at the science–policy interface.

This paper attempts to provide a picture not only of the ways in which research and policy making domains are interconnected, indeed quite densely in some cases, but also of the presence and/or absence of boundary organizations as mediators of the science–policy boundaries experienced by scientists themselves. The purpose of this paper, however, is not to investigate one or several boundary organization(s). Rather, it is to gain some perspective on the way that the community of agricultural biotechnology as represented by the scientists in the study encounters the kinds of science–policy relationships that these boundary organizations are supposed to address. In this context, the sociologically significant questions include: What are scientists’ experiences of the science–policy interface, both as individual scientists and research groups? As a corollary, are boundary organizations important mediators of this interface?

 

Before dwelling upon the study and its findings in detail, it will be useful to explore briefly the concept of ‘boundary organizations’ and the way they play a mediating role between science and politics. Early research on boundary organizations characterized them as somewhat useful and much needed new institutional forms, bringing with them the possibility, at least, of ‘stabilizing the potential chaos of the science–politics boundary.’⁶ They are expected to perform at least three important functions in a political and technological climate in which scientific, commercial, regulatory and public domains are becoming increasingly interconnected.⁷

* They provide a space where common languages and ways of talking across the two domains of science and politics can be created.

* They bring together the different parties (scientists, regulators, bureaucrats and decision makers, and so on) working in these different domains.

* They dwell in the interstitial spaces between these social worlds – broadly speaking, of science and policy respectively – yet they carve out distinct lines of responsibility and accountability to each one.⁸

 

The boundary organizations are expected to ward off the perceived threats of politicized or over-commercialized research and strive to monitor imbalances and misunderstandings in relationships between researchers and those sponsoring research.⁹ The concept of ‘boundary organization’ can be seen relevant to other cultural and institutional settings (according to a scientist at the Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore). In India, for example, we might characterize as boundary organizations the grant review boards of some research councils, the research and technology transfer offices within universities, and certain departments and offices within the Government of India (for instance, the Centre of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Department of Science and Technology, the Department of Biotechnology, etc.). All these bodies perform the above mentioned functions deemed characteristic of boundary objects outlined above.

 

The present study argues that boundary organizations are proliferating in India, as the issues that societies face in scientific, technological, economic and social terms pose challenges that neither ‘science’ nor ‘policy’ can address in isolation. We can also observe an even greater degree of proliferation of boundary organizations in the UK, US, and so on.¹⁰ Nevertheless, it would be pertinent to raise certain questions: Do boundary organizations stabilize the relationship between research and politics? As a corollary, in what ways do these boundary organizations perform their tasks, and how does it affect scientists, science and knowledge making?

There appears to be an enduring belief in the discipline of science studies that scientists are the kind of actors that ‘do’ boundary work rather than reflect upon and analyze their roles in it.¹¹ Contrary to this assumption, the present study is based on the idea that contemporary scientists are exposed to the intensification of science–policy boundaries of various kinds, and have the ability to ‘sit back’ and reflect on their own involvement in this boundary work. This helps us explore how contemporary scientists might reflect on their own knowledge making, whilst assuming that such knowledge making might be affected by the changing science–policy boundaries.

 

The study attempts explicitly to provoke scientists to talk in ways with reference to what Woolgar¹² calls ‘moralizers’, or the kind of everyday work that goes into making scientific knowledge. Modalities, such as reference to: (a) agency (the discoverer, scientist, author); (b) the agent’s action (claiming, writing, constructing); and (c) antecedent circumstances bearing upon the agent’s action (motives for making claims, interests in acting in a certain way, and so on) usually tend, according to Woolgar, to be omitted from scientists’ account of their own work. As others have found,¹³ scientists tend to speak about their work in a largely ‘empiricist’ way. That is, they tend to ‘depict their accounts and beliefs as a natural medium through which empirical phenomena make themselves evident,’¹⁴ thus neglecting their own role in undertaking research, or describing the attendant circumstances.

