Paper short abstract:

Ethical formulations which imagine that public good derives from commercialising bioscience research are made possible by folk models which conceive of knowledge and social relations as natural resources, in turn making possible the formulation of particular kinds of 'bioeconomic' subjectivities.

Paper long abstract:

Recent European initiatives to create a "knowledge bioeconomy" focus in large part on reordering the relationship of universities (as sites of knowledge production) to other areas of society, most notably industrial actors. In the United Kingdom in particular a key concern of such activities within government, industry, and higher education is to redefine the scope and role of universities in British society. Such attempts imagine reorienting the purpose and practice of academic research activities to harness the potential economic impacts of that research. Although these initiatives all propose distinctly different institutional forms to accomplish this, they all take innovation as one of their major concerns.

Innovation, described by one DTI website as "the successful exploitation of new ideas", is described as an effectual producer of public good. For the biosciences, in particular, innovation serves the public good by creating both medical benefits (improved healthcare) and economic benefits (increased wealth) which are assumed to have favourable knock-on effects for all. Thus the common weal is served through the pursuit of private gain. In this context, attempts to reorient research in Higher Education Institutions are not just held to be a matter of policy, but an ethical imperative.

Based on fieldwork I have conducted since 2004 in the bioscience cluster in and around the University of Cambridge, this paper will argue that such ethical formulations are not necessarily cynical rationalizations for private gain, but are instead rooted in deeper understandings of the nature of knowledge and social relations as natural and productive resources. Such conceptions simultaneously make possible the ethical formulations I describe and set the stage for formulating particular kinds of subjectivities in a "bioeconomic" world. The potential problems these findings might pose for critics of the commercialization of research are briefly discussed.