Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the differences and similarities in the aims, values and concerns of researchers working in Health Technology Assessment. It studies how the goods and the bads are negotiated in this interdisciplinary group, and how this relates to the idea of good science in related fields.

Paper long abstract:

In our project 'Achieving Good Science. A cross-disciplinary study' we follow researchers from five different disciplines in their daily research practices to find out what researchers care about and how they work hard to achieve what they see as good science. This paper discusses our ethnographic fieldwork in the Health Technology Assessment unit of Epidemiology. In this unit, researchers from different scientific backgrounds (psychologists, doctors, economists) with different uses of methods (experiments, computer simulations, action research) and various ideas of good science (prevent disease, make technologies patient centered, improve health care) are united. Moreover, most of the projects conducted within this unit have an interdisciplinary character. In one project, HTA researchers for example collaborate with business life to develop a Quality of Life measurement tool for infants, while another HTA researcher tries to cooperate with several health care organizations and the municipality to improve the care for people who leave an institution (e.g. a rehabilitation center). In this paper I focus on the differences and similarities in the aims, values and concerns of researchers working in this interdisciplinary field. I study how the goods and the bads are negotiated within these research projects, as well as between the researchers of this unit. An additional question is how this diversity of aims and values relates to the idea of good science in its mother-field epidemiology, and the monodisciplinary focus of the hospital.