Now it is pertinent to capture the scientists’ ‘talk’ that includes reflection about ‘moralizers’, to increase the amount of ‘contingent’ talk that, in Gilbert and Mulkay’s terms, ‘enables speakers [scientists] to depict professional actions and beliefs as being significantly influenced by factors outside the realm of empirical biological phenomena.’¹⁵ The empirical results of the study endorse many of the insights that Gibbons et al., Nowotny et al. and Leydesdorff et al., have produced about the nature of contemporary science and science’s ‘changing social contract’ in what they call a ‘Mode 2’ and ‘triple-helix’ forms of knowledge production.¹⁶

 

In this regard, it is important to note that more senior scientists were interviewed, as they were witness to the institutional changes that have taken place since the introduction of the IPR in WTO in 1995. They seem to hold that there has been an increasing emphasis on contract, industry sponsored and/or user related work and simultaneously a decline in funds for basic research. Scientists engaged in research in agricultural biotechnology across various institutional settings included in the study seem to secure their funds from an enormous array of sources (including research councils, industry, national government bodies, foreign funding agencies, etc.).

It appears that one of the essential skills of the contemporary scientists is to ‘parallel process’¹⁷ (that is, to carry out several pieces of research simultaneously) and to attract new research grants from a variety of sources. The present study dwells upon scientists’ experience with and in the boundary organizations, which is evident from the ‘talk’ of the scientists included in the study. On the one hand, scientists’ experience with the boundary organizations may be seen as grant-seekers. On the other, scientists’ experience in the boundary organizations may be seen as members of advisory committees, expert committees, review committees, etc.

 

There exists a self-conscious awareness amongst many scientists interviewed of the potential compromises and adjustments in research within this kind of context. Such compromises and adjustments are often a result either of constraints imposed by the frequently short-term nature of funding, or because of the commercial interests and influence of sponsors. Lack of funding for basic research pursuits, competition for funding and the growth of user-oriented research also seem to have had the effect of eroding a sense of community among scientists, as mentioned earlier. As a community, scientists appear weak and fragmented. In this context, a striking finding was a lack of reference to stabilizing boundary organizations of the sort that Guston, Miller and Waterton et al. (2001) have described, despite the fact that scientists do encounter the science–policy boundary increasingly often.¹⁸

A ‘new contract’ between science and society,¹⁹ the commodification of science,²⁰ the commercialization of science within universities²¹ and the changing notions of and changing conceptualization of relations between pure and applied science²² demonstrate that agricultural biotechnologists are trying to understand the nature and effects of changing funding structures in science and the implications of these for the hitherto existing structure and character of science. What such authors are studying, in effect, is a historical change in the cultural classification of science.²³

 

In this regard, it would be pertinent to dwell upon the questions relating to the protocols laid down in the IPR that were driven by the strategy of the Government of India designed to encourage efficiency by demarcating and splitting the so-called ‘basic’ and ‘applied’ sciences. The aim was to promote greater competition within the research community and increase the proportion of research that had industrial relevance, thus speeding up the process of innovation in scientific research. And, subsequently, since the 1990s, cuts in publicly funded basic science budgets would make up a much larger proportion of their overall budget through contract research, often ‘applied’ in nature. As a consequence of which scientists in both university and institute settings face the question of demonstrating the applied and/or ‘user’ benefits of research in funding applications.

 

Scientists in the present study primarily dwell upon two important effects of the new institutional regime on scientific research: (a) by bringing about an imperative to make research useful to solve real-world problems, this regime introduces a discourse on the accountability of scientists for the science funding they receive; and (b) by cutting institutional research budgets, this regime introduces financial conditions in research institutes and universities, which implies that research is henceforth to become much more commercially and/or contract dependent.

The study banks upon the interviews with senior scientists located in different institutional settings in India, as mentioned earlier. The senior scientists were witness to the uptake of the protocols of the IPR within their own institutes and universities (which, in turn, are affected by their sponsoring research councils such as the CSIR) have some particularly interesting observations to make about the science–policy boundaries both in the pre- and post-IPR regime. Their accounts are evidently boundary making in themselves. More specifically, scientists often contrasted a picture of a stabilized set of ideals underpinning science with a much less secure and more valuable portrayal of science observed by them to follow in the wake of new customer/contract relationships set in place with the implementation of the IPR norms.

There are three possible outcomes of the IPR regime: (a) totally pure research; (b) totally industry sponsored research; and (c) a combination of (a) and (b). The present study suggests that a majority of the scientists in the study are inclined to do more industry sponsored research projects without losing sight of pure research. Obviously, a marked change can be traced here: though a majority of the agricultural biotechnologists in the study pursue a combination of pure and industry sponsored research. Amongst the agricultural biotechnologists interviewed for the study it was industry sponsored research that received the utmost attention.

