Paper short abstract:

Synthetic biology is an interdisciplinary field involving researchers from across the biophysical sciences. Social scientists are also joining research teams. We argue that anthropologists can play a key role in understanding the communication issues arising from these interdisciplinary interactions.

Paper long abstract:

Synthetic biology is an interdisciplinary field, incorporating researchers from across biology, engineering, computer science and other fields. With the development of the 'Responsible Innovation' agenda, an increasingly influential science government framework, researchers from social sciences and humanities are also progressively being incorporated into the field. This paper draws on the experiences of being an anthropologist based in a synthetic biology research centre mainly populated by biophysical scientists. Six months into a four year ethnographic project, one of the important areas of focus to emerge, is the issue of language and communication across different disciplines within the synthetic biology centre. Participant observation of meetings, day-to-day encounters, and other interactions provides a complex portrait of the challenges of communicating using different disciplinary 'languages'. Additionally, within a Responsible Innovation framework, synthetic biology scientists are urged to communicate outside the research centre with wider societal actors, with the aim of incorporating differing perspectives into their research.

Building on the direct experiences of working in an interdisciplinary team, we also look to the wider institutional research governance landscape to explore how these are impacting on working practices between different disciplines, with a particular interest in the role of communication in the context of synthetic biology. We argue that anthropologists can play a key role in identifying the complex and multiple reasons that are the impetus for communication within and outside the research centre, as well as helping to mediate interdisciplinary interactions.