BOUNDARY WORK: SCIENCE VERSUS OTHER PROFESSIONS Vocation also generates a specific way of organising the profession outwardly in

while still working hard throughout the day (and possibly night) is recognised as the way to live up to the Vocation. As a consequence of Vocation, the daily work of science is organised as a never-ending exploration of possibilities, albeit one that should be conducted in a concentrated and focused manner. I will return to the differences between this understanding of time and the one in Oikos in the next chapter.

7.3.3 BOUNDARY WORK: SCIENCE VERSUS OTHER PROFESSIONS

In Miriam’s interpretation, ‘management types’, be it researchers studying management (some of the teachers running the course) or professional managers do not add much of value. They only share ‘banal points’ and do not possess much more knowledge or expertise than the average layperson. My impression is, based on this experience and the PhD students’ disdain for the course in general, that they do not consider it real knowledge in line with the norms of their own Vocation. It is not scientific. This may also have something to do with the fact that this course is about earning money on medical inventions. Despite the fact that some of the PhD students will end up doing exactly that, and have voluntarily enrolled themselves in the course, they consider business a lower pursuit in life; something that ‘management types’ tend to do, not scientists. Scientists take care of ‘the truth’ and that is not an occupation they are supposed to earn money on. It also seems as if they equate making money with being a bit banal. Having a business is not something that demands highly specialised knowledge (your mother could advise you on it) in contrast to doing science, which demands skill, brains and patience (for more stories and elaboration in relation to the bio-business course, see Citizenship). This difference between science (as in the natural sciences) and other forms of research are often pointed out by some of the scientists. In the following, it is Henry, the lab director at Gyro Gearloose, who comments:

‘The real goal, if you have a real goal, is… you know you [scientists] are trying to find out if this hypothesis is true, and you do actually have some sort of real grounding, where in social science, my view is that social science would say, “Well, […] we all agree this is the right thing to do”, but two years later, [social scientists]

can all agree that this is the wrong thing to do.’

So scientists have a ‘real grounding’ because they are looking for a long-standing, solid fact, whereas social scientists can change their opinion every second year.

Again, this sets the natural sciences apart because they have that obligation to take care of the solid fact, something that not even other members of academia can claim.

So there is much talk about how the responsibility for the truth sets the scientific profession apart from other professions. But at times, they also – as Gieryn (1983) suggests – use this special obligation as an argument for professional autonomy, especially in relation to public science’s ability to deliver innovation and growth.

Miriam from Curious George is preoccupied with the differences between private industry and public science:

‘It’s a source of annoyance when you follow the public debate and you listen to companies who complain that we [public scientists] are not innovative enough and [they say things like] “If our company got a better tax agreement, then we could get all the world’s scientists up here.” Well, that’s not true, because you can see how the companies cut and cut in their Research and Development departments, and they focus on ‘perfume-big-sellers’ where they wrap their old innovations in new wrapping paper and then that’s what they make their money on. And fair enough, if that’s what they want, but then don’t come crying and say that Danish scientists are not ready to take the big chances in science and innovation.’

Miriam complains that public science is pressured by industry in the media. In this view, public science is being accused of not being ‘innovative’ enough or ready to take ‘big chances’ in science and innovation. In my interpretation, she tries to negotiate some space to do science as she wants to do it, by firing some of the same claims back at industry: They are not nearly ‘innovative’ enough, as they do not actually contribute with new inventions, they just make some small adjustments to known technologies and sell them as something new. The implicit argument is that this is in stark contrast to public scientists, who actually do real science, which is understood as discovering important stuff by ‘taking big chances’. The difference

between industry and public science is often up for debate in different contexts. The scientists position themselves as different because they do not have to worry about the bottom line. In the following, it is Simon from Curious George:

‘You asked what qualifications are needed in order to work at a place like this […], you need flair for – and find delight in – being occupied with things that are politically decided and politically oriented. And by that, I contrast it to things being decided by black numbers on the bottom line. And that is a difference in ways of thinking. If you only want black numbers on the bottom line and want that to control your research, then you’re an industrial scientist – or you should consider becoming it. I’m not saying that this affects you all the time, but there are some connections in some kind of way. As a public scientist, you can see it in the way that you adapt your applications to the calls, but it doesn’t affect your research. You adjust the application, even though you research the same subjects as always – and that is a talent as well.’

