The Human Brain Project Between Politics, Science, and Engineering

This article investigates the unfolding of increased political interest in research infrastructure at the practical level. As a case study, I examine the European Commission's (EC) Human Brain Project (HBP). The HBP is a large-scale interdisciplinary project that aims to build a web-accessible...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEngineering studies Vol. 16; no. 2; pp. 108 - 132
Main Author Kim, Jongheon
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 03.05.2024
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Taylor & Francis
Subjects
boundary work
Brain
epistemic cultures
European commission
History, Philosophy and Sociology of Sciences
human brain project
Humanities and Social Sciences
Infrastructure
Medical research
Political science
Politics
Research infrastructure
Sociology
Profession
Big Science
Boundary work
Boundary
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Summary:This article investigates the unfolding of increased political interest in research infrastructure at the practical level. As a case study, I examine the European Commission's (EC) Human Brain Project (HBP). The HBP is a large-scale interdisciplinary project that aims to build a web-accessible digital research infrastructure for neuroscience, medical research, and information technology. The project provides a unique study case for observing interdisciplinary interaction within a large-scale project for infrastructure building in brain science, where small-scale research has been the norm. I analyze how the stances of the EC and the HBP members on the project's goal and organization have co-evolved by focusing on the project's two radical reorientations. Thus, I describe the HBP's tangled trajectory as the result of the project's shifting definition between research and infrastructure construction or between politics, science, and engineering.
ISSN:1937-8629
1940-8374
DOI:10.1080/19378629.2023.2277197