research ensembles, policy and technoscientific work

Research Policy 33 (2004) 747–767

Tokamaks and turbulence: research ensembles, policyand technoscientific work

Edward J. Hackett∗, David Conz, John Parker, Jonathon Bashford, Susan DeLayDepartment of Sociology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-2101, USA

Received 1 May 2003; accepted 1 December 2003

Available online 20 February 2004

Abstract

A comparative analysis of two fusion energy research facilities is used to examine how the ensemble of research technologies(materials, methods, instruments, techniques, and the like) constructed and used by a group not only connects the group to otherresearchers and policymakers but also influences the group’s trajectory, performance, and the work of its members. We use acombination of historical, interview, and questionnaire data to describe the two facilities, position them within the field, andexamine the working conditions and job satisfaction of their members. We develop the idea of research ensemble, characterizeit in comparison with related concepts, explain how it reflects policy priorities and provides a new way for research groupsto accumulate advantage and disadvantage. Using multiple regression models, we demonstrate how differences in researchensembles lead to differences in working conditions and job satisfactions. Some implications are proposed for policy infast-changing, large-scale fields of science and technology.© 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Research groups; Scientific collaboration; Work life; Research technologies; Science policy

The advantages of having fusion available as apower source on Earth would in fact be so immensethat they would motivate all the necessary scien-tific, technological and economic support requiredfor realization.

(Hans Wilhelmsson, 2000)

Fusion is the energy source of the future and alwayswill be.

(Anonymous)Otto Neurath likened the work of scientists to that

of sailors who continually rebuild their ships amidthe turbulence and resource scarcity of the high seas(Cartwright et al., 1996; Nowonty et al., 2001, p. 178).It is an apt metaphor for the field of fusion energy

∗ Corresponding author.E-mail address: [email protected] (E.J. Hackett).

research, which encounters turbulence in the plasmasit studies and in its policy and resource environments.Fusion research begins with a vessel built to create,contain, and diagnose plasmas, and substantial invest-ments of government funds and researchers’ energiesare required to construct the vessel and diagnostic in-struments. Just as the turbulent seas damage the shipscontaining Neurath’s sailors, the vessels containingplasmas are damaged by their turbulent contents andby the demands of their policy environments, andthus require continual rebuilding. Fusion researchers,much like sailors, risk damage to their vessels in theordinary course of their work by operating them at orbeyond their designed performance limits.1 But where

1 Just as the builders of medieval cathedrals learned from thedamage incurred by smaller churches, the building and breaking

0048-7333/$ – see front matter © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.respol.2003.12.002

748 E.J. Hackett et al. / Research Policy 33 (2004) 747–767

Neurath imagines lone scientists tossed in the waves,fusion research is performed by a coordinated fleetof vessels, each with a sizeable crew and each neces-sarily distinct in some important ways yet similar inothers. Individual vessels in the fusion fleet are co-ordinated by policy and programmatic decisions, anddepend upon one another intellectually, materially,technologically, and socially.

We wish to understand what it is like to build andrebuild the vessels of research, how their constructiontakes account of the turbulent content and environ-ment, how different sorts of vessels sail, and what it islike to work within them. Our central idea is that theensemble of research technologies (materials, meth-ods, instruments, established practices, and the like)constructed and used by a group not only connects thegroup to others in its field but also positions it on themaps of politicians and policymakers (who participatein the construction and direction of the ensemble) andinfluences the group’s performance and the work of itsmembers. We develop this idea using a comparativecase study of two fusion research groups.

1. Conceptual framework

Our conceptual framework combines ideas fromthree distinct streams of literature. The first stream hasto do with the role of research technologies, which areconstructed by groups and in turn structure and con-strain the group’s activities. The second is concernedwith how science and technology policy influences re-search through the amounts and purposes of support,through specific direction of goals and objectives, andthrough decisions about the research technologies. Thethird literature treats research as a form of work, em-phasizing the importance for knowledge workers ofautonomy, development opportunities, intrinsic quali-ties (such as challenge and variety), and job satisfac-tion. Of particular concern to us is how the ensembleof research technologies, co-produced by researchersand policymakers, affords researchers the opportunityto do certain sorts of research and not others, to de-velop their ensemble in certain directions but not oth-ers, and in those ways influences the quality of theirwork lives.

of fusion machines teaches researchers what works and what doesnot, and sometimes why (compareKnorr-Cetina, 1999, 36 pp.).

We blend these streams to view research groups associo-technical entities that integrate a social groupwith an ensemble of research technologies (researchensemble, for short) that are the group’s means ofproduction, positioning it within the field, offering apoint of influence for research policy and a point ofcontact for interaction with other groups. The researchensemble shapes the life course of the group and thework lives of its members through interactions withother groups and with policymakers and through thesorts of research performed.

1.1. Ensembles of research technologies

Research groups accomplish their work using anarrangement of materials, techniques, instruments,ideas and enabling theories that we call an ensem-ble of research technologies. We prefer this term toothers (reviewed below) because it retains the in-sight that doing research requires an integrated setof tools, materials, and related ideas while removingthe restriction to experimental work implied by otherterms. Observational sciences and social sciences useresearch technologies: remote sensing techniques,econometric data and models, ethnographic protocols,and conventions of survey sampling and measurement,for example seePrice (1984, p. 13). Incorporating“technology” into the term also establishes a connec-tion with studies of technology and work (Liker et al.,1999) and invokes structuration theory to explain theprocess through which the research ensemble is bothconstructed by researchers and constrains their action(e.g.,Adler, 1992; Barley, 1986; Giddens, 1979).

Systematic attention to the dependence of scienceon technology began with Derek Price’s work on in-strumentalities, which are “techniques of science. . .

an understanding of the way to do things. . . that pro-duce something new. . . . It will not do to call them in-struments [because the] term must allow us to includeparts of the experimental repertoire that are labeled‘effects. . . ’ [and] must also include chemical pro-cesses, such as polymerization and Lowry’s methodfor protein determination, and biological processes,such as recombinant DNA” (1984, p. 13).ChandraMukerji (1989) emphasizes how a research group’ssignature or identity shapes its research investmentsand marks the path inquiry will take. For FrançoisJacob the choices a researcher makes have enduring

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consequences: “any study begins with the choice ofa ‘system.’ On this choice depend the experimenter’sfreedom to manoeuvre, the nature of the questions heis free to ask, and even often, the type of answer hecan obtain” (Jacob, 1988, p. 234). Rheinberger ex-tends the paradox of choices and ensuing constraintsin research, explaining that the more a scientist “learnsto handlehis/her experimental system, the better it re-alizesits own internal capacities. In a certain sense, itbecomesindependent of the researchers’ wishes justbecause he/she hasshaped it with all possible skill”(Rheinberger, 1997, p. 305, emphasis original; seealsoCreager, 2002). Over time incremental decisionsshape a genealogy of research ensembles that exert anindependent force on the group’s research trajectory(Ben-David and Collins, 1966; Knorr-Cetina, 1999).

Such ideas evolved mainly from studies of fieldswhere researchers act individually and almost inde-pendently, where (at least initially) they have substan-tial freedom of choice in the design and developmentof their research ensembles, and where the goal isto produce new knowledge. But for several reasonsresearchers in fusion are unlikely to enjoy such lat-itude in their choice of a research ensemble. First,fusion research is literally technoscience: new tech-nologies are constructed both to develop new energysystems and to produce scientific knowledge (Latour,1987, pp. 174–175). The two aims are linked in place,personnel, and performance. Second, their researchensembles are expensive, visible, and accountable toother researchers and to the public, and so becomemore tightly coupled to diverse communities. Third,the technological dimension of technoscience entailsan array of objectives, milestones, and deliverablesthat provide accountability and opportunities for guid-ance by policymakers. Fourth, larger and more expen-sive research ensembles—in the extreme, think of theSuperconducting Supercollider or the Hubble SpaceTelescope—will have longer gestation periods, greaterinvolvement of policymakers and the community, andtighter coupling to predecessors and prototypes. Fifth,when big technoscience is conducted at scattered sites,the work will be centrally coordinated either activelyor implicitly by a division of tasks. Finally, big techno-science is collaborative, so choices are made by andinfluence groups.

