On the boundary of services and research collaborations in Japanese state-of-the-art academic research infrastructures

Abstract

Abstract Recently, research infrastructures (RIs) are recognized to take on a crucial role in the national innovation system in driving open innovation via shared use that include offering measurement service to external users. Generally, these services are performed by staff in line with the social division of labor as scientists and technicians in research institutes. However, services rarely lead to research collaborations because research collaborations generally do not stem from services per se and require researchers to engage more with partners in initiating collaboration. This article focuses on its boundary of services and research collaborations by conducting an ethnographic survey of four years since 2016 to analyze epistemic cultures in eight Japanese state-of-the-art RIs. It first examines what is occurring at the boundaries and offers two frameworks, i.e. the subject-driven approach and the user-driven approach, for finding potential solutions to the issues that impedes service from extending into research collaboration.