Too big to fail? A case study of the rise and fall of a medical research infrastructure

Introduction: Distributed Research Infrastructures are becoming increasingly more salient as science expands and universities continue to look for new means to cooperate and share expertise and expenses on large-scale projects. One area which has seen much development in recent years is biobanking, as there have been numerous attempts to harmonise the different biobanking standards over the years, none of which have been entirely successful. BBMRI.se was an EU-initiative that sought to harmonise the biobanks nationwide. BBMRI.se, was thus selected as a case for studying how a distributed Research Infrastructure was set up. At the time of its creation, the organisation constituted the largest investment ever made by the Swedish Research Council in a medical Research Infrastructure. The organisation involved all Swedish universities with a medical faculty, in addition to two other universities. However, the organisation was marred by a number of controversies and would eventually fold in 2018. Aim: This dissertation is to elucidate the mechanisms involved in the construction of a medical large-scale distributed Research Infrastructure, and to understand the motivations and rationale of the experts who activate themselves in constructing it. Thus, the overall aim of this doctoral thesis is to identify the benefits and constraints of forming a large-scale medical, distributed Research Infrastructure. Specifically, this dissertation looks at a real-life case while comparing it to the available literature covering the development of Research Infrastructures as well as some of the theories covering mindsharing and collective entrepreneurship. The ambition is to contribute knowledge on the determining factors in bringing a large-scale infrastructure together as well as the risks associated with it. Hence, this dissertation asks the following research question: What are the principal lessons for researchers, entrepreneurs and funders that can be inferred from the formation of a large-scale distributed Research Infrastructure towards securing more sustainable prospects for similar, future endeavours? More precisely, this dissertation seeks to determine what the most debated topics are within the academic discourse on Research Infrastructures (study I), after which it looks at the factors involved in constructing shaping a distributed Research Infrastructure (study II). The study then endeavours to looks at some of the pitfalls and how managerial self-governance affects organisational failure (study III). The study then seeks to investigate the mind-set of the managers/pioneers involved in setting up BBMRI.se and if they perceive the organisation in a similar fashion for the other managers (study IV) and how they have reasoned behind their motivations for joining the initiative in the first place (study V). The overall results have endeavoured to elucidate what components are at work when forming such an infrastructure at an organisational level, but also to understand the reasoning and motivation that the individuals responsible in setting up the infrastructure might have had, and how their visions and/or actions may have impacted on the organisation. Method: Some various designs and data collection methods were used in this dissertation. Study I was a literature study carried out as a narrative review using the PRISMA statements as a guideline. Both the Web of Science (WOS) and PubMed databases were scoured for articles. Study II-V used qualitative, semi-structured interviews with BBMRI.se managers. All of these studies took on the form of iterative, directed content analyses, with the exception of study III, which was an inductive, directed content analysis. Results: Study I found that the most commonly discussed topics concerned the need for developing and expanding the use of “infrastructures”. The findings indicated that the future of scientific research calls for a deeper and more widespread multidisciplinary forms of collaboration. Study II found that it is crucial to identify the potential collaborative and deliberative organisational elements of organisational team building already at the outset of establishing a distributed Research Infrastructure. The study also found that, contrary to suggestions of extant literature, the establishment