Research ensembles are shaped by the epistemiccultures of their field, a term Karin Knorr-Cetina

coined to represent the most prevalent “amalgams ofarrangements and mechanisms. . . which, in a givenfield, make uphow we know what we know (1999,p. 1; emphasis original). Within an epistemic culture,the ensemble of technologies a group (or laboratory,in the quotation that follows) uses in its research iscreated and developed through a process that takesaccount of many elements of its environment:

Laboratories, to be sure, not only play upon the so-cial and natural orders as they are experienced ineveryday life. They also play upon their own pre-vious makeup and at times upon those of compet-ing laboratories . . . . [O]ne can link laboratoriesas relational units to at least three realities: to theenvironment they reconfigure [through correspon-dence of lab conditions to those of the world outside,through treatments and interventions that processa partial version of the outside world, or throughrepresentations that examine signatures of phenom-ena], to the experimental work that goes on withinthem and is fashioned in terms of those reconfig-urations, and to the ‘field’ of other units in whichlaboratories and their features are situated.

Laboratories introduce and utilize specific differ-ences between processes implemented in them andprocesses in a scientific field . . . from which epis-temic benefits can be derived . . . . We need to con-ceive of laboratories as processes through whichreconfigurations are negotiated, implemented, su-perseded, and replaced”.

(Knorr-Cetina, 1999, pp. 44–45; emphases original)At the same time, however, the epistemic cul-

ture of fusion research is fused to a technogenic(technology-building) culture: a culture that valuesand guides the production of new technologies andnew physical phenomena. While the cultures are notopposed, they are often in tension. At times the epis-temic is ascendant, and the production of new knowl-edge takes precedence, at other times the technogenicis dominant and the emphasis shifts to the devel-opment of energy systems. Thus fusion researchersexperience an enduring form of sociological ambiva-lence as they are caught between inconsistent values,principles, and practices (Merton, 1973).

Researchers invest energy and expend resources ontheir research ensembles under a variety of constraints,


including their own abilities, the possibilities affordedby the ensemble of technologies currently in use, andtheir relationships with other groups and their ensem-bles. For fusion research and other such fields, addi-tional constraints are added by the demands of policyand politics, perhaps conveyed through processes of“co-production” of science and policy that take placewithin “boundary organizations” (Guston, 2000, dis-cussed below). Within those constraints the preciseensemble of technologies a group uses is establishedthrough the processes of alignment, negotiation, orenrollment—processes at the heart of many studies oflaboratory work (Fujimura, 1996; Lynch, 1993; Lawand Hassard, 1999)—with the aim of establishing bothspecific similarities and specific differences with othergroups. In short, researchers build technologies, butnot in times and circumstances of their own choosing,and those technologies not only make inquiry possiblebut also shape and constrain their actions (cf.,Adler,1992; Barley, 1986).

Following Cook and Brown, we call the pos-sibilities and constraints of research technologies“affordances,” which are “how a material, design, orsituation ‘affords’ doing something” and, by impli-cation, does not afford doing something else (Cookand Brown, 1999, p. 389). The interaction betweena research group and its ensemble of research tech-nologies “dynamically affordsboth the acquisitionof knowledgeand the use of knowledge once ac-quired . . . doing epistemic work that the knowledgealone cannot. . . .” (Cook and Brown, 1999, p. 390;emphases original).

For fusion research, producing knowledge now,constructing the means to produce knowledge in thefuture, and developing a machine that can produce us-able energy all rely to some degree on the interactionsamong researchers, policymakers, research ensembles,and their affordances that take place within particu-lar epistemic and technogenic cultures. Viewed overtime, fusion research technologies appear in continualflux, as diagnostics, plasma properties, and tokamakdesigns are modified and sometimes transformed. Ma-jor transformations produce genealogies of researchensembles, some designated by letter suffixes to themachine’s name, others by merely appending a “U” for“upgrade,” while lesser innovations are taken in stride(Ben-David and Collins, 1966; Knorr-Cetina, 1999).Viewed synchronically across the research field, the

machines operating and in the design or constructionstages fit together in a particular way, each with itsdistinctive contributions, affordances, and limitationsthat reflect the guidance of the policy and politicalcommunities, the epistemic culture of the field, andthe preferences and judgments of researchers (Cookand Brown, 1999, pp. 381–400). Affordances, con-nections between research ensembles within a field,and arguments that position an ensemble with respectto science and technology policy create epistemicand technogenic commitments that limit the latitudeof a group to negotiate, align, enlist, and otherwisemaneuver to reposition itself advantageously.

Having established the centrality and character ofresearch ensembles we wish to take two further stepswith them: a step outward, to their connections withpolicy and politics, and a step inward, to their conse-quences for work within the groups. Moving outward,studies of research ensembles have contributed muchto our understanding of the technical and materialdimensions of research, but say little about connec-tions with the larger environment of research, policyand politics.Mukerji (1989, pp. 132–134), for exam-ple, indicates that laboratories tout and tweak theirsignature research approaches to jockey for positionwith funding agencies, but she does not examine theprocess or its consequences.Knorr-Cetina’s (1999)account of the formation and functioning of epis-temic cultures scarcely addresses policy at all, yetthe accelerators essential for high-energy physics arefabulously expensive and totally dependent on gov-ernment funding. Moving inward, research ensemblesare interposed between the daily work of a group andthe environment of research and policy; they embodythe essence of previous research and mark the path offuture inquiry. While studies of research ensemblesare all concerned with the laboratory practice andknowledge production, none systematically examinesproperties of research work.

1.2. Research and policy

Where, how, and with what consequences (for re-search and for researchers) do the worlds of policyand research intersect?David Guston (2000)of-fers a systematic framework for thinking about theinfluence of policy on knowledge production in sci-ence. He views science policy through the lens of


principal-agent theory, with the federal governmentas the principal that engages its agents—scientistsand engineers—to perform research that the govern-ment cannot perform for itself. In this view, VannevarBush’s “social contract” with science, which built“a boundary between politics and science throughwhich only money could pass in one direction andscience-based technology in the other,” has been re-placed by “boundary organizations” that engage sci-entists with policymakers in the “co-production. . .of knowledge and social order” (2000, pp. 58, 149).Guston (2000, pp. 26–27) offers a thoughtful distilla-tion of constructivist thinking about science, but doesnot connect the process of “collaborative assurance,”which occurs within boundary organizations, to theproduction of knowledge within groups.

The connection between policy and knowledge pro-duction works in many ways, and for “big science”the most powerful influence operates through the en-semble of research technologies used by a group. Fu-sion is certainly “big science,” and perhaps even“megascience,” a term coined to characterize a re-search program that “addresses a set of scientificproblems of such significance, scope and complexityas to require an unusually large-scale collaborativeeffort, along with the facilities, instruments, humanresources, and logistic support needed to carry it out”(OECD, 1993). Megascience projects are expensive,with lifetime costs exceeding US$ 1 billion; they areconducted in unique research facilities, too large andexpensive to duplicate; and they may be spatiallyconcentrated (as are traditional high-energy physicsprojects) or distributed, with substantial central coor-dination (OECD, 1993, p. 50; Sandstrom, et al., 1999,pp. 13–14). In megascience, as Robert Smith reportsin his case study of the Hubble Space Telescope, theresearch ensemble “reflects the power relationshipsbetween the various institutions, groups, and individu-als engaged in policy-making. . . these activities [arenot] only political, involving negotiations and com-promises among different groups; instead, they alsoinvolved the hardware and design of the telescope aswell as its planned scientific objectives.” (Smith inGalison and Hevly, 1992: 191, 208).

Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, fusion re-search is conducted by a mosaic of devices and theirassociated groups, mutually coordinated and centrallydirected. Using OECD’s language, fusion is an ex-

pensive, unique, distributed megascience. In fusion,researchers and policymakers co-produce researchensembles, knowledge, and social order within bound-ary organizations and research facilities, and thoseensembles of technologies have strong and enduringconsequences for research and researchers.

1.3. Research as a vocation

Max Weber eloquently dissected the external cir-cumstances of scientific work and the inner life ofscience in his lecture “Science as a Vocation,” andhis ideas have endured remarkably well (Weber, 1918[1948]; Hackett, 1990). Science is one of the mostrewarding forms of work—a vocation, for Weber, towhich few are called and those called become deeplydedicated. The personal rewards of scientific workderive from its distinctive qualities: autonomy, chal-lenge, personal development, and the intrinsic valueof producing knowledge for its own sake. In Weber’shaunting words, “whoever lacks the capacity. . . [tobelieve that] the fate of his [or her] soul depends uponwhether or not he makes the correct conjecture at thispassage of this manuscript may as well stay awayfrom science” (1918 [1946], p. 135).

