Constructing “Disinterested” Academic Science

Abstract

This article analyzes how exchange participants in university–industry agricultural biotechnology research collaborations manage and create differences between the academy and industry with regard to the open dissemination and commercialization of scientific knowledge. Our focus is on the constitutive relations that define the boundary between academic and commercial science. We identify a particular “relational package” that formalizes and standardizes exchanges of money from industry for privileged access to university research discoveries. Our analysis of academic scientists’ justificatory narratives about their patenting decisions challenges the oft-made assertion that academic patenting on its face should be taken as evidence of a blurred institutional boundary between academic and commercial science.