What’s in a slogan? Translational science and the rhetorical work of cancer researchers in a UK university
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5324/njsts.v4i1.2170Keywords:
Translational science, Academic researchers, Cancer research, Research governanceAbstract
Translational science is currently proving a highly influential term in framing how biomedical research is promoted and evaluated in a great number of countries. Although there has been a steady trickle of scholarly literature on the topic, the performative uses effects of the term in practices of academic researchers has been under-researched. Drawing on interviews with members of a cancer laboratory and research institute in a UK research university, the paper analyzes various uses and contexts in which the slogan is deployed. The findings demonstrate the multi-dimensional uses of the term across different levels of the organisation, acting at one level as a managerial function for formulating an ‘impact’ narrative, whilst also fulfilling researcher requirements to satisfy demands made of them in pursuing funding and positions. Analyzing how this specific slogan functions in this site evokes a wider set of considerations about the kinds of rhetoric invoked and increasingly expected of cancer scientists in academic settings.
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References
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Calvert, J. 2006. "What's special about basic research?" Science Technology & Human Values 31 (2):199-220.
Cambrosio, A., P. Keating, S. Mercier, G. Lewison, and A. Mogoutov. 2006. "Mapping the emergence and development of translational cancer research." European Journal of Cancer 42 (18):3140-3148. doi: DOI 10.1016/j.ejca.2006.07.020.
Collins, Francis S. 2010. "Opportunities for Research and NIH." Science 327 (5961):36-37. doi: 10.1126/science.1185055.
Cooksey, D. 2006. A Review of UK Health Research Funding. London: HM Treasury.
Coopmans, Catelijne, Connor Graham, and Haslina Hamzah. 2012. "The Lab, the Clinic, and the Image: Working on Translational Research in Singapore’s Eye Care Realm." Science Technology & Society 17 (1):57-77. doi: 10.1177/097172181101700104.
DH. 2007. Best Research for Best Health: A New National Health Research Strategy. London: Department of Health.
Fujimura, J. H. 1988. "The Molecular Biological Bandwagon in Cancer-Research - Where Social Worlds Meet." Social Problems 35 (3):261-283.
Fujimura, Joan H. 1996. Crafting science: A sociohistory of the quest for the genetics of cancer: Harvard University Press.
Gilbert, G. Nigel, and M. J. Mulkay. 1984. Opening Pandora's box: A sociological analysis of scientists' discourse. Cambridge Cambridgeshire ; New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gläser, Jochen, S. Lange, G. Laudel, and U. Schimank. 2010. "Informed Authority? The Limited Use of Research Evaluation Systems for Managerial Control in Universities." In Reconfiguring Knowledge Production, edited by Richard Whitley, J. Glaser and Lars Engwall, 149-183. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Guston, David H. 2000. Between politics and science : assuring the integrity and productivity of research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
HEFCE. n.d. "Research Excellence Framework." Accessed 10 May 2013. http://www.ref.ac.uk/.
Hessels, Laurens K., and Harro van Lente. 2008. "Re-thinking new knowledge production: A literature review and a research agenda." Research Policy 37 (4):740-760. doi: 10.1016/j.respol.2008.01.008.
Irvine, John, and Ben R. Martin. 1984. Foresight in science : picking the winners. London ; Dover, N.H.: F. Pinter.
Kearnes, Matthew, and Matthias Wienroth. 2011. "Tools of the Trade: UK Research Intermediaries and the Politics of Impacts." Minerva 49 (2):153-174.
Knorr-Cetina, K. 1981. The manufacture of knowledge : an essay on the constructivist and contextual nature of science, Pergamon international library of science, technology, engineering, and social studies. Oxford ; New York: Pergamon Press.
Lander, Bryn, and Janet Atkinson-Grosjean. 2011. "Translational science and the hidden research system in universities and academic hospitals: A case study." Social Science & Medicine 72 (4):537-544. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.11.019.
Laudel, G., and J. Glaser. 2008. "From apprentice to colleague: The metamorphosis of early career researchers." Higher Education 55 (3):387-406.