A small but persistent literature follows Weber’slead, treating research as a form of work and ar-guing that working conditions are not only instru-mentally important for knowledge production butalso intrinsically important for researchers (e.g.,Pelzand Andrews, 1976; Andrews, 1979; Miller, 1986;Tuttle et al., 1987;Hackett, 1990; Trankina, 1991;Jones, 1996; Keller, 1997). Much of this research isconcerned with the “Quality of Professional Life”(Miller, 1986) experienced by researchers, arguingthat autonomy, challenge, development, meaningfulwork, and variety are important intrinsic characteris-tics of work that increase the job involvement and jobsatisfaction of researchers, which in turn enhance jobperformance (Jones, 1996; Cotgrove and Box, 1970;Miller, 1986; Pelz and Andrews, 1976; Raelin, 1985;Jones, 1996; Keller, 1997).

But studies in this genre usually treat scientistsapart from their group contexts (e.g.,Trankina, 1991),and even those concerned with research groups con-sider them only as social entities, with no attentionto their ensembles of research technologies.Andrews(1979), for example, shows that the motivation and


diversity of research units enhance their performance,but gives no attention to the technologies groups useto conduct research.2 We view researchers as mem-bers of a group that uses a research ensemble to doits work, asking how characteristics of the researchensemble influence work life.

1.4. Toward a synthesis

The social and technical arrangements of a researchgroup mediate the influence of the policy and re-source environments on the research trajectories andcareers of its members. Groups build research ensem-bles that embody aspects of their abilities and history,and they do so in collaboration with other researchersand with policymakers. Each research ensemble hasa distinctive orientation toward the epistemic andtechnogenic cultures of its field—aiming to developaffordances that confer specific differences and spe-cific similarities—and for each group those culturesappear substantially established and non-negotiable.Collectively such decisions, constructions, and af-fordances constitute the epistemic and technogeniccultures of the field, and the accumulation of changesin research ensembles will change those cultures.Once built, a particular device presents an upgradepathway with limited possibilities. For any particulargroup, properties of its research ensemble will shapeits life chances and performance and the work livesof its members. We will illustrate and develop theseideas with a comparative case study of two groups infusion energy research.

1.5. Fusion as a research site

Fusion occurs when hydrogen isotopes (deuteriumor a mixture of deuterium and tritium) are heated

2 Even in the highly directive, bureaucratic environments ofbig technoscience, researchers find intrinsic satisfaction, as Lil-lian Hoddeson observes in a paper examining Manhattan Projectresearch on the implosion trigger: intriguingly, it appears from in-terviews as well as written sources that the scientists felt generallyfulfilled in their scientific study of the implosion. While workingon this strongly mission-directed problem, they experienced thejoy of research and the sense that they were working on their ownproblem! The issue for historians to unravel is how it is possiblefor a large laboratory to create an environment in which many ormost of its scientists can experience such a sense of free inquirywhile in fact they are working directly in line with the mission(in Galison and Hevly, 1992, 286 pp.).

to the point of ionization (between 10 million and100 million degrees), which separates electrons fromnuclei and allows the nuclei to be forced so closetogether that they form a single helium nucleus, re-leasing energy. The hydrogen plasma created in atokamak is turbulent and short-lived, writhing withina magnetic bottle for about a second before it isextinguished by contamination (if it contacts the ves-sel walls) or exhaustion (when the input power isexpended).

Fusion requires high temperatures (initially drivenby outside energy, then sustained by the fusion reac-tion itself), high pressures, high densities of electronsand energy, and containment to keep the plasma fromcontacting any material surface. The work is collab-orative and dependent on research funding to pay formachine construction and maintenance, staff salaries,and electricity. A small operation costs about US$ 1–2million per year; a moderate-sized one (such as CTX)runs US$ 3–5 million; a substantial one (such as MAT)costs US$ 15 million a year, and the large facilitiescost three to five times that amount (for fiscal year1995, in 1994 dollars; see Department of Energy Bud-get, [http://www.ofe.doe.gov];).

Fusion energy research has several strategic advan-tages for this study. First, it is a “big science,” withresearch groups larger in membership and annualbudget than benchtop sciences, but much smaller inthose ways than high-energy physics. Since muchof what we know of “big science” is really abouthigh-energy physics (e.g.,Traweek, 1988; Galisonand Hevly, 1992; Knorr-Cetina, 1999; but seeShrumet al., 2001; Chompalov et al., 2002), the case byitself has intrinsic value. Second, the field is inher-ently collaborative, integrating a range of scientificand engineering specialties, so it is advantageous forstudying group processes. Third, fusion has a historyof changing research priorities, funding levels, andcommitment to international collaboration, offeringa window on the effects of policy on the researchprocess.

The two academic tokamaks we studied, here calledCTX and MAT, are similar in size, age, organiza-tion, performance, and university context but differ-ent in their research ensembles and, consequently, intheir working conditions and fates. Both are relativelylarge operations, with about 70–80 researchers housedwithin research institutes on the campuses of major

http://www.ofe.doe.gov


research universities and additional off-campus col-laborators.

2. Methods, data and measures

The study began in 1993 with a questionnaire surveyand face-to-face, taped, transcribed interviews with 15researchers at CTX and MAT. We interviewed at ev-ery level, from facility directors through faculty andcareer researchers who led research teams, to teammembers, postdocs, and graduate students. Question-naires were administered at both facilities to measureresearchers’ social background characteristics, percep-tions of the field and the group’s place within it, work-ing conditions, and job satisfactions. Response rateswere 42/81 (52%) at CTX and 38/77 (50%) at MAT.Specific measures were taken, with appropriate revi-sions, from the job diagnostic survey (Hackman andOldham, 1976), the Quality of Employment Survey(Quinn and Staines, 1979), and organizational assess-ment surveys (e.g.,Mirvis et al., 1991). To understandthe policy environment for fusion energy research weattended meetings of the Fusion Energy Science Ad-visory Committee (FESAC) and the 2002 meeting ofthe fusion community at Snowmass, Colorado, and ex-amined policy documents, agency budgets, annual re-ports, proposals, news articles, and briefings preparedby the Department of Energy. Publication and cita-tion data were obtained from Science Citation Index

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(available online as Web of Science), using as searchterms the facility name and the keyword “fusion” aselements of the article’s title, combined with the ap-propriate university’s name in the address field. Theyears 1984–2000 were chosen to provide a substantialpublication history before and after our fieldwork andsurvey.

3. Elements of fusion history and policy

The possibilities of fusion were first glimpsed inthe early decades of the twentieth century, but thefield did not attract much attention until 1958, whenresearchers from the Soviet Union presented resultsfrom a magnetic fusion device at the second Atoms forPeace Conference (Bromberg, 1982; Fowler, 1997).Over the decades US support for fusion research hasebbed and flowed with national energy policy, andprogrammatic emphases have changed with chang-ing perceptions of scientific and technical possibili-ties. Significant federal support began in the 1970sand rose sharply with the energy crisis in the lat-ter years of that decade (seeFig. 1). Through fiscalyear 2000 the US has invested about US$ 16 billion(constant US$ 2000) in the field (Rowberg, 2000).Early research involved the construction and operationof a variety of magnetic fusion devices: tokamaks (atorus or doughnut-shaped device), spheromaks (morelike a doughnut hole than a doughnut), stellarators,


reverse-field pinches, magnetic mirrors, and others.The aim of building such a variety of fusion deviceswas to explore alternative architectures, energy induc-tion strategies, and confinement regimes in hopes offinding one that could be developed from a researchand demonstration facility to a commercially viableenergy device.

