This paper explores the concept and the levels of genericity of different instruments, or beamlines, at a synchrotron radiation facility. We use conceptual tools from the sociology of science, bibliometrics and data from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) publication database, enriched by data from Web of Science. The sample size is of 11,218 observations for the period 1996 to 2018. The combined dataset includes the beamline name, available from the ESRF library database, which makes the instrument level analysis possible. We operationalize instrument genericity as the disciplinary diversity in the corpus related to each instrument with a Herfindahl based index (Moschini et al., 2020; Schultz & Joutz, 2010), theoretically supported by the concept of generic instruments (Rosenberg, 1992; Joerges & Shinn, 2001). As a result, we gain a quantitative insight into the generic character of the instruments, as well as the way in which different scientific fields and the experimental use of instruments group and align. Peer Review https://publons.com/publon/10.1162/qss_a_00190

Complex scientific questions often require collaboration between scientists to access scientific instruments (deS. Price, Res Policy 13:3–20, 1984; Shrum et al. 2007, Structures of scientific collaboration, The MIT Press, 2007), knowledge and social capital from scientists outside of their immediate networks (Burt, Am J Sociol 110:349–399, 2004; Collins, Tacit and explicit knowledge, University of Chicago Press, https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo8461024.html, 2012; Granovetter, Am J Sociol 78:1360–1380, 1973; Polanyi, Personal knowledge: towards a post-critical philosophy (Repr. (with corr.)). Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962). Synchrotron radiation facilities are a unique case to explore this type of collaboration, as external scientists going to the facility to do their ordinary research work are common. These external users use complex scientific instrumentation that could require the additional accumulated knowledge of internal scientists and staff more familiar with the technical and social aspects of the instruments. These collaborations sometimes result in a co-authored publication with internal staff, employed in these facilities. However, this is not always the case. Data from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) shows that most often, external scientists do not include internal staff in the co-author fields of the subsequent publication from scientific work done in one (or more) instruments in these facilities. Instrument collaboration networks are constructed and analysed over the period 2000–2018 for the different scientific instruments within the facility. A strong relationship between the level of external collaboration and the structure of the networks is found and explored. The results provide further insight into factors that shape collaboration and knowledge transfer, also relevant to policy makers and facility managers seeking to promote these activities.

The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), a leading facility in synchrotron science, plays a crucial role in supporting both the local and the international scientific community by providing advanced instrumentation for their research. However, our understanding of the actual reach of the facility and its spatial dynamics remains limited. Thus, a methodology is proposed where author affiliation links are processed, analyzed, and visualized. A case study that focuses on the ESRF is implemented, where the author affiliation links of 17,870 publications over the period 2011-2021 are processed, revealing 76,850 addresses, of which 11,120 are unique locations.The results of the case study bring to light robust patterns of increased internationalization over time, accompanied by regional agglomeration and the emergence of potential research hotspots. The methodology and results are likely to be of interest to researchers in Spatial Scientometrics, which addresses some of the current challenges in the field. Managers, funders, and policy-makers can utilize this method or similar approaches to enrich impact analyses of large-scale science facilities, vital for insuring their sustained support. The code for the methodology, as well as the interactive visualizations, is freely available on GitHub for further exploration and replication of the methodology.

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