 

The customer/contract norm introduced through the implementation of the protocols of IPR in 1995, and consolidated thereafter, raises many questions about what ‘good science’ consists of as interpreted by practising scientists. Scientists often do contrast and compare what are held to be intrinsically valued and valuable scientific questions with questions that, under the new institutional regime, would be framed by policy or regulatory concerns and could engender lucrative income in terms of bringing research funds to one’s department or institute.

New contractual relationships between scientists, on the one hand, and, funding agencies and policy makers, on the other have led to scientific research that is not always oriented towards goals intrinsic to the extension of certified knowledge (the institutional goal of science), as described by Merton.²⁴ Bringing in research revenue by adapting research to a particular application or policy problem often becomes just as important as meeting intrinsic scientific goals, not least because it would bring in much required research revenue to institutes that also require demonstrating the usefulness of their research. A scientist from the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune tried to capture a situation in which financial and policy demands are fused:

‘I guess you have got this trade-off between... Well, there are two or three things going on, I suppose. There is one of us, a basic scientist who wants to get to the very bottom of thing, which is difficult in most of our areas. It is almost wishing the impossible to really know what is going on. Suppose, you are a commissioned research worker and you have to produce a report and you know these managers need some guidance on different problems that they have. And, then, a thing that you have flying around is the fact that you really wanted more money out of these people to fund more for research.

‘I guess that is the one that… can cause problems generally, I think, in science as it is today. To my mind the bottom line is good scientific advice to the user committee. There have been a number of times when I could have developed the argument in a certain way, which would then ensure more money coming in for me, but it is not necessarily the best way forward. I mean it would not be dishonest to do it that way; it’s just not the best way, like we could do another year of observation of [X plant variety] at [Y] and bring in another huge [Z] amount of money. I mean, I do not know, which would help us to understand the situation, but it would not be anything like that return that the first year gave you.’

 

A majority of the scientists in India emphasize that the need to bring in more funding to their respective research institutes and university departments has become the ‘norm’ of the day. One may call it a ‘given’ in contemporary science. Today, funding concerns influence and subsequently shape science in terms of project boundaries, what lies within and outside the boundaries of a specific project, and can also guide the parameters of the kinds of work that scientists can and/or cannot legitimately do. The concerns of researchers to bring in their ‘share’ of funding to their respective institutes and/or centres may, therefore, shape the content of the knowledge to be produced and the representation of that knowledge including the treatment and representation of uncertainties in knowledge.²⁵

 

The influence of contract funding brings with it relatively unpredictable and varied patterns in research activity. The pressure to bring in research funding allied with the demand for policy accountability also introduces a kind of diversity within a scientist’s repertoire of projects. For example, a scientist located in a university department or a research institute works simultaneously on several kinds of contracts: contracts with industry (for instance, the Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company Limited, Hyderabad); policy-oriented contracts for the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, and further contracts with the international research institutes and companies. For each of these contracts, the scientist indicates a different kind of relationship with the funding body, which, in turn, makes that particular scientist conceive of the research and the kind of knowledge/facts that require to be created in subtly different ways. In each researcher-customer relationship, this also implies a different emphasis on the knowledge produced and the communication of research results.

A diversity of forms of contract is likely to exist in science–policy relationships; what is interesting to note is that the way different relationships shape the different kinds of knowledge produced. Projects, according to a few scientists, work best if they are ‘built around’ the customers’ needs in an ‘integrative’ manner. Nevertheless, this is only one of many strategies that individual scientists are constantly negotiating or ‘co-producing’ with their ‘customers’. Certain strategies adopted by scientists work well too. Other strategies present specific problems, and are of concern to practicing scientists as well as of interest to boundary studies, which is elaborated upon in the section on ‘shifting boundaries within science’.

However, the variation in co-construction of the science–policy boundary in which scientists play a part implies that research questions, resulting knowledge and anticipated outputs are always calibrated together with policy questions, policy knowledge and policy understanding of what constitute acceptable outputs. The various science–policy domains and boundaries that result are often true ‘co-productions’²⁶: they are also multiple, even for individual scientists and they may be somewhat unpredictable and temporary. The sense of this situation within science is also felt, on some occasions, as a source of disorientation, which requires further articulation from sociologists of science.