The exploratory years of fusion energy researchended in the early 1980s with redirection of researchfrom exploration to energy production, leading in thelatter years of that decade to an international collab-orative program to build the International Thermonu-clear Experimental Reactor (ITER; seeKay, 1992;Fowler, 1997, pp. 113–126). ITER, a greatly enlargedversion of the standard tokamak, would produce aself-sustaining plasma and provide an engineeringtest bed for designing components of a working fu-sion energy plant. At the time of the initial interviewsand surveys (1993–1995), the US fusion program washeavily invested in ITER, spending some US$ 63 mil-lion (20%) of a fiscal year 1994 budget of about US$328 million on the program (Department of EnergyBudget Request, fiscal year 1995). The commitmentto ITER in the Budget Request was unequivocal:“A broad international consensus now exists on howignition and burn of a magnetically confined fusionplasma (i.e., the fusion fuel) can be achieved. . . .To date, the most effective way to confine a plasmamagnetically is to use a toroidal, or doughnut-shaped,device called a tokamak. . . . During the next decade,the program will focus on demonstrating the sci-entific and technological feasibility of fusion in theInternational Thermonuclear Experimental Reactorproject. . . .” (Department of Energy Budget Request,Fiscal Year 1995, p. 425).3 Note the specific com-mitment to a particular research ensemble. Unsur-prisingly, respondents explained to us that a facility’svalue to the national fusion energy research effortdepended upon its relevance to the development ofITER, and took pains to explain their facility’s “ITERrelevance.”.

3 ITER has had its ups and downs among policymakers: theUS pulled out of the collaboration in July 1998, at the specificdirection of Congress, and in January 2003 was making plans torejoin.

On the technical front, the quest for ignition—aself-sustaining or “burning” plasma—slowed as con-temporary machines were pushed beyond their designspecifications. While setting a record for energy out-put of 10.7 MW of fusion power (which has sincebeen surpassed), Princeton’s TFTR exceeded thedesign specifications for its magnetic field by 8%and for its neutral beam injectors (which heat theplasma) by 20% (Glanz, 1994). This exceptional per-formance extended the machine’s working life by acouple of years, as funds were rearranged to exploitthis success. But the machine made its final plasmain April 1997, and the last segment of its vacuumvessel was taken off its pedestal on 26 March 2002.TFTR did all it was designed to do and more, yetwhen its work ended a burning plasma remained ona distant horizon. Fusion energy policy does not ap-ply diffuse pressures that emphasize some aspects ofresearch and development while de-emphasizing oth-ers. Under policy pressure, fusion devices routinelyoperate above their design limits and frequently un-dertake technological upgrades, leading to significantspells of planned and unplanned downtime, with pre-dictable difficulties for the group. Policy change isoften accomplished by abruptly funding or defund-ing particular activities, including entire facilities andthose they employ: the MFTF-B device at LawrenceLivermore Laboratory was mothballed on the veryday its construction was completed (Fowler, 1997,p. 179).

This sketch of fusion science, technology, and pol-icy suggests several preliminary generalizations. First,during the 1990s the policy environment for fusion re-search was unsettled, with the US first committing toITER as a priority that pervaded the field, with conse-quences for researchers that will be described below,then withdrawing from the collaboration in July 1998.What initially seemed a guidestar in the firmament be-came a fading landmark in contested terrain. Second,Congress involved itself in fusion policy not only byadjusting funding levels but also by compelling sub-stantive and technological changes in the national fu-sion energy program. On occasion decision makersdefer to technical experts, but this was not such anoccasion. Third, ensembles of research technologiesoffered convenient handles for policy to influence theconduct of research in the field, so those become theentry point for our case studies.


4. Technology and performance of two tokamaks

The name of the game is to push parameters, topush the frontier. You can’t sit back in a nice cozylittle room and take data, because that’s not wherethe action is. The action is always in pushing theplasma toward the very edges of disruption, push-ing instruments toward the edges of their measur-ing capability. Already we’re pushing people to thelimit. They’re all being pushed right to the limit ofhow much they can work . . . .

Between April and December of 1985, in anine-month period, we will gradually push everyparameter we can. We will get the magnetic fieldup to full value, get the plasma current up to fullvalue, push on the density, and hopefully then getthe temperature we need.

(Dale Meade, Princeton Plasma Fusion Laboratory,quoted in Heppenheimer, 1984, pp. 59, 66).

Fusion occurs under great pressure, at both theatomic and social scales, so the science, engineering,policy, and work life of fusion converge at the edge ofthe possible. To understand work under such circum-stances one must first understand the ensembles ofresearch technologies used to accomplish the research.

Three categories of components make up the en-semble of technologies used in fusion research:plasma properties (such as shape, electron density,energy density, temperature, and duration),designcharacteristics of the device itself (such as aspectratio of the torus, composition of the vessel walls,means of introducing energy and fuel into the plasma,and presence of a divertor to remove impurities fromthe plasma edge), and the number, capabilities, andquality of diagnostic instruments on the machine(which may include interferometers, reflectometers,Langmuir probes, Thompson scattering detectors,heavy ion beam probes, and others).

Differences in research ensembles embody andenforce differences in research programs, positioninggroups within the epistemic and technogenic culturesof fusion. Some research groups, for example, em-phasize the engineering challenges of fusion research:they push plasma parameters, achieving hotter, denser,and longer-lasting plasmas, then codify their results

in scaling laws that allow extrapolation from researchresults to larger, higher-performing machines. Theyalso design and study tokamak technologies: fuelingdevices, plasma impurities and their removal, andother operational and engineering issues. In contrast,other groups are committed to the scientific side offusion research, seeking fundamental understandingof plasma physics, which they pursue not by pushingthe envelope of plasma parameters but by developingtheories of plasma behavior and improving the quality,precision, and specificity of plasma measurements.Fusion laboratories may claim originality in variouscombinations of these dimensions, establishing theirsalience to the field in terms of the engineering orintellectual contributions made possible by their spe-cific differences. CTX and MAT are positioned quitedifferently on these dimensions.

4.1. CTX and fundamental physics

CTX was conceived in the late 1970s and made itsfirst plasma in 1980. Three properties of CTX estab-lish its strategic differences from other fusion labora-tories. First, and most importantly, CTX is dedicated tounderstanding the fundamental physics of fusion, par-ticularly the proposition that turbulence in the plasmacauses the transport of energy from the core of theplasma to its periphery, cooling it and ending the fu-sion reaction. As a senior CTX researcher said,

we would never give up our turbulence emphasishere. Turbulence causes transport, which has to beunderstood. The reason turbulence is good to usnow and will continue to be good to us in the fu-ture as a research area is because, although it’sclear that transport is correlated with turbulence,nobody knows what causes the turbulence. [Otherfusion groups] would not broach the issue becausethey don’t care. Particularly in the larger machines,they try to change plasma parameters, like the den-sity, and at each different density they measure thetransport and they say, ‘Okay, we have a straightline, so as density goes up, transport fluxes perhapsgo down, and we know that ITER is going to havea particular density, and so we draw the straightline.’ That’s called the development of scaling laws,and there, they don’t care what causes the transport. . . . They work on scaling laws only, no physics.


We claim that you can’t do a scaling law, that youhave to understand the physics, and that if you un-derstand the physics, that, in fact, is your scalinglaw. The people who do scaling laws say, ‘Well, wecan’t wait around while you guys try to figure outwhat the physics is. We’ve got to go ahead.’

Second, CTX offers excellent diagnostic instru-ments that make detailed physical measurements of itsrelatively low-energy plasma. Using its diagnostics,CTX

can study things in quite fine detail that can’tbe done on other machines, because on thesmaller-scale machine the diagnostics are moreaffordable, so you can put more of them on . . . . Soit’s a facility where you can do more physics . . . . Itis the best-diagnosed tokamak anywhere on Earth.

Finally, CTX is a dependable machine that recov-ers rapidly between “shots” (brief episodes of plasmaproduction) and reliably generates many plasmas aday, usually producing a lot of data quite efficiently.This allows it to function at times as a “user facility”for students and visiting researchers.

Fusion groups face a version of the essential ten-sion between tradition and originality in science(Kuhn, 1977): they must be traditional enough to es-tablish “strategic similarities” that connect their workto others in the field, and original enough to establishstrategic differences (Knorr-Cetina, 1999) that impartnovelty to their work. The strategic choices a facilitymakes are built into its ensemble of research technolo-gies and guide its research path, and by choosing cer-tain pathways a group precludes others. For example,plasma characteristics that permit precise measure-ment and promote fundamental physics research—arelatively small, cool plasma that is not verydense—interfere with the ability to push parametersand develop scaling laws. As one researcher observed,moderate-sized tokamaks (such as CTX) cannot play

the scaling game, because if we get a scaling [law]on our machine nobody would care because it’s toosmall. But if we understand a piece of the physicsthen people will care because that’s going to applyto almost any machine.

