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Short abstract:

This contribution to the panel follows three initiatives of aspiring reformers of Japanese bioscience (and their interactions) as hidden agents in the STAP cell controversy, shaping the fate of RIKEN's publicly accountable replication experiment via notions of surveillance/monitoring and of reform

Long abstract:

An infamous episode of controversial experimental claims in the early 21st century life sciences was the public humiliation that was the ‘STAP cell’ (Stimulus Triggered Acquisition of Pluripotency) for stem cell research worldwide, but especially for RIKEN, the flagship research organization in Japan, and for the Molecular Biology Society of Japan (MBSJ). Within a few months (April-November 2014), RIKEN's publicly accountable replication experiment on the STAP cell was vehemently opposed by prominent scientists, yet mandated in politics; both RIKEN and MBSJ faced significant outcry when a co-author of the STAP cell publications committed suicide at work; and soon after, RIKEN declared a kind of moral bankruptcy and entered a year of external monitoring of its internal reform plans (the slogan was, not just "RIKEN for RIKEN," but "RIKEN for society").

Intrigued by the panel's theme, I foreground and discuss the credibility tactics of hidden protagonists of the STAP cell events, those who mobilized notions of surveillance/monitoring and of reform, and shaped their practical expression: initiatives of aspiring reformers of bioscience who saw their politics energized by the visibility of misconduct and jumped on the opportunity to network their ideas. Specifically, I trace 1) the establishment of the Gachi forum, seeking shortcuts to pitching reform up the policy ranks; 2) the tactics of another collective staging its ScienceTalks (also their name) via/with the Gachi, under the slogan “challenging norms, driving change”; and 3) an interlocutor of the Gachi, the Task Force for S&T Reform Strategy, a bottom-up initiate at MEXT.