Organising research interaction: A case study of a research project in bioinformatics

Wennerstrom & Anna Dubois. This paper focuses on the emergent research discipline bioinformatics, wherein biologists or medical researchers are interacting with mathematicians or computer scientists. In particular, the paper focuses on an ongoing bioinformatics research project, the long term goal of which is to develop oats that will survive the Swedish winters. Based on this case study, the ends and means of the actors in the research project are discussed in terms of structural and process dimensions. The research project illustrates how a few actors agreed on using their means in relation to a certain end. Most of the means used in the process are developed or accessed by the actors in order to reach certain ends along the way. It is suggested that the project's contribution to the creation of bioinformatics as a discipline has to do with the future uses of the various resources developed in the project. If these uses are related to biology and computer science and can therefore be used independently, then interactive effects are achieved but no interdependence is created. Establishing a relationship between molecular biologists and computer scientists may be a way of creating inter-dependence between the two previously separate disciplines. The value of this relationship in the project will depend on how it is activated and used in the future. If a mix of resources is developed and used in future research in biology, computer science and bioinformatics, bioinformatics may be perceived both as a means and an end and consequently as a research field in its own right.