of a distributed Research Infrastructure does not necessarily counteract organisational fragmentation. Study III identified that an organisation with high levels of task uncertainty and low levels of organisational integration will suffer from organisational fragmentation. The type of fragmentation manifested in BBMRI.se is best identified as a “fragmented adhocracy”. This means that the organisation’s mission statement is subject to diverse views, leading to goals that are separate, unstable and sometimes even conflicting, while also lacking in co-ordination. The study also found that the organisation lacked a “liaison device” and instead depended on a more traditional model of planning and control systems through its reliance on strategy documents and interim evaluation reports. This was in spite of the fact that this model is better suited for a more vertical organisational structure. Study IV investigated how managers/associates of BBMRI.se perceived the organisation’s brand and the role of “mindsharing”. The results showed that mindsharing occurred throughout the initial two stages (“Brand Strategic Analysis” and “Brand Identity”), but would disspate throughout the remaining two final stages (“Brand Operationalising”, and “Post Implementation Reflections”). This resulted in a fragmented brand perception, which resulted in the failure of generating a “pull-effect” for the BBMRI.se brand. Study V looked at how collective entrepreneurial team cognition of the instigators behind BBMRI.se changes throughout the process of establishing the organisation. The study devised a new “action phase model”, known as the “4 I’s” of entrepreneurship, where each “I” elaborated on the entrepreneurial rationale behind the various stages of the creation process. These were “Intention”, “Initiation”, “Implementation” and “Introspection”. The results illustrated that the respondents agreed that there was a need for BBMRI.se, while disagreeing on what the organisation should be doing and what its challenges consisted of. The homogenous mind-set would begin to dissipate once the “Initiation” stage was reached, declining further throughout the Implementation stage. Conclusion: The overall conclusions from study I-V have shown that distributed Research Infrastructures carries potential to form a platform to pool scientific research in the face of the ever-expanding sciences, where the demands of co-financing and scientific co-operation are becoming ever so pressing. In addition, distributed Research Infrastructures have the benefit of utilising initial synergy effects and using multidisciplinary teams. In line with the contention of Gibbons et al. (1994), this carries the potential of opening up new possibilities of scientific knowledge production. Provided there is a political incentive in place to allocate the necessary funding, the process of establishing a distributed Research Infrastructure can be done in a considerably swift timespan. However, there are several inherent risks. Most notably, there was a lack of “infrastructuring”, as defined by Star and Bowker (2002). This means that scientists as well as the policy- makers should gradually learn together through a learning process about how to creating an effective large-scale infrastructure. This may have prevented mindsharing from becoming consolidated throughout the formation process (Aaker, 1996; Acuña, 2012; Azevedo, 2005; J. Griffin, 2009; Holt, 2016; Krishnan, Sullivan, Groza, & Aurand, 2013; Stevens, 2003). This, in turn, would also put an end to the collective entrepreneurship that had up till that point characterised BBMRI.se, in which the motivations and drivers of the initiators/managers, as well as their respective recollections of the same, were instrumental features (Cardon, Post, & Forster, 2017; Czarniawska-Joerges & Wolff, 1991; Sakhdari, 2016). Moreover, the integration of autonomous “National Champions” (leading scientists within their field) carries a risk of the “principal-agent” problem, which in turn can lead to “moral hazard” as the “National Champion(s)” may elect to undertake added risks, since someone else bears the cost of those risks (Holmstrom, 1982; Laffont & Martimort, 2002; Steets, 2010). There is also an over- whelming risk of organisational fragmentation, which, coupled with managerial neglect, may cause the eventual failure of the organisation

