Accelerating Innovation: Assessing Nanotechnologies, Prototypes and Research Teams

The Army-sponsored Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN) was an entrepreneurial research institute established at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2002. Using Science and Technology Studies (STS) concepts from Actor-Network Theory, I study the founding era of this twenty-first century laboratory-based community, from 2002-2007. Actor-Network concepts of enrollment and translation, described by Bruno Latour, and heterogeneous engineering, described by John Law, are used as I 'follow the actors' founding this emergent institution. The operationalization of translation is traced through four case studies, structured around Defense funding constructs and Science and Technology communities: 6.0 Founding the Institute; 6.1 Building Basic Research Networks; 6.2 Shaping Applied Research for Cancer Research and Science Education to include non-users; and 6.3 Student Prototyping Teams Accelerating ISN Research for Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI). Scientists, engineers, and transitioners partnered in new ways to transition innovative technologies to improve human protection, with soldiers as the first of many users. Using public information, I used qualitative and quantitative methodologies to assess the actor networks and research portfolio changes. These historical case studies extend STS with operationalization of translation and a new dynamic of bi-directional actor enrollment, as research teams transitioned nanotechnologies and prototypes.