There is a crucial tradeoff between the qualitiesthat make an inexpensive, reliable, well-diagnosed

tokamak and those that make a cutting-edge, parame-ter pushing machine: sensitive diagnostics, such as aheavy ion beam probe, are difficult to use with plasmasthat are very dense or very energetic (because the beamwould not pass through the plasma to the detector onthe other side). Further, for a facility to host manyresearchers from other universities it must be reliable,relatively inexpensive to operate, and quick to rechargeand recover between shots; but high-performance ma-chines take longer to cool down and to recharge, andrun a greater risk of damage and downtime.4

CTXs epistemic commitment to understanding thefundamental physics of turbulence and transport is astrategic choice: they were not relegated to this rolebut chose it to establish their place in the nationalfusion program, and their commitment is built intothe ensemble of technologies used in their research.Despite belief that the strategy that was good to themin the past would remain good to them in the future,CTX was undone by changes in the fusion policyenvironment and ceased operations on December 31,1995. Most of its researchers scattered: extensivefollow-up research located 52 of the 81 researcherson the CTX roster in 1994 (64%), and from these datawe estimate that about a third of CTX researchersremain active in fusion.

4.2. MAT’s dense, diverted plasma

MAT was conceived in 1969, soon after a campusvisit by Lev Artisemovich, one of the Soviet inven-tors of the tokamak. Inspired by that visit, a professororganized a group “to devise a relatively inexpensiveway to study the physics of tokamaks in a universityenvironment” (Fowler, 1997, p. 180). Capitalizing onthe university’s strength in high-end magnet engi-neering, they

combined the physics idea [to build a tokamak] witha technology that existed here and invented a newkind of tokamak. We put in a proposal for that and

4 That is, between shots the capacitors that store the en-ergy needed to create the plasma must recharge and the coilsthat cool the vessel—which on some machines contain liquidnitrogen—must dissipate their heat. The bottom line is that CTXcan make about 100 “shots” per day—a shot is the production ofa plasma, lasting about a second—whereas MAT makes about 30shots, and TFTR at Princeton makes about 5.


it was funded. So all of a sudden we had a milliondollars, which was a lot of money back in those days.

The result is a machine that uses strong magnets toproduce a dense, energetic plasma. Through succes-sive generations, MAT became a machine that

enjoys a rather unique corner of parameter spacethat we’re able to explore. Most of the other mainline tokamaks are much larger, lower [magnetic]field, comparable plasma current (which is onemeasure of how high performance your tokamakis in terms of its confinement parameters and howhot it gets). And the reason we can do that with asmaller device is because of our higher magneticfield . . . [which] . . . allows you to run a lot of cur-rent density in the plasma which in turn allows youto get these high temperatures and very high densi-ties. So the area of parameter space that we actuallyexplore is the high density and high power density,and it’s very important for a number of reasons.

Unlike CTX, MAT produces plasma conditions suf-ficiently similar to those of a working fusion reactorthat it can contribute to the development of scalinglaws. But MATs plasma is difficult to study and notas well diagnosed as CTXs.

In addition to its powerful magnetic field and highdensities, MAT has a second specific difference thatestablishes its relevance:

a large part of our research is focused on the di-vertor [a magnetic device that “scrapes” off thecooler outer layer of a plasma, to help it maintainits high temperature] . . . . One of the key issues forITER and probably for any tokamak reactor is howdo you handle the power in the particles that comeout of the edge of the plasma? And we are in a po-sition, because of our very high power densities, toexplore a lot of those issues at the same parameterrange in terms of power density and electron den-sity and edge temperature that ITER will face. Sowe can actually look at the physics of those ques-tions on our machine. . . .

Finally, MAT’s vessel has metallic walls, whichhelp keep the plasma free of impurities, while manyothers machines have graphite walls. This technicalinnovation was produced through interaction with pol-icymakers in a boundary organization:

People from here are on various ITER committ-ees. . . called expert committees, and we have peo-ple that go to these things and not only are [they]involved in trying to do things that people buildingITER think are important, but [they] also have in-put into what we think are important . . . . the factthat our walls are made out of molybdenum, ratherthan carbon, was a major issue that we had to gothrough which is maybe changing the way peoplethink about how the wall ought to be of the machine.And so I think we have autonomy in so far as thatwe can sort of suggest what we think is important. . . [and] what we’re interested in studying .. . .

Both the technology and the sense of autonomy thataccompanies it are constructed through interactionwith collaborators, competitors, and policymakers.

The components of a research ensemble are notindependent dimensions but interdependent tech-nologies and phenomena that afford certain researchopportunities and technological developments whileprecluding others. The MAT divertor not only allowsstudy of a technological innovation and improves thequality of the plasma, but it also poses compelling newquestions of fundamental physics. This interaction isrecursive, with properties of the plasma influencingcharacteristics of the technology: “as tokamaks getmore and more dense and hotter and hotter it turnsout that you can’t just pour gas into the side becauseit doesn’t penetrate well.” So in place of gaseousdeuterium fuel, at MAT

we have the pellet injectors that actually freeze deu-terium . . . and turn it into a sort of a slushy frozensnow and then we put that in a tube and more orless like a blow gun we inject high pressure heliumgas and it pushes it through a tube and then accel-erates it at very high rates into the plasma and thenthat fuels the plasma . . . . One of the neat things isthat, because the pellets are going at such a highrate that they ablate on the way in and carry fuelall the way into the center, you can get very peakeddensity profiles that have different characteristicsthan just a gas fuel system.5

5 A peaked density profile is a plasma property that may bevery important for achieving a burning plasma, so this is a verysignificant characteristic for MAT to achieve (National ResearchCouncil, 2001).


So the dense plasma requires the addition of pelletinjectors to the tokamak, and the pellet injectors inturn improve the plasma, enhancing MATs researchprogram.

This may be a novel form of the process of accu-mulative advantage, which has been well establishedin science studies (Merton, 1973; Latour and Woolgar,1979; applied to groups byde Haan et al., 1994).Ordinarily, inequalities of performance increase overtime as success begets success: resources become re-sults, results become publications, publications en-hance reputation, and reputation brings resources in a“cycle of credibility” that increases the variability ofreputation, rewards, and resources in science. In thisnovel form, advantage accumulates through a processthat centers on the research technologies groups useand the contingencies that affect their changing placewithin the research and policy realms. Properties ofresearch ensembles interact with one another, with thegroup’s interests and abilities, and with the accom-plishments of other groups and the priorities of poli-cymakers to produce advantagesor disadvantages. AtMAT properties of the plasma interact with technicalfeatures of the machine and research priorities of thefield to bestow future advantages. At CTX, in contrast,plasma properties and epistemic commitments—thecool but well-diagnosed plasma and commitment tounderstanding the fundamental physics of how turbu-lence causes transport—conferred initial advantagesthat later became disadvantages.

Tokamaks are always in flux, upgrading tech-nologies and performance in a turbulent policy en-vironment, so they routinely operate near the edgeof breakdown. Whether this danger is a liabilityor an asset depends on social characteristics of thegroup. Throughout their histories, both CTX andMAT experienced significant downtime, accompaniedby reductions in research and publication. Making avirtue of an occupational hazard, for example, someMAT researchers study

halo currents, which are when we actually lose con-trol of the plasma and it goes unstable, it slams intothe walls, and when it does that it can drive veryhigh currents in the vessel. It does interact with themagnetic fields and can cause large stresses on thevessel . . . we had always thought that the plasmawould go up or down sort of uniformly all the way

around the torus. But it turned out, in fact, that itrotates around and crashes sort of locally and canin fact generate much more force than we thought itcould, because rather than going down uniformly,it sort of goes down, you know, at one location andthen sort of spirals down.

To summarize, through machine upgrades, failures,and downtime MAT adjusted to the shifts in fusionpolicy, parlaying advantages of their research ensem-ble into other sorts of advantages (including relevanceto shifting policy priorities), earning “a growing shareof a shrinking pie.”

4.3. Performance: publications and citations

Publications and citations are widely accepted in-dicators of the scientific and technical performance ofresearch groups (Andrews, 1979). Admittedly, theseare quite simple measures, and for some purposes ex-pert evaluations of intellectual and technical contribu-tions, patent counts, and other indicators may be pre-ferred. But these are adequate for sketching the mag-nitude and trajectory of each facility’s performance.

