Industry collaboration, scientific sharing, and the dissemination of knowledge

Robert Merton famously characterized modern science as distinct from other social spheres by the importance of sharing. In contrast, secrecy is often claimed the most frequent method companies employ to benefit from their discoveries. This study interrogates these claims, and then uses fieldwork on academic research with the popular plant model Arabidopsis thaliana and the companies that support it to explore the nature of sharing in academy and...