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Rh of collections worldwide, and a large-scale survey of member collections of the WFCC. The results highlight, firstly, the multifunctionality and public good properties of micro-organisms for users in both basic research and product development of, for example, pharmaceutical drugs. Secondly, they show that a two-tier system is developing of one traditional, more scientifically oriented kind of PSMCs, and another, more commercially oriented tier.


 * 1. Analysing actor networks in the World Federation for Culture Collections

Actor Network Theory will be used to contrast the governance attributes of the research sector and analyse the policy implications of the two-tier regime in the PSMCs: the basic research tier with a set of governance attributes characterized by informal exchanges and reciprocity amongst researchers on the one hand, and the emerging commercial tier which has recourse to the use of formal contracts and certification of management standards.

The inherent interdependence among actors causes a complex system of interests and incentives. Actor Network analysis can be used to disentangle and simplify the different motivations in these networks. In this framework, all actions are viewed as being interrelated, within and between networks. It is by inducing other actors to act in a special way that the influence is achieved, for example, by persuading other actors to enrolenroll [sic] in the network, and to gain the right to speak on behalf of other actors. Successful “translation” happens when actors accept their roles; translation fails when it cannot overcome heterogeneous preferences and motivations. For the purpose of this study the term actor is used for non-humans in the sense of Strathern (1999), i.e. anything mobilised in the course of action. Here we consider individuals, organisations, microbes and even policies to be actors in order to acknowledge their influence on the microbe flow.

The data for studying the actor networks was gathered in close collaboration with the WFCC, which is the largest international collaboration organisation of PSMCs and United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) Microbial Resources