Science is an increasingly collaborative venture. To understand important issues in science policy, one must thus understand scientific collaboration. Two pressing, current issues in science policy involve women's participation in science and ethical issues in science. This project investigates collaboration in the chemical sciences in order to develop deeper knowledge about both women in science and how scientists think broadly about ethical issues and responsibilities in their field. The United States' continuing competitiveness in developing innovative science and engineering demands both broader participation in those fields and continuing high standards of research.
Despite over thirty years of research on women in science (mostly in purely academic settings) and significant investments, the persistence of gender gaps in science remains without an adequate explanation. Investigation of the chemical sciences allows this project to look at the determinants of success in research collaborations, both in academic and industrial settings. Although policies and programs for recruiting women to science make assumptions about why women are drawn to science (e.g., for altruistic reasons like helping others), very little research to date has investigated the social processes and organizational contexts by which gender can be related to broad ethical approaches to science. This project employs rigorous qualitative methods -- a combination of intensive interviews with women and men chemical scientists and ethnographic observation of their research collaboration meetings -- to build new, empirically-grounded theory. The observation methods in this project allow for investigation of (1) how different approaches to collaboration among men and women chemists are employed on a daily basis and (2) which kinds of laboratory organization are most conducive to innovative collaboration. Interviews with chemical scientists provide data on how scientists think about responsibilities of scientists in their field, including perceived responsibilities in research collaboration. The sustained three-year observation allows for following the arc of collaborative research relationships over time. Given that collaboration is a key mechanism in the process of knowledge production in chemical sciences, investigating what it looks like on the ground (i.e., what scientists view as worth pursuing and how they manage collaboration) is vital to understanding the productivity of science investments.
Broader impacts
The contributions of this project to the science of science policy and innovation are expected to include building basic social-science knowledge about collaboration, with a particular emphasis on the respective involvements of women and men in research collaboration and how scientists think about their collaborative responsibilities. This project provides new data and derived insights on how to address collaboration and career issues for women in science, which will be crucial for future decision-makers who seek a grounded basis for policies that create greater equity. The focus on integrating equity and ethical climates provides insights into how responsible conduct of research training improves both payoffs from investments and the scientific work environment. This project also integrates research and teaching; graduate students and a postdoctoral researcher working with the principal investigators will have opportunities to learn to be effective collaborators in the social sciences while they are studying the theory of effective collaboration and observing and analyzing the outcomes of research collaboration in the chemical sciences.
