In its fifty-year history, the German national research laboratory DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, German Electron Synchrotron) has undergone a gradual transformation from a single-mission particle physics laboratory to a multi-mission research center for accelerator physics, particle physics, and photon science. The last is an umbrella term for research using synchrotron radiation and, in later years, free-electron laser. Synchrotron radiation emerged initially as a peripheral part of the laboratory activities but grew to become a central experimental activity at DESY via a series of changes in the organizational, scientific, and infrastructural setup of the lab, and in its contextual scientific, political, and societal environment. Together with an earlier publication on the issue in this journal,1 this article chronicles the first thirty years in the history of synchrotron radiation at DESY. The focus is on the gradual transformation of DESY’s research program in synchrotron radiation from peripheral and parasitic into mainstream and mission. We provide insights about the crucial renewal of Big Science laboratories toward the end of the twentieth century. This renewal culminated in the close-down of several particle physics machines in the early 2000s and their replacement by facilities dedicated to the study of the structure, properties, and dynamics of matter by the interaction with vacuum ultraviolet and X-ray photons. Therefore, we contribute to better understanding the growth of synchrotron radiation as a laboratory resource, and processes of renewal in Big Science as part of the general history of late-twentieth-century science.

In its fifty-year history, the German national research laboratory DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, German Electron Synchrotron) has undergone a gradual transformation from a single-mission particle physics laboratory to a multi-mission research center for accelerator physics, particle physics, and photon science. The last is an umbrella term for research using synchrotron radiation and, in later years, free-electron laser. Synchrotron radiation emerged initially as a peripheral part of the laboratory activities but grew to become a central experimental activity at DESY via a series of changes in the organizational, scientific, and infrastructural setup of the lab, and in its contextual scientific, political, and societal environment. This article chronicles the first sixteen years (1962–77) of the history of synchrotron radiation at DESY and its gradual transformation from peripheral and parasitic to a regular and recognized research program. The article complements previous writings on DESY history by focusing on synchrotron radiation, and it adds to the body of knowledge about the crucial renewal of Big Science laboratories toward the end of the twentieth century. This renewal culminated in the close-down of several particle physics machines in the early 2000s and their replacement by facilities dedicated to the study of the structure, properties, and dynamics of matter by the interaction with vacuum ultraviolet/X-ray photons. Therefore, this article contributes to the knowledge about the emergence and growth of synchrotron radiation as a laboratory resource, the understanding of processes of renewal in Big Science, and the general history of late-twentieth-century science.

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This article chronicles the most recent history of the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) located in Hamburg, Germany, with particular emphasis on how this national laboratory founded for accelerator-based particle physics shifted its research program toward multi-disciplinary photon science. Synchrotron radiation became DESY's central experimental research program through a series of changes in its organizational, scientific, and infrastructural setup and the science policy context. Furthermore, the turn toward photon science is part of a broader transformation in the late twentieth century in which nuclear and particle physics, once the dominating fields in national and international science budgets, gave way to increasing investment in the materials sciences and life sciences. Synchrotron radiation research took a lead position on the experimental side of these growing fields and became a new form of big science, generously funded by governments and with user communities expanding across both academia and industry.

This paper investigates institutional change in the Polish public science system (PPSS) in the past twenty years. Employing macro-statistical data, the paper argues that this change process has unfolded stepwise and relatively late despite major political and economic transformations in post-socialist Poland. Using a historical-institutionalist perspective, the paper focuses on processes of institutional change, including layering, displacement, and dismantling. One major finding is that the speed and depth of the gradual transformation differs considerably between the three research performing sectors of the Polish public science system. As the Polish Academy of Sciences was reproduced institutionally, the former governmental units for applied R&D were partly dismantled and displaced by private sector R&D units. In contrast, the Higher Education sector underwent a strong expansion and, thus, layering of new research activities and fields. Since policy shifts within the PPSS occurred relatively late, the more than two decades following the collapse of communism are of special interest to scholars of incremental, yet cumulative, institutional change.