 

We have discussed the processes underlying science–policy boundary formation and the way scientists in the study not only become part of the processes but also offer critical reflection on the questions relating to such boundary making. However, it does not imply that each scientist in the study possesses an identical perspective on the science–policy boundary. Greater degrees of commercialization and policy orientation have the effect of fracturing any idealized sense of ‘community’ held by scientists, encouraging the rise of specific communities in science contingent upon a variety of contexts. As a matter of fact, this divergence of perspectives leads scientists in such a way as to utilize and sometimes influence funding agencies earmarked for policy formulation. The changing structure of scientific research in India emphasizes competition among scientists located in various institutional settings in India.

 

A scientist from the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai points out:

‘Effectively, the scientists had their budget cut, and then it changed to... Well, we do not see why we [M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai] should give you the money. We are just going to add, when we want some work done, we are going to put it out to tender and you are going to have to tender for it. …And, not only did they have to expect you to tender for the money and to compete against other organizations such as private environmental consultancies, universities. …The research institutes actually were then asked to put up ideas for research. So, they then put [forward] the ideas, and these ideas were then promptly put out to tender by the Ministry. …So, you found yourself competing for work…which was marvellous! And, we were very naïve.’

This particular scientist had earlier worked with a UK-based research institute for most of his professional career and was, at the time of the interview, close to the age of retirement. Explaining the effects that he considers to have taken place, he implicitly evokes an ideal somewhat akin to Merton’s ‘communism’ in science: the ideal that scientific results and ideas should be made freely available to others and should not stimulate competition and conditions of secrecy and rivalry among different stakeholders – scientist/inventor/author, research institute/university/industry, funding agency, market, customer, etc. He does object to a context of competition that once implemented in a structurally significant way, pitted scientists against their peers, creating conditions whereby scientists would do better to keep their ideas to themselves rather than openly share them. Steven Rose appropriately captures these impulses:

‘I have never felt so seriously competitive. As patenting has become so common, as industry has moved onto the campuses, it is competition, not cooperation which is at a premium. Even within the same lab, there can be Chinese walls between researchers funded by different sponsors. We no longer speak openly about our most recent work at scientific conferences because to do so would give our colleagues a head start.’²⁷

 

Further, the peer review process, also related to the principle of ‘communism’, and a procedure that scientists appear to hold as almost inviolable within science, is also perceived to be under threat of ‘new’ customer-contract relationships. Working for customers, who are simultaneously funders and policy makers, which requires a particular way of thinking about scientific claims and knowledge-making, becomes difficult to reconcile with forms of more ‘basic’ scientific research. As a scientist from the Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore puts it:

‘We have to write up papers, we have to see niches where we can make contributions and where we can satisfy the requirement of editorial boards and still publish to maintain our scientific integrity and the respect of the scientific community for us. So we have got to combine this, keeping the good science going, with getting [more] money in. Some of the areas where people [funding agencies] are willing to give us money, they cause us to work in a way that is not very easy for us to write up good scientific papers.’

 

Getting research papers published as well as doing short-term contractual work is described as a juggling act. The scientist mentioned above conveys how, in a sense, the whole map of doing science has changed. The kind of science that scientists carry out these days is described as being so different that it is difficult to write up good scientific papers. This scientist is effectively asking herself the question as to whether what she was doing ‘to get the money in’ was really what she would call ‘science’, and whether such work would ever be able to be exposed to the peer-review process, or gain recognition through that process.

Of course, a few of the scientists interviewed refer back to selected traditional norms of science in order to (re)orient their present-day experiences of the customer-funder-policy boundary. It is significant to note that these few scientists experience the new, different, unsettling and challenging context of knowledge production in terms of a focal identity (in terms of ‘scientific community’ per se) and sense of purpose as scientists. Though these changes started to occur since 1995 and unprecedented levels of contract research have become the norm, scientists in India appear to be trying to map out ‘new’ cultural spaces of science.²⁸

We have discussed scientists’ reflection on research practices that illustrate the way in which they seem to be improvising the science–policy boundary according to the particular relationships they are building with numerous research funding bodies in the changed and changing contexts. Despite certain difficulties and stresses, scientists seem to be reacting to the structural conditions of science in fairly autonomous and quite creative and diverse ways.