Löwy, Ilana. 1996. Between bench and bedside : science, healing, and interleukin-2 in a cancer ward. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Martin, Ben R. 2011. "The Research Excellence Framework and the ‘impact agenda’: are we creating a Frankenstein monster?" Research Evaluation 20 (3):247-254.
Martin, P., N. Brown, and A. Kraft. 2008. "From Bedside to Bench? Communities of Promise, Translational Research and the Making of Blood Stem Cells." Science as Culture 17 (1):29.
McAneney, H., J. F. McCann, L. Prior, J. Wilde, and F. Kee. 2010. "Translating evidence into practice: A shared priority in public health?" Social Science & Medicine 70 (10):1492-1500. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.01.038.
Morris, N. 2000. "Science policy in action: Policy and the researcher." Minerva 38 (4):425-451.
Morris, N. 2010. "Authority Relations as Condition for, and Outcome of, Shifts in Governance: The Limited Impact of the UK RAE on the Biosciences." In Reconfiguring Knowledge Production: Changing Authority Relationships in the Sciences and their Consequences for Intellectual Production, edited by Richard Whitley, Jochen Gläser and Lars Engwall, 239-265. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Morris, Norma. 2003. "Academic researchers as agents of science policy." Science and Public Policy 30 (5):359-370. doi: 10.3152/147154303781780326.
Nowotny, H., P. Scott, and M. Gibbons. 2001. Re-Thinking Science. Cambridge: Polity.
Pettigrew, Andrew M. 2011. "Scholarship with Impact." British Journal of Management 22 (3):347-354.
Rettig, Richard. 2005. Cancer crusade: The story of the National Cancer Act of 1971: iUniverse.
Rey-Rocha, Jesús, and María José Martín-Sempere. 2012. "Generating favourable contexts for translational research through the incorporation of basic researchers into hospitals: The FIS/Miguel Servet Research Contract Programme." Science and Public Policy 39 (6):787-801. doi: 10.1093/scipol/scs053.
Rip, A. 2004. "Strategic Research, Post-Modern Universities and Research Training." Higher Education Policy 17:153-166.
Rip, A. 2011. "Science Institutions and Grand Challenges of Society: A Scenario." Asian Research Policy 2:1-9.
Ritchie, J., and L. Spencer. 1994. "Qualitative Data Analysis for Applied Policy Research." In Analysing Qualitative Data, edited by Alan Bryman and R. Burgess, 173-196. London: Routledge.
Shapin, Steven, and Simon Schaffer. 1985. Leviathan and the air-pump : Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental life : including a translation of Thomas Hobbes, Dialogus physicus de natura aeris by Simon Schaffer. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Slaughter, Sheila, and Gary Rhoades. 2004. Academic capitalism and the new economy : markets, state, and higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Stokes, Donald E. 1997. Pasteur's quadrant : basic science and technological innovation. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
Wainwright, S., C. Williams, M. Michael, and Alan Cribb. 2009. "Stem Cells, Translational Research, and the Sociology of Science." In Handbook of Genomics and Society: Mapping the New Genomics Era, edited by P. Atkinson, P. Glasner and M. Lock, 41-48. London: Routledge.
Wainwright, Steven P., Clare Williams, Mike Michael, Bobbie Farsides, and Alan Cribb. 2006. "From bench to bedside? Biomedical scientists’ expectations of stem cell science as a future therapy for diabetes." Social Science & Medicine 63 (8):2052-2064. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2006.05.003.
Whitley, Richard. 2000. The intellectual and social organization of the sciences. 2nd ed. Oxford England ; New York: Oxford University Press.
Whitley, Richard. 2011. "Changing Governance and Authority Relations in the Public Sciences." Minerva 49 (4):359-385. doi: 10.1007/s11024-011-9182-2.
Wilson-Kovacs, Dana M., and Christine Hauskeller. 2012. "The clinician-scientist: professional dynamics in clinical stem cell research." Sociology of Health & Illness 34 (4):497-512. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9566.2011.01389.x.
Zerhouni, Elias A. 2005. "Translational and Clinical Science — Time for a New Vision." New England Journal of Medicine 353 (15):1621-1623. doi: doi:10.1056/NEJMsb053723.
Ziman, J. M. 2000. Real science : what it is, and what it means. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Published
2016-12-01
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