What are Research Infrastructures?

Abstract

This paper reflects on what research infrastructures are, suggesting that there are two dominant themes – one arising from the funding bodies postulating that research infrastructure development offers unprecedented opportunities to drive forward that which is new, which is innovative, and which drives competition and success; the other which suggests that infrastructure is subordinate, a substrate that supports the real work of research, and which becomes a thing that shifts into the background and is invisible. This paper argues that neither of these positions is wholly true or particularly helpful as we move to invest significant sums of money in digital research infrastructures. Instead, I propose that we need to view infrastructure as a material and experiential presence that is embedded in the practices and experience of research, which builds on and enhances that which already exists, that unites scholars with archivists, librarians, and museum curators, and that also finds a place for the amateur. Finally, and most importantly, I wish to argue that we must foreground the ‘research’ in ‘research infrastructures’. concentrating less on the component parts of infrastructure and instead focusing on its relationship to research practices.