Application Dominated Corporate Research:

A Research Project in the Philosophy of Science

Matthias Adam - Martin Carrier - Torsten Wilholt

Application dominated research

Sociologists of science have recently proposed that we are presently witnessing the development of a new kind of knowledge production. (Gibbons et al. 1994. Funtowicz & Ravetz 1993.) One of their claims is the advent of what could be labelled "application dominated science".

In application dominated science, the traditional distinction between basic and applied research is taken no longer to hold good. Instead, this hybrid type of research requires and achieves fundamental scientific insights (like basic research) and at the same time primarily strives for the development of specific applications (like applied research).

This raises the question whether scientific knowledge as gained in application dominated contexts differs from knowledge as obtained by traditional, primarily epistemically oriented research. Two questions suggest themselves from a philosophy of science perspective:

1. What is the structure of the theoretical models that arise from application dominated research?

2. Which standards for evaluation are adopted in application dominated contexts?

The aim of the project is to find out whether the domination of scientific research by practical concerns leads to a change in the epistemic strategies. On the one hand, provisional epistemic strategies might emerge that favour local models accepted,on the basis of their pragmatic virtues. On the other hand, traditional epistemic criteria such as the close interlinkage of models with the body of established knowledge and the empirical adequacy across a wide range of phenomena might prove to be the most efficient way to develop successful applications.

The results of the projects can contribute to the understanding both of the effects of the increasing predominance of practical concerns on the epistemic constitution of science and of the pragmatic utility of theoretical knowledge.

Micrograph of a GMR read head (IBM Corp.)

Corporate research

An ever larger share of scientific research is conducted in corporations or in close partnerships between academia and business. In various fields, substantial contributions to science have arisen from this research, even though it has largely been conducted with a close eye on prospective marketable applications. Such corporate research is therefore prototypical for application dominated research.

The project focuses on case studies taken from two areas, pharmaceutical research and magneto-electronics. Cases from pharmaceutical research concentrate on drugs developed by rational drug design. For rational drug design, structural information on proteins is gained in order to develop drugs that act on proteins in a specified way. For example, the determination of the 3D-structure of angiotensin converting enzyme has led to the development of captopril, an antihypertensive drug.

In the area of magneto-electronics, the case study focuses on corporate research on giant magnetoresistance (GMR). GMR is a novel effect that was discovered only in 1988 and transformed into markatable technology within astonishingly short time. The physical mechanism of the effect had to be explored along the way. Most prominently, it is applied in all contemporary high-performance read heads for computer hard disks.

The project is conducted in close cooperation with the VW-research group Science in Transition - Towards the Knowledge Society at the Institute for Science and Technology Studies of Bielefeld University. It is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

Angiotensin Converting Enzyme (Natesh et al. 2003)

Bibliography

S.O. Funtowicz & J.R. Ravetz (1993)
"The Emergence of Post-Normal Science", in: R. von Schomberg (ed.), Science, Politics and Morality. Scientific Uncertainty and Decision Making, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 85 – 123.

M. Gibbons, C. Limoges, H. Nowotny, S. Schwartzman, P. Scott & M. Trow (1994)
The New Production of Knowledge. The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies, London: Sage

R. Natesh, S. Schwager, E. Sturrock, K. Acharva (2003)
Crystal Structure of Human Angiotensin Converting Enzyme-Lisinopril Complex: The Protein Data Bank, Nature 421, pp. 551.