Fig. 2 shows publications for each facility from1985 to 1999, presented as 3-year moving averagescentered on the middle year. Thus the publicationcount of 1985 is one third of the sum of publicationsin 1984, 1985, 1986. The moving average smoothesout sharp annual differences that can mask trends andmisrepresent publication patterns (because there is acertain amount of arbitrariness and error in a publica-tion date). In this period CTX published 104 articlesthat received a total of 1217 citations (11.7 each)while MAT published 142 articles that received 1759citations (12.4 citations each). MAT published at amuch higher rate than CTX during the mid-1980s,then CTX became much more productive, outstrippingMAT during the early 1990s, peaking in 1992, thendeclining as MAT rose during the critical 1994–1995biennium. The pattern reflects turbulence in the policyenvironment and continual adjustments of the re-search ensembles to new contingencies. Importantly,there is no evidence of large initial differences oraccumulative advantage (a widening publication gapover time). The argument that one facility is vastlybetter than the other, or acquired and cultivated anenduring advantage, would be difficult to sustain.


1985

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Fig. 2. CTX and MAT articles per year 3 years moving average.

We treated citations similarly, tracking them forthe same years, calculating a moving average, divid-ing by the number of publications in the period, andgraphing the time series (seeFig. 3). Citations aresomewhat more difficult to interpret, because we didnot limit the range of referencing years but includedall citations received up to the search date.6 The cita-tion patterns begin with CTX much higher than MAT,the result of peculiar circumstances: each facility pub-lished its most highly cited article in 1984, and CTX’shas received 148 citations to date, MAT’s 167. ButMAT published more articles than CTX in 1984–1986(17 versus 4), so its blockbuster citations are spreadmore thinly. The pattern soon smoothes out, withMAT receiving more citations than CTX for workpublished during the mid-1980s. Then it is overtakenby CTX, just as it was in the publication chart. But in1993 MAT overtakes CTX and the lines run roughlyparallel for the duration (that is, through 2000).

In sum, publication and citation data present aconsistent and supportive picture: there is no “birthadvantage” for MAT; the temporal pattern is turbu-

6 Citations are given to articles with whatever improved per-spective the times allow, so the rising published output of MATmay directly cite earlier MAT publications and may also call at-tention to that work, thus attracting citations from others. CTXpublications would experience complementary disadvantages.

lent, reflecting downtime for each machine and risingand falling fortunes with the field; and there is atransition point in both graphs that marks a sharpchange in fortunes that occurred at the time of ourfieldwork.

4.4. Summary and comparison

CTX and MAT are academic facilities of similarage, size, social composition, and performance thatconduct fusion energy research using tokamaks, butthey do so with strikingly different ensembles of re-search technologies. CTX is a relatively small andreliable tokamak, with excellent diagnostics and ded-ication to a fundamental question in plasma physics.For its connection to ITER (and through that to themain concerns of US fusion research policy in themid-1990s), CTX argues that understanding funda-mental physics is essential to the construction of aworking fusion reactor. It makes this argument at atime when the largest and most expensive machinesin the world are “pushing parameters” and develop-ing scaling laws. MAT is a small machine that usesstrong magnetic fields to produce hot, dense, energeticplasmas. Its divertor cleans and improves the qual-ity of the plasma, and its vessel walls contribute toplasma quality and technological importance. MAT’splasmas are similar to those of the largest machines


1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998

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Fig. 3. CTX and MAT citations per year 3 years moving average.

and approach those needed in a working fusionreactor.

5. Technology and work in fusion

The vocation of science, Weber reminded us, entailspersonal rewards and significant perils. As one of themost skilled and engaging lines of work, research isgenerally known to provide considerable intrinsic sat-isfactions and rewards: autonomy, challenge, develop-ment, meaning, variety, collegiality, and the like. Butsuch rewards are not available to all researchers: char-acteristics of the vessel and the seas it sails influencelife on board. An episode from CTX and a compara-tive analysis of survey data will illustrate the point.

5.1. Upgrading technology and degrading work:a cautionary tale

Once it’s achieved then we can study it . . . . It’sactually—I don’t know if it’s been explained toyou—it’s a little embarrassment that we don’t haveit, and it could have a major funding consequence,which is why we’re also worked up about it. And soit’s putting a lot of stress on a lot of people. We’repretty good about not pointing fingers: Nobody’ssaying it’s your fault or anything like that. But

after you’ve been trying to do something for daysand days and days you get very frustrated, and thatmakes the interactions harder. It’s been happeningnow for about [pfffft: an unintelligible sound thatimplies a long time] and makes the environmentharder than it normally is.

(A CTX physicist)

“It” is H-mode, a sharp rise in energy confinementtime caused by electrostatic fields at the plasma edge(Fowler, 1997, pp. 37–38).7 H-mode is a new scal-ing, which means that as energy input rises, confine-ment time increases at a rate about double that of lowmode. Simply put, the plasma becomes surprisinglywell behaved for its energy level. Machines that canattain H-mode produce plasmas of greater scientificand engineering interest, so it is very important to doso. The Department of Energy established H-mode asan objective for CTX, and the facility spent years inthe effort. The quest for H-mode at CTX reveals thehazards of work in big technoscience:

We should have gotten it [H-mode] three years ago.Then the divertor coils broke and we had to take

7 H-mode was first observed in the ASDEX machine in Ger-many in 1982, then confirmed and explained through a series ofexperiments at UCLA and DIII-D in La Jolla.


them away and make new ones. And then we finallyhad divertor coils but the gyrotrons weren’t work-ing and it took us a long time to get them working.Actually, the gyrotrons were a very peculiar prob-lem in the sense that, many other problems you canthrow people at them and with more people it willbecome solved. But in that particular one there werethe people who were the specialists and they couldonly do what they could do. So that was very hardon them in particular. . . . You can ask for somebodyto work 10 h a day for a week, maybe two, but notfor a year. [Laughs].

Another senior scientist said “H-mode is our cur-rent problem right now. . . . We were spending asmuch as half of our time just on development of thatone discharge condition.” Pursuit of this mandatedupgrade produced a cascade of mechanical failuresand interrupted research, which greatly disturbedwork life at CTX:

There’s a lot more stress, a lot more fear. Peoplehave been fired in the meantime. Competition ishealthy. I don’t see people trying to do people in,which could be possible, considering that one of uscould be fired next year. . . . But that doesn’t seemto make people spoil things for people. We’re stillworking together in this. But there is a lot of stress,there is a lot of fear. . . . We all feel we’re being askedto do too many things too quickly. That’s difficult,and it seems to be normal nowadays. [Laughs].

Among researchers autonomy is highly valued initself and as a pathway to personal and professionaldevelopment, and development is valued more highlythan conventional advancement or promotion. Askedabout the chances to get ahead at CTX, a physicistreplied “I do not think any of us wants to go up: in ourfield the way up is just to stay where you are but haveless requirements imposed on your time. You don’tnecessarily want to be the boss of anybody, you justwant to be the boss of yourself.” Yet autonomy of pre-cisely that sort, and all that it entails, is diminished inpursuit of the mandated upgrade of CTX. Comparingcurrent conditions to those at CTX a few years earlier,a scientist recalled that

There was a time, a few years ago, when I had theenergy to tell others, ‘Look, I’m not going to do whatyou want. I’m doing this thing, it’s more important.’

And I got away with it. But because we’re now incrisis mode I don’t feel like it will be responsible todo that. . . . I’ll eventually get around to it, as soonas we get over this H-mode thing. Hopefully I’ll getback to doing what I want to do. But it has more todo with the situation of the whole group. And theproblem is that the budget constraints don’t make itlook good. People are being fired: it means the onesthat stay have that much more to do. The things thatneed to be done are the same. So it is not very likelyin the near future that I’ll be the boss of my time.

The picture for getting more autonomy doesn’t lookvery good. The picture for fusion doesn’t look good,either. As our budget shrinks and our needs expand,we’ll have less and less autonomy. It’s actually veryhard for any of us to leave the field, because thereis very little to go to . . . . Most of us can’t reallyimagine ourselves doing anything but research, be-cause that’s what we do.

Autonomy is at the core of a researcher’s need tosustain and develop competences and to remain em-ployed, and pressure to upgrade the machine loweredautonomy and reduced opportunities for professionaldevelopment.

