Connecting People, Things and Values: Public/Private Research Relations

This paper explores how large research grants from private foundations change research practices. Of special concern is how these grants enable new relationships to emerge (interdisciplinary and/or public-private), alter the trajectory of the research (and the PI), and affect the temporal organization of the research, introducing new temporalities and linking several temporalities. Comparing private grants with research funding from public research foundations and institutions the paper also considers the accountability that these grants introduce, both in terms of reporting project outcomes and values and in terms of the flexibility to change the direction of the research in the course of the research process. We relate these questions of accountability to the current trend among funding institutions to seek to define, collect and analyse data that reflects the diverse values and impact their funding is intended to foster. The paper is based on an ongoing research project which investigates the role of the private sector in research-based education. This paper contributes to debates on translational dynamics within basic/applied contexts as explored by STS, science policy studies, and organization and management theory.