Yet, the boundary making between scientific and policy making knowledge according to a scientist located at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad appears quite different. There exists an unequal relationship between scientists and the other parties involved in shaping the course of their research. A scientist from the CCMB, Hyderabad alludes to the problem that, ‘scientists who depend on income have to play the game’, even if they find that certain parts of the game are posing strains on their ability to do what they consider to be ‘good science’.

 

In interacting with scientists working in different institutional settings, it becomes clear that this is an area of significant concern. What is significant to note here is that a more powerful boundary organization of the Government of India responsible for reviewing research proposals is imposing a particular type of research relationship between science and policy on the one hand, and between individual scientists, on the other. The scientist from the CCMB, Hyderabad reacts to such situations:

‘It is almost impossible to get research done that is not policy directed. And, the trouble is, policy directives do not actually understand the implications of what they are asking. …[W]e spend a lot of time putting cattle into mice, you know, muscle, mammary gland, saliva, etc., huge, millions of pounds spent on it. Why? So that the politicians can say that the material was not infected. But, the assay was wrong: you cannot assay cattle infectivity in mice.’

 

The problem identified by the scientist from the CCMB, Hyderabad is not that the policy makers do not know enough to hire a reliable scientist, and, hence, may inadvertently hire an unreliable scientist. Further, policy makers allegedly do not know enough to know what scientific questions and methods are appropriate. Meanwhile, the balance of power appears to rest unequivocally with the boundary organization responsible for funding research, not with the scientist. What results, in this instance, is an intense contestation about who should be decisive in the definition and characterization of good research, and what should and/or should not be funded. As a scientist from the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi puts it:

‘Not only does industry criticize, or comment, or value-judge pathology, virology, proteinology, epidemiology. Not only do they criticize, comment on all the areas of these disciplines. They comment on it within salmonella, tuberculosis, everything! Now there is absolutely no way that these scientists should be allowed to influence how a project is designed, if a project is designed properly, or if it is not.’

In the light of this, ‘a boundary organization is in place to negotiate between science and policy, but this may not necessarily augur well for future trajectory of research’, as asserted by a scientist from the Bose Institute, Kolkata. In the area of agricultural biotechnology, it appears that particular versions of the relationship between scientist, on the one hand, and, boundary organization, on the other come to be judged as extremely risky and even ‘inefficient’ and ‘perverse’ to use Guston’s phrases.²⁹ In this scientific domain since the mid-1990s, the particular kind of organization that manages the science–policy boundary is becoming counter-productive for all stakeholders, in exactly the way Guston describes as ‘diverting from the goals of the scientists’ and thereby diverting from the basic ethos of scientific research.³⁰

 

A majority of the scientists in the present study indicate that reflection on ‘new’ boundaries and the associated tensions would be invisible in exchanges between scientists and funders/policy makers, though such tensions are relatively openly reflected upon while conducting personal interviews. Such relative silence amongst scientists about the renegotiation of boundaries between scientists, on the one hand, and associated research practices, on the other suggests that both the successes and the tensions encountered by the scientists in the present study, and the important cultural remapping that is going on, tend to have been internalized by individual scientists.

Boundary organizations are created in specific circumstances to straddle and manage the boundaries between science and politics. Beside the existence of boundary organizations, it appears that it has frequently become the responsibility of individual scientists to weigh up good science/bad science, or other pertinent boundary questions, in relation to the demands of meeting expectations within one’s institute or university research department. In some cases, it appears to be done in the absence of a carefully crafted boundary organization, or even, as it seems to be, despite having a boundary organization, the goals are not achieved.

 

In other words, the ‘new’ boundaries often appear to be experienced on an individual basis: it appears individual scientists take on a certain responsibility to make up a specific proportion of their research income through commercial research. Individual scientists in the study, therefore, often have to negotiate and (re)define research relationships with various customers who are simultaneously engaged in policymaking and funding for research. In the absence of boundary organizations, there are few ‘templates’ to fall back upon.³¹

The scientists in this study indicate that they are engaged in a kind of lone boundary work that they feel is essential if they wish to continue earning part of their income from temporary contract research. This appears to raise many questions and dilemmas for individual scientists. Meanwhile, as carrying out boundary work between themselves and their sponsoring contractual partners, they use recollections of these negotiations in interview to reflect on their own identities as scientists. Of course, for some of the scientists interviewed, the boundaries are very mutable, raising epistemological questions about the kinds of knowledge that is produced and judged to be relevant in certain specific contexts.