I let the group take precedence [in establishing myresearch agenda and day-to-day responsibilities]because we’re in such a crisis situation . . . what thegroup needs becomes a lot more important becausewe actually need it . . . . It’s not particularly goodfor my career . . . . As a theorist I am losing groundbecause I’m so busy with experiments I don’t havetime to keep up with the theory . . . . I would neverbe hired as an experimentalist, because that’s notwhat I am. I may be hired as a theorist [but] it coulddamage me [to remain so involved with experimen-tal work that my theoretical skills remain underde-veloped] . . . . The choices I make are affected bythe environment, they certainly are. It is a strangebalance and I’m not always sure which is the rightanswer . . . . As long as I’m doing what the experi-ment needs, my job working with the experiment issafe if the experiment is safe. On the other hand, ifthe experiment is gone, I’m less safe than I would beif I chose to do other things . . . . The path I am tak-ing does not take me to [another, more prestigiousfusion facility]. If I had made the other choice and


gone more with theory I might have had a chanceto go [there].

(A CTX physicist)

To remain operational CTX needed first to upgradeits machine by achieving H-mode, which would gainsome operating time, then to compete successfullyfor a new machine. The upgrade was a years-longstruggle and the ground rules for the competition didnot favor research competences and properties af-forded by CTX’s research ensemble: the new machinewould require more power and more radiation shield-ing than CTX now has, and its research would focuson magnetohydrodynamics, not a CTX strength.8

Policy influences drove CTX to pursue objectivesthat strained the group’s competences and the affor-dances of its research ensemble, diminished auton-omy, reduced research productivity and jeopardizedcareers.

In summing up the prospects for CTX, a scientistopined that

the consequence of not getting the [new] machineis that it’s possible CTX will have to shut down. . . . DOE is the funding agency and they decidewhere the money goes . . . . Officially there are ad-visory committees made up of scientists, and theadvisory committees tell DOE what they think isimportant, and then DOE goes ahead and acts onit. But in reality DOE has much more of a say in

8 The DOE influence on research ensembles is sometimes asdramatic as supporting the construction of a facility or mothballingone that has just been constructed (as happened at the national labsin Livermore and Oak Ridge). But DOE influence can be moremeasured, as when the agency directs the academic researchersit supports to locate (or relocate) their diagnostics on particulartokamaks. Asked about the history of his work with CTX, aresearcher said

The history was. . . we were asked to do so by DOE. . . . It wasdetermined by DOE and I think also by CTX that they neededto have a more focused program in transport and turbulence, andtoward that they should hire—basically subcontract—to HilltopTech and ourselves, and I think there was one other group. . . .So there were basically three people that were put into thesystem to come and jump start a program in turbulence andtransport at CTX.

Another added that “there’s never any implication of force in whatI am saying. All such things are discussed and agreed on wellbeforehand, prior to ‘DOE says you need to go here.”’

what happens with us. It depends on the particularperson in DOE . . . .

DOE is an active presence in the direction andfate of the group, and it acts not entirely imperiouslyand not always abruptly, but in concert with othersin the field (constituted as advisory committees) andwith a degree of delicacy. While not ordered, as aprincipal might order an agent, such directives were“discussed” but never negotiated. Thus DOE guidesfusion research groups by using boundary organiza-tions to exert pressure on budgets, personnel, and per-haps most powerfully, on the technical requirementsand capacities imposed on the research ensemble.Autonomy, development, and teamwork may becomecasualties of the machine-mediated pressure appliedby DOE. And the influence is neither vague nor dis-tant: during our fieldwork we noticed daily phoneconversations between CTX administrators and DOEofficials, some occurring in our presence, and re-searchers telling us of weekly and monthly progressreports.

Twin threats—that a single researcher may be lostor that the entire vessel may capsize or founder—arevividly present in the researcher’s mind. As mattersunfolded CTX was shut down in December 1995, af-ter 15 years of operation. At this writing the scientistinterviewed above is employed elsewhere in the fusionresearch community.

5.2. Measures of work life at CTX and MAT

What is his personal dedication to the job? Has heworked in a group? Can he sacrifice himself com-pletely to the team? That’s very tough; often thesequalities don’t go together. Some people who workhard will work that way for themselves and no-body else. That is, they’ll really put a lot of effortif they’re interested in a problem, but if they’re notinterested in it, even if their boss is or their col-leagues are—they won’t . . . . I look for people whohave enough of this group spirit to maintain theirmotivation. Because they’ll be working with a team,a very dedicated, professional team . . . . I may notbe able to offer these guys a high salary, but I tryvery hard to offer them professional development,professional recognition.


(Dale Meade, head of the Experimental Division ofthe Princeton Plasma Fusion Laboratory, explaininghis hiring standards. Quoted in Heppenheimer, 1984,pp. 56–57, 61)

We have argued that characteristics of the ensembleof research technologies used by a group will influ-ence the work and work lives of members. Differencesin the research ensembles of CTX and MAT have beenestablished through descriptions of the facilities, mea-sures of performance, and in the words and experi-ences of researchers themselves. In this section we usequestionnaire data from small samples of researchersto confirm and refine these results by comparing worklife and job satisfaction at CTX and MAT. We findthat researchers at the two facilities are quite similarin social background, work-related values, and taskcharacteristics, but differ significantly and predictablyin perceptions of the field and the group’s place in it,working conditions, and in the satisfactions receivedfrom their work.

In educational attainment, sex and ethnic composi-tion, citizenship, age and seniority (measured withinthe profession, the organization and the group) thetwo facilities are nearly identical (data not shown).Each group is predominantly composed of white,male, highly educated US citizens. On average eachgroup is about 40 years old, with a bit more than12 years experience since attainment of the highestdegree, employed in the current organization, andwith the current group, for almost all of that time.None of the small differences approaches statisticalsignificance at the 0.10 level.

Researchers at CTX and MAT value the same workcharacteristics to about the same degree: autonomy,collegiality, and development opportunities top the

Table 1Perceptions of the places of CTX and MAT in the field

Perception CTX MAT Diff. (sig.)

The work of our group is central 4.2 5.5 1.3 (0.00)We have trouble keeping pace with developments 4.2 2.2 2.0 (0.00)Our group has changed research problems to avoid competing 2.9 2.1 0.8 (0.02)People in this field agree about the important research questions 4.4 5.3 0.9 (0.02)Groups in this field cooperate freely with one another 3.5 5.1 1.6 (0.00)There is a lot of competition between groups in this field 5.3 4.7 0.7 (0.07)

Scale scores range from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). All significance levels are based ont-tests and are two-tailed.

list, followed in order by intrinsic rewards (such aschallenge and variety), control over work of others,and extrinsic rewards (such as pay and job security).Such results are unsurprising and confirm expecta-tions based on many other studies of scientists andengineers (e.g.Pelz and Andrews, 1976; Miller, 1986;Watson and Meiksins, 1991; Jones, 1996; Keller,1997). The groups differ only slightly on particu-lar items, and none of those differences approachesstatistical significance at the 0.10 level.

Doing research involves a variety of activities, andthe mix may vary from place to place. We subdividedresearch work into 10 tasks, asking researchers howinvolved they were in each one. The tasks followthe sequence of a research project: choosing a topic,reviewing literature, conceptualizing the problem,gathering and analyzing data, and writing up the re-sults. The tasks performed by researchers at the twofacilities differ in only one respect: MAT researchersare more involved in building equipment and appara-tus. Otherwise researchers at the two facilities displaysimilar profiles on the spectrum of research tasks.Against this backdrop of similarity, several strikingdifferences emerge.

Table 1reports researchers’ perceptions of the fieldand their group’s place within it, and there are con-sistent differences in perceptions from the vantagepoints of CTX and MAT. Researchers at MAT see theirwork as central to the field, have little difficulty keep-ing up with new developments, and have not changedresearch problems to avoid competition. From theirvantage point, the field is characterized by consen-sus, cooperation, and relatively low competition be-tween groups. For CTX the circumstances are muchdifferent: their work is less central to the field, theyhave trouble keeping up with technical developments,


Table 2Working conditions at CTX and MAT

Working condition CTX MAT Diff. (sig.)

