Scientific collaboration in LSRIs: Collaboration types and policy implications (WITHDRAWN)

Abstract

Over the past decades, Large Scale Research Infrastructures (LSRIs) serving as user-oriented experimental platforms have come to play a central role in public science policy. Collaborations between (permanent) instrument scientists and users are at the core of these organisations, yet knowledge about the nature of such collaborations and their development over time is scarce. Based on a qualitative study of scientists and their collaborations at Institut Laue-Langevin, a world-leading neutron source, we identify four ideal-typical collaboration patterns, which reflect particular configurations of (dis)similarity between instrument scientists and users. Our findings suggest that the co-existence of multiple collaboration types is important for the long-term success of LSRIs. Our study contributes to previous research by focusing on the process of science collaboration, by looking at collaboration in context, and by addressing a previously under-researched organisational context for collaborative science.