The following interaction with a plant breeder at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi suggests the characteristic mutability of the boundary: s/he describes three modes of communicating the results of his research depending on who you are communicating with – fellow scientists, policy makers, or sponsors of research. Describing this problem, this particular scientist seems to be experimenting with his/her own identity as a scientist as much as s/he is experimenting with the organisms s/he is researching. S/he describes, for example, the ease of understanding and communication s/he feels with fellow scientists: ‘We are like lawyers talking the same language. The good ones, the able ones, can assess, you know, the level of certainty on which you ought to be making recommendations.’

 

A scientist from the IARI, New Delhi, then, goes on to contrast this with the opposite extreme, where he is talking to those who ‘are putting huge money into the project’, when the scientist feels that he has to be very upbeat about the probabilities of a certain positive result concerning his experiments. This is something that he suggests troubles him: ‘I have sometimes been a bit uncomfortable about how positively I have had to speak about things, about what was going to happen, and luckily the things I have spoken about have worked… But, one hasn’t: it is a difficult one…’

Thus, scientists located in various institutional settings in India are both observing their own actions and weighing up their own understanding of what constitutes appropriate research and appropriate modes of communicating that research. They admit their discomfort and suggest that the changing situation leads them to ‘go against their instincts as scientists’. However, it is worth gauging their current research activities against these ‘instincts’, which act as anchoring ‘norms’ that provide a template to show how far their research has departed from their perceived traditional ideals.

Here, we can trace two perspectives through which scientific knowledge is shaped in accordance with the particular context in which scientists find themselves practising. Both perspectives illustrate that this is done with an element of self-consciousness and difficulty, and in a way that puts the responsibility for their actions and statements on themselves as part of the scientific community and the associated research practices. The first perspective is about difficulty and doubt in creating relatively flexible borders between scientific practices and the customer-funding-policy entity – an entity that steers scientists towards underemphasizing certain aspects of the knowledge produced (notably, uncertainty). The second perspective is about a less flexible stance, a kind of invariable ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ statement, although at the same time worrying about this entails underestimating uncertainty, but for a different reason from that outlined above.

 

The scientists in this study are evidently adept at negotiating within a variety of different types of policy contexts – a viable direction in terms of continuing to produce scientific knowledge in their respective fields. It appears they forge ahead with many new and interesting relationships to have worries and concerns that depart from broader issues of ‘identity’, ‘instinct’ and ‘norms’ that could be said to properly belong to scientists. Despite scientists’ obvious skill at navigating ‘new’ terrain, this disorientation may be important to recognize as existing ‘outside’ organized science–policy relationships.

The ‘new contract’ between science and society is characterized by the commodification of science. The commercialization of science within universities is contingent upon the changing notions of and changing conceptualization of relations between pure and applied science. The changing funding structures of science have consequences and implications for not only the nature of science but the existing structure and character of science.

 

Footnotes:

1. A. Pickering, The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency and Science. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1995.

2. P. Bourdieu, ‘Participant Objectivation’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 9(2), 2003, pp. 281-294.

3. Kurt Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science: Selected Theoretical Papers. Harper Torchbooks, 1951.

4. Edward J. Hackett, ‘Essential Tensions: Identity, Control, and Risk in Research’, Social Studies of Science 35(5), 2005, pp. 787-826.

5. D.H. Guston, ‘Stabilizing the Boundary Between US Politics and Science: The Role of the Office of Technology Transfer as a Boundary Organization’, Social Studies of Science 29(1), 1999, pp. 87-111.

6. D.H. Guston, ‘Boundary Organizations in Environmental Policy and Science: An Introduction’, Science, Technology and Human Values 26(4), 2001, pp. 399-408.

7. M. Jacob and T. Hellstrom (eds.), The Future of Knowledge Production in the Academy. Open University Press, Milton Keynes, 2000; S. Slaughter and G. Rhoades, ‘The Emergence of a Competitiveness Research and Development Policy Coalition and the Commercialization of Academic Science and Technology’, Science, Technology and Human Values 21(3), 1996, pp. 303-339; P. Shorett, P. Rainbow and P.R. Billings, ‘The Changing Norms of the Life Sciences’, Nature Biotechnology 21(2), 2003, pp. 123-125; A. Webster, ‘University-Corporate Ties and the Construction of Research Agendas’, Sociology 28(1), 1994, pp. 123-142; J. Ziman, Prometheus Bound. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994.