Career security 2.5 2.7 0.2 (ns)Autonomy 3.6 3.8 0.2 (ns)Specialization 2.7 2.1 0.6 (0.00)Resources 3.0 3.5 0.5 (0.00)Collegiality 3.2 3.7 0.3 (0.01)Development 3.3 3.6 0.3 (0.01)Intrinsic job characteristics 3.3 3.6 0.3 (0.02)

Scales are scored from 1 (low) to 5 (high). All significance levelsare based ont-tests and are two-tailed.

and have changed problems to avoid competition. Forthem consensus and cooperation are lower, competi-tion higher. All but one of these differences (compe-tition) are significant atp = 0.02 or below.

We propose that differences in research ensemblesinteract with the policy environment to influence thework life and job satisfaction of group members, andTable 2 shows significant differences in several as-pects of work. Researchers at MAT report significantlybetter resources and collegiality, better intrinsic jobcharacteristics (e.g., variety and challenge), less spe-cialization, and greater opportunities to develop as ascientist or engineer. There are no appreciable differ-ences in job security and autonomy, which is reason-able because fusion researchers are employed in verysimilar jobs and their security depends upon much thesame funding environment.

Table 3reveals statistically significant and substan-tively large differences in research ensembles influ-ence the job satisfaction of group members. Dimen-sions of satisfaction most closely related to propertiesof the research ensemble—equipment, development,recognition and collegiality—are all significantlyhigher at MAT than at CTX. Intrinsic satisfactions,such as challenge, autonomy, variety, and benefit ofthe research to society, are also about a half pointhigher at MAT. Finally, researchers at MAT are moresatisfied with their pay and with the contribution oftheir research to their careers, but are no higher in jobsecurity or safety and comfort of the work. In sum,there are large and significant differences betweenCTX and MAT in satisfaction with resources and, tolesser extents, with the intrinsic and extrinsic rewardsof work.

Table 3Work satisfaction at CTX and MAT

Satisfactions CTX MAT Diff. (sig.)

Resources (scale) 5.1 5.9 0.8 (0.00)Equipment 5.4 6.4 1.0 (0.00)Development 4.6 5.6 1.0 (0.02)Recognition 4.8 5.5 0.7 (0.03)Collegiality 5.2 5.9 0.7 (0.05)Intrinsic rewards (scale) 5.4 5.9 0.5 (0.02)Challenge 5.8 6.1 0.3 (ns)Autonomy 5.3 5.7 0.4 (ns)Variety 5.6 6.3 0.7 (0.01)Societal benefit 4.7 5.2 0.5 (ns)Extrinsic rewards (scale) 4.3 4.9 0.6 (0.04)Pay 4.0 4.8 0.8 (0.06)Job security 3.8 4.3 0.5 (ns)Safety and comfort 5.2 5.4 0.2 (ns)Career contribution 4.2 5.3 1.1 (0.01)Overall job satisfaction 5.1 5.8 0.7 (0.06)

Scales are scored from 1 (low) to 7 (high). All significance levelsare based ont-tests and are two-tailed.

Overall job satisfaction is an integrative psychicresponse that spans the specific dimensions of the jobmeasured above (Hackman and Oldham, 1976). To es-timate the relative influence of the research ensembleon overall satisfaction, we regressed satisfaction ontothree composite scales: extrinsic satisfaction (pay,security, comfort, and career contribution), intrinsicsatisfaction (autonomy, challenge, development, andvariety), and resource satisfaction (equipment, col-leagues, and recognition). We expect the facilities todiffer in one principal way: the effect of resourceson satisfaction should be positive and significantlystronger for MAT than for CTX. The regressionswere run in two steps, first including only intrinsicand extrinsic satisfactions as predictors, then addingresource satisfaction to the equation.

The analysis presented inTable 4 supports thisprediction. The upper panel shows that intrinsic sat-isfaction has roughly equal positive effects at the twofacilities and that extrinsic satisfaction more stronglypredicts overall job satisfaction at CTX than at MAT.Resource satisfaction has a dramatically positive ef-fect on satisfaction at MAT: the coefficient is thelargest in the table and the proportion of varianceexplained leaps from 0.38 to 0.71. In contrast, re-source satisfaction has a slight (but not significant)negative effect on satisfaction for CTX and the overallR-squared is essentially unchanged. Taken together,


Table 4Regressions of overall job satisfaction onto facet satisfactions

CTX MAT

Model 1 b β t (sig.) b β t (sig.)Extrinsics 0.56 0.45 2.9 (0.01) 0.20 0.22 1.3 (0.20)Intrinsics 0.44 0.32 2.0 (0.05) 0.67 0.49 2.9 (0.01)Constant 0.31 0.84R2 adj. 0.46 0.38

Model 2Extrinsics 0.63 0.51 3.2 (0.00) 0.02 0.02 0.20 (0.84)Intrinsics 0.57 0.41 2.4 (0.02) 0.38 0.28 2.3 (0.03)Resources −0.29 −0.20 1.3 (0.20) 0.89 0.67 6.4 (0.00)Constant 0.86 −1.90R2 adj. 0.47 0.71

N 34 37

these analyses confirm that characteristics of the en-semble of research technologies used by a group,in interaction with the wider context, influences thework life and job satisfaction of group members.

6. Summary, conclusions, and implications

We have developed the idea of research ensemble tocapture the technological aspect of research work, ex-plained its fit with related ideas, shown how it mediatesbetween the wider environment and research work,and illustrated the argument with data from a compar-ative case study. Future studies with larger samples ofgroups would necessarily pay less attention to histor-ical and technical details of research groups and theirensembles of technologies in favor of their analyticproperties or dimensions. Based on these cases, salientproperties of research ensembles would include relia-bility, sensitivity, velocity, versatility (or adaptability),uniqueness, and connectedness. We have introducedand characterized these dimensions; others may de-velop them, assess their relative importance, and pro-pose new or refined properties.

Ensembles of research technologies are built andshaped by researchers, acting in concert with col-laborators, competitors, policymakers, and the widerpublic. Ensembles acquire a degree of autonomy andinertia, and guide the trajectory and performanceof the group. Research ensembles are an impor-tant and unexplored way that groups accumulate

advantages and disadvantages, distinct from the es-tablished cycle of credibility (Latour and Woolgar,1979). Fusion and other technoscientific fields arecharacterized by a culture that is both epistemic andtechnogenic; change over time in the balance betweenthose elements may cause research ensembles thatonce were well positioned to find themselves at adisadvantage.

Research is a vocation that demands much of itspractitioners and in return promises rich personal re-wards. Beyond the intrinsic value of such rewards,substantial evidence suggests that the quality of worklife influences performance (seeJudge et al., 2001, fora meta-analysis of 312 samples totaling about 54,000respondents). For research work, which is highly spe-cialized and difficult to monitor and evaluate duringits performance, intrinsic motivation is particularlysalient for performance. Moreover, the quality of worklife in the present will influence the next generation,whose commitment to research may depend on thequality of research life they observe and experienceduring their training. Since large-scale technoscienceprojects may not bear fruit for decades, the work envi-ronment experienced by young researchers is criticalfor the field. Fusion energy is not unique: long-termenvironmental and climate change, genetic therapies,nanotechnology, and other fields may share this prop-erty. For such reasons the work lives of researchersdeserve closer study, and such studies must take ac-count of the collaborative character of research andthe central importance of research ensembles.


Policy for big technoscience confronts other chal-lenges. The responsiveness that politicians and policy-makers desire of their research agents meets inertia inthe epistemic and technogenic cultures and in the lim-ited adaptability of research ensembles. Standards ofevidence and argument, benchmarks of functionalityand performance, the values and practices that make“good science” or “good engineering” change reluc-tantly and with some disruption. Perhaps research en-sembles should be explicitly designed to be flexibleand adaptable, or perhaps explicit choices should bemade to accept less versatility for greater reliability,sensitivity, or velocity. Or perhaps sturdier vessels andhardier sailors would be indicated, as quieter seas areunlikely.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Grant SBE 9896330from the US National Science Foundation. The au-thors alone are responsible for the ideas, analyses, in-terpretations, and recommendations expressed in thispaper. We are particularly grateful to the researchersat CTX and MAT who generously took part in ourstudy, and to Lori Fournier and Franco Medeiros whohelped with the initial survey analysis. Barry Boze-man, Vincent Mangematin, and Juan Rogers providedespecially thoughtful, thorough, and helpful commentson drafts of the manuscript.

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