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Epistemic Living Spaces, International Mobility, and Local Variation in Scientific Practice

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Abstract

This article explores local variations in scientific practice through the lens of scientists’ international mobility. Its aim is twofold: to explore how the notion of epistemic living spaces may be mobilised as a tool for systematically exploring differences in scientific practice across locations, and to contribute to literature on scientific mobility. Using material from an interview study with scientists with experience of international mobility, and epistemic living spaces as an analytical frame, the paper describes a set of aspects of life in science that interviewees described as being different in different places. These axes of variation were: embodied routines of research; resource levels and salaries; daily or longer-term rhythms of scientific life (and their relation to rhythms of home or family); ‘efficiency’ and how work time is used; degree of hierarchy; the nature of social interactions between colleagues; the purposes of research; the social and interpersonal organisation of knowledge production; and the scale or ambition of research. In presenting an exploratory overview of these variations, the article points the way for future comparative investigation of epistemic cultures through studies of international mobility.

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Notes

  1. The European Research Council, or ERC, is a European funding programme that focuses on ‘excellence’ rather than on challenge-based research. Its mission is “to encourage the highest quality research in Europe through competitive funding and to support investigator-driven frontier research across all fields, on the basis of scientific excellence”. See https://erc.europa.eu/about-erc/mission.

  2. Information about the call and funded projects is available (in Danish) here: https://ufm.dk/forskning-og-innovation/tilskud-til-forskning-og-innovation/hvem-har-modtaget-tilskud/2016/bevilling-til-forskning-i-dansk-forskningsintegritet-fra-styrelsen-for-forskning-og-innovation. Findings specifically relating to research integrity can be found in Davies 2018.

  3. Denmark has eight universities; interviewees came from three of the more research active of these. Interviews were carried out with those in both temporary (primarily, postdoc) and permanent (primarily, assistant and associate professor) positions in order to explore whether there were differences in their accounts; in the event, as noted later in the main text, no key differences emerged.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the comments of the reviewers, for feedback on this work from Katrine Lindvig and other colleagues, and to all those who participated in this research as interviewees. The research was funded by the Danish Ministry of Ministry of Higher Education and Science, grant number 6183-00002B.

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  1. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491, Trondheim, Norway

    Sarah R. Davies

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Davies, S.R. Epistemic Living Spaces, International Mobility, and Local Variation in Scientific Practice. Minerva 58, 97–114 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-019-09387-0

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