8. D.H. Guston, op cit., 1999, p.93; D.H. Guston, op cit., 2001, p. 401.

9. C. Waterton, ‘ "Scientists" Boundary Work: Scientists’ Conceptions of the Boundaries between their Own Research and Policy’, Science and Public Policy 32(6), 2005, pp. 435-444.

10. Brian Wynne, Jack Stilgoe and James Wilsdon, The Public Value of Science or How to Ensure That Science Really Matters. DEMOS London, 2005, p. 51.

11. T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago University Press, Chicago/London, 1970, p. 47; T.F. Gieryn, ‘Boundaries of Science’ in S. Jasanoff, G. Markle, J.C. Peterson and T. Pinch (eds.), Handbook of Science and Technology Studies. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks/ London/ New Delhi, 1995, pp. 393-443; K. Knorr-Cetina, The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science. Pergamon Press, Oxford/New York/Toronto/ Sydney/Paris/Frankfurt, 1981; S. Woolgar, Science: The Very Idea. Ellis Horwood Press, Chichester, 1988.

12. S. Woolgar, ibid., p. 71.

13. N. Gilbert and M. Mulkay, Opening Pandora’s Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientists’ Discourse. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1984.

14. N. Gilbert and M. Mulkay, ibid., p. 56.

15. N. Gilbert and M. Mulkay, ibid., p. 57.

16. M. Gibbons, C. Limoges, H. Nowotny, S. Schwartzman, P. Scott and M. Trow, The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies. Sage, London, 1994; H. Nowotny, P. Scott and M. Gibbons, Rethinking Science: Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty. Polity, London, 2000; L. Leydesdorff, R. Viale, H. Etzkowitz and S. Metcalfe, ‘Third Academic Revolution: Polyvalent Knowledge, the DNA of Triple Helix.’ Opening Plenary Session, 5th Triple Helix Conference on The Capitalization of Knowledge: Cognitive, Economic, Social and Cultural Aspects, Turin, Italy, 18-21 May 2005 (mimeo).

17. C. Waterton, 2005, op cit.

18. D.H. Guston, 1999, op cit.; D.H. Guston, 2001, op cit.; C. Miller, ‘Hybrid Management: Boundary Organizations, Science Policy, and Environmental Governance in the Climate Regime’, Science, Technology and Human Values 26(4), 2001, pp. 478-500; C. Waterton, 2005.

19. M. Gibbons et al., 1994, op cit.; H. Nowotny et al., 2000.

20. H. Etzkowitz and L. Leyesdorff, Universities and the Global Knowledge Economy. Pinter Press, Herndon, VA, 1997; H. Etzkowitz and L. Leyesdorff, ‘The Dynamics of Innovation: From National Systems and ‘Mode 2’ to a Triple Helix of University-Industry-Government Relations’, Research Policy 29(2), 2000, pp. 109-123.

21. M. Jacob and T. Hellstrom (eds.), op cit., 2000; B. Godin and Y. Gingras, ‘The Place of Universities in the System of Knowledge Production’, Research Policy 29(2), 2000, pp. 273-278.

22. M. Callon and G. Bowker, ‘Is Science a Public Good?’ Science, Technology and Human Values 19(4), 1994, pp. 395-424; K. Pavitt, ‘Public Policies to Support Basic Research: What Can the Rest of the World Learn from US Theory and Practice? (And What They Should not Learn)’, Industrial and Corporate Change 10(3), 2001, pp. 761-779.

23. T.F. Gieryn, op cit., 1995, p. 419.

24. R.K. Merton, The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1973.

25. C. Waterton, op cit., 2005.

26. S. Jasanoff, Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2005.

27. J. Wilsdon et al., op cit., 2005, p. 21.

28. T.F. Gieryn, op cit., 1995, p. 416.

29. D.H. Guston, op cit., 2001.

30. D.H. Guston, op cit., 2001, p. 93.

31. C. Waterton, op cit., 2005.