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Institutional persistence and the material transformation of the US national labs: The curious story of the advent of the Advanced Photon Source

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  • Catherine Westfall

Abstract

The 1990s saw a radical shift in the US investment in large-scale projects along with a shift in the rationale for US support of such projects and the national laboratories which host them. Previously, the largest projects were for the esoteric field of high energy and justifications drew on the Cold War priorities of national security and the cultural benefits of a free society. Starting with Argonne National Laboratory's Advanced Photon Source, a materials science accelerator, all this changed. From this time forward those promoting large-scale projects instead pointed to more practical considerations in line with the post-Cold-War moral economy valuing entrepreneurship and measurable utility. It might seem that change resulted from a direct competition between high energy physicists and materials scientists that was mediated by high-level policy makers in favor of the latter. This case study reveals a much more telling and nuanced story in which science policy was shaped at every turn by the need of the US national laboratories to adapt to a changing social, political, economic, technological and scientific context amidst the underlying desire for institutional persistence. Copyright The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com, Oxford University Press.

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  • Catherine Westfall, 2012. "Institutional persistence and the material transformation of the US national labs: The curious story of the advent of the Advanced Photon Source," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 39(4), pages 439-449, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:scippl:v:39:y:2012:i:4:p:439-449
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/scipol/scs054
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    Cited by:

    1. Stanislav Zaichenko, 2018. "The human resource dimension of science-based technology transfer: lessons from Russian RTOs and innovative enterprises," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 368-388, April.
    2. Young-Sun Jang & Young Joo Ko, 2019. "How latecomers catch up to leaders in high-energy physics as Big Science: transition from national system to international collaboration," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(1), pages 437-480, April.
    3. Richard Heidler & Olof Hallonsten, 2015. "Qualifying the performance evaluation of Big Science beyond productivity, impact and costs," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 104(1), pages 295-312, July.
    4. Olof Hallonsten, 2014. "How expensive is Big Science? Consequences of using simple publication counts in performance assessment of large scientific facilities," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 100(2), pages 483-496, August.
    5. Olof Hallonsten, 2013. "Introducing ‘facilitymetrics’: a first review and analysis of commonly used measures of scientific leadership among synchrotron radiation facilities worldwide," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 96(2), pages 497-513, August.

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