First, Simon asserts that being a public scientist demands that one work with the political conditions and in a system whose directions are decided politically. He contrasts being regulated at the political system with that of being regulated by the market – ‘black numbers on the bottom line’. He adds that it takes a special kind of person to be in public science, someone who does not want to be regulated by numbers, but rather something else (which he does not explicate). In my interpretation, this unmentioned something else is the ‘truth’. Being regulated by the political system does not ‘affect research’ because only what is true or not true do that. But it takes a special ‘talent’ to write applications and still not let it affect your daily work. Again, I consider it as an instance of boundary work. This is because Simon contrasts being regulated by the market with that of being regulated by the political system. But the trick in the political system is that the scientists can still

maintain their responsibility for ‘the truth’ – as long as they know just how to write the right things in their applications.

Considering the two last quotes, Miriam’s and Simon’s, together, they present a picture of science in competition with industry, one where public scientists need to assert their particular virtues in contrast to those framing private science, and thus underscore their right to certain forms of autonomy. Turner (1980) comments in his analysis of Victorian public science that, ‘the pursuit of public science has involved lobbying various non-scientific elites […] and defining the position of scientists vis-à-vis other rival intellectual or social elites, such as the clergy’ (Turner 1980: 590)

Whereas the clergy has a less prominent role in relation to these cases now, I consider

‘industry’ to be a ‘rival’ that puts pressure on public science to perform in a specific way and in relation to different principles, most notably those of ‘the bottom line’.

Gieryn (1983) comments that boundary work is locally constituted and strategic in its endeavours (: 784). Here, the strategy seems to be that the scientists distinguish themselves from industrial science in order to maintain their autonomy. The scientists try to construct a space for themselves where they can pursue their scholarly interests and get funding despite the pressures they feel from industry as well as from those university reforms that have forced public research organisations to mimic private industry, with competition as a basic incentive (Shore and Wright 2000) They do that by referring to two principles; namely, by actively stating that they are ‘ready to take big chances’ while, at the same time, being grounded in responsibility for the truth, where the research ‘is not affected’ despite different political priorities.

As such, they use boundary work to distance themselves from what they feel most pressured by, namely, industry and being regulated by financialisation. But this

boundary work also has consequences internally. The extra emphasis on the scientific profession as noble adds to the pressure that the juniors feel for doing a good job:

As part of the closing seminar I gave at Curious George, I had included anonymous quotes from my interviews that I found telling about the nature of that organization.

The idea was that the scientists should discuss whether they recognised the situations or values that were described in the quotes. It was a way for me to ‘test’ whether some of the impressions I got from individual scientists during interviews were recognised among the rest of the group. One of the quotes expressed disappointment in the research environment in terms of prioritising fast publications over self-criticism. When I reached the slide with that particular quote, the ambience of the approximately 40 scientists grew uncomfortable. People whispered and looked worried. Only one of the PIs spoke up. He was troubled by the quote and said that

‘something should be done’ if this was a general impression. He maintained that scientific rigour was one of the most important issues for the lab. The juniors mostly looked at their shoes. Afterwards, one of the juniors approached me. He was worried that it was his quote [it was not] that I presented. If it was his, he stated he felt that he had shared more with me during the interview than he should have. Furthermore, Canute, the head of the section, was quite worried and wanted to know if that quote was a single incident or a more general impression. He really wanted the juniors to understand that the importance of honesty and scientific rigour was above everything else. Nothing should change that, not even demands for fast publications.

It took some time to sort things out. I promised the PhD student that he could read his interview through and withdraw all the statements he was not comfortable with.

Meanwhile, several of the juniors approached me with comments about recognising

‘their’ quotes. None of them were right, however. I also spent some time explaining my interpretation of the situation and the quote to Canute and a couple of other PIs.

As soon as they got the interpretation, they were not worried anymore and even agreed. Roughly the same interpretation as I put forward here. As I have already described in ‘being critical’ (7.1.3), the juniors feel that it is quite difficult to learn the appropriate level of criticism. They simply have difficulties in knowing when something is ‘true’ enough. Usually, they are more rigorous and critical – just to be on the safe side – than the seniors think necessary. Looking at this phenomenon again in relation to boundary work, another dimension can be added to this picture of insecurity. Not only is the responsibility for the truth something they need to learn and contextualise in specific situations. At the same time, they need to maintain that they are noble, trustworthy and deserve to do autonomous science. The grand and shared stories about scientific virtues are not necessarily compatible with ordinary organisational work life to someone just starting out on a scientific career. But as the juniors have learned to be honest and respect ‘the truth’ since the beginning of their university lives, they do not look favourably at the specific everyday setting they are part of.

So on the one hand, the responsibility to be precise sets the scientists apart as a special profession, which takes responsibility for the truth and not just having ‘black numbers on the bottom line’. On the other hand, being a member of this special profession also feeds the insecurity related to the standards for good work among the junior staff. The mode of Vocation does not only produce rigorous work, an understanding of time as precious resource and an identity as a noble professional, it also produces a large amount of insecurity for those learning to conduct themselves in this system.