Hidden in the Middle: Culture, Value and Reward in Bioinformatics

Abstract

Bioinformatics – the so-called shotgun marriage between biology and computer science – is an interdiscipline. Despite interdisciplinarity being seen as a virtue, for having the capacity to solve complex problems and foster innovation, it has the potential to place projects and people in anomalous categories. For example, valorised ‘outputs’ in academia are often defined and rewarded by discipline. Bioinformatics, as an interdisciplinary bricolage, incorporates experts from various disciplinary cultures with their own distinct ways of working. Perceived problems of interdisciplinarity include difficulties of making explicit knowledge that is practical, theoretical, or cognitive. But successful interdisciplinary research also depends on an understanding of disciplinary cultures and value systems, often only tacitly understood by members of the communities in question. In bioinformatics, the ‘parent’ disciplines have different value systems; for example, what is considered worthwhile research by computer scientists can be thought of as trivial by biologists, and vice versa. This paper concentrates on the problems of reward and recognition described by scientists working in academic bioinformatics in the United Kingdom. We highlight problems that are a consequence of its cross-cultural make-up, recognising that the mismatches in knowledge in this borderland take place not just at the level of the practical, theoretical, or epistemological, but also at the cultural level too. The trend in big, interdisciplinary science is towards multiple authors on a single paper; in bioinformatics this has created hybrid or fractional scientists who find they are being positioned not just in-between established disciplines but also in-between as middle authors or, worse still, left off papers altogether.

Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration and Scholarly Independence in Multidisciplinary Learning Environments at Doctoral Level and Beyond

“…When the funders are historically allied with particular disciplinary directions (Albert et al 2009;Jakobsen et al 2004;Kessel and Rosenfield 2008), or when the interdisciplinary field of research is physically located at the departments of one parent discipline only (Wright and Ville 2017), it is common for one parent discipline to take the upper hand. In such contexts, the members from the dominating discipline not only tend to be superior in number, but they also set the norms and values for what counts as appropriate science, thereby hampering transdisciplinary development (Albert et al 2009;Lewis et al 2016;Wright and Ville 2017).…”

“…Before the 1990s, research across disciplinary boundaries was primarily initiated by academic interests, while it has now become a political concern for addressing global challenges (Kessel and Rosenfield 2008;UNESCO 2019). Nevertheless, numerous studies show that cross-disciplinary research is no easy road, since university structures, funding and publication avenues tend to be organised along disciplinary lines (Albert et al 2009;Lewis et al 2016;Turner et al 2015). Doctoral students in such settings face additional problems in having to form their scholarly identity without clear guiding principles (Boden et al 2011;Felt et al 2013).…”

From Trading Zones to Buffer Zones: Art and Metaphor in the Communication of Psychiatric Genetics to Publics

“…), although others talk of epistemic cultures (Knorr Cetina 1999), or communities of practice (Lave and Wenger 1991). These divisions are not a mirror on the nature they seek to explain; they are not natural kinds that can map exactly to phenomena in the world (Lewis et al 2016), nor are they pure breeds (Galison 2010). Rather, their making takes considerable effort as over time they are landscaped, shaped, and accomplished by those inhabiting the space.…”

“…Significantly, scientists are also socialised into the values of their disciplinary communities, the result of which means that the wandering scientist faces a considerable amount of reorientation, re-evaluation, and negotiation when she travels across disciplinary borders, making the task of doing interstitial work a formidable one (Lewis et al 2016). This is what Galison and Stump (1996) refer to as the 'problem of disunity', and resolving the ways in which knowledge and those that produce it can travel between different fields of enquiry, despite deep-rooted linguistic (and cultural) differences, has been one of the main focuses of Science and Technology Studies (STS) (Galison 2010; Reyes-Galindo 2014).…”

Analysing the role of virtualisation and visualisation on interdisciplinary knowledge exchange in stem cell research processes

“…This has led to an exponential increase in the volume and variety of biological data as well as substantial growth of the number and diversity of interdisciplinary collaborations. With this have come new ways of organising and valuing computational biological work, seen most clearly in the emergence of bioinformatics as a leading space for conducting this work (Lewis et al, 2016, Bartlett et al, 2018. Consortia or large scale projects are usually based on highly organised collaborations, undertaking scientific activities in a manufacturing-style environment with standard operating procedures and a great degree of automation, but often little room for creativity.…”