C-EMO: A Modeling Framework for Collaborative Network Emotions

Recent research in the area of collaborative networks is focusing on the social and organizational complexity of collaboration environments as a way to prevent technological failures and consequently contribute for the collaborative network’s sustainability. One direction is moving towards the need to provide “human-tech” friendly systems with cognitive models of human factors such as stress, emotion, trust, leadership, expertise or decision-making ability. In this context, an emotion-based system is being proposed with this thesis in order to bring another approach to avoid collaboration network’s failures and help in the management of conflicts. This approach, which is expected to improve the performance of existing CNs, adopts some of the models developed in the human psychology, sociology and affective computing areas. The underlying idea is to “borrow” the concept of human-emotion and apply it into the context of CNs, giving the CN players the ability to “feel emotions”. Therefore, this thesis contributes with a modeling framework that conceptualizes the notion of “emotion” in CNs and a methodology approach based on system dynamics and agent-based techniques that estimates the CN player’s “emotional states” giving support to decision-making processes. Aiming at demonstrating the appropriateness of the proposed framework a simulation prototype was implemented and a validation approach was proposed consisting of simulation of scenarios, qualitative assessment and validation by research community peers.Recentemente a área de investigação das redes colaborativas tem vindo a debruçar-se na complexidade social e organizacional em ambientes colaborativos e como pode ser usada para prevenir falhas tecnológicas e consequentemente contribuir para redes colaborativas sustentáveis. Uma das direcções de estudo assenta na necessidade de fornecer sistemas amigáveis “humano-tecnológicos” com modelos cognitivos de factores humanos como o stress, emoção, confiança, liderança ou capacidade de tomada de decisão. É neste contexto que esta tese propõe um sistema baseado em emoções com o objectivo de oferecer outra aproximação para a gestão de conflitos e falhas da rede de colaboração. Esta abordagem, que pressupõe melhorar o desempenho das redes existentes, adopta alguns dos modelos desenvolvidos nas áreas da psicologia humana, sociologia e affective computing. A ideia que está subjacente é a de “pedir emprestado” o conceito de emoção humana e aplicá-lo no contexto das redes colaborativas, dando aos seus intervenientes a capacidade de “sentir emoções”. Assim, esta tese contribui com uma framework de modelação que conceptualiza a noção de “emoção” em redes colaborativas e com uma aproximação de metodologia sustentada em sistemas dinâmicos e baseada em agentes que estimam os “estados emocionais” dos participantes e da própria rede colaborativa. De forma a demonstrar o nível de adequabilidade da framework de modelação proposta, foi implementado um protótipo de simulação e foi proposta uma abordagem de validação consistindo em simulação de cenários, avaliação qualitativa e validação pelos pares da comunidade científica

Uma proposta de arquitetura de resiliência computacional para infraestruturas baseadas em SOA de empresas virtuais

Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia de Automação e Sistemas, Florianópolis, 2019Uma Empresa Virtual (EV) é um tipo de rede colaborativa de organizações na qual grupos de empresas se unem dinâmica, lógica e temporariamente para melhor atender a demandas de mercado. Atuando como se fossem uma única empresa, compartilham recursos, custos e riscos de um negócio, representando assim um proeminente modelo de sustentabilidade, especialmente para pequenas e médias empresas. Uma das pré-condições para atuar numa EV é que os sistemas computacionais dos seus membros interoperem para que os processos de negócio associados à EV possam ser executados sem problemas pelos mais diversos sistemas envolvidos. Esta tese explora um cenário onde todos os sistemas das empresas são implementados de uma forma que possam ser expostos como serviços de software numa perspectiva SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), serem invocados pelos processos de negócio da EV em questão e, ao mesmo tempo, possam ser compartilhados com os outros membros. Desta forma, quando uma EV é formada, um grande sistema distribuído baseado em serviços é dinamicamente criado. Dado que em uma EV novas empresas podem entrar e outras sair ao longo de sua existência, tal sistema não é estático, mas sim deve alterar sua composição, tanto em tempo de projeto, quanto em tempo de execução. Como cada empresa pode participar simultaneamente em mais do que uma EV, isso também significa que cada um dos seus serviços poderá estar envolvido ao mesmo tempo em inúmeras orquestrações, porém em diferentes contextos de negócio e requisitos de qualidade de serviço. Este sistema computacional (e seus inúmeros serviços) deve permanecer operacional ao longo de todo ciclo de vida da EV de forma a sustentar a execução dos processos e, assim, do negócio. Em um sistema como esse, largamente distribuído e com serviços implementados em diferentes tecnologias, várias falhas podem ocorrer. Esta tese propõe uma arquitetura computacional para um sistema de resiliência para esse cenário, fazendo com que o sistema como um todo se recupere diante das falhas e mantenha o nível de qualidade de serviço geral do negócio da EV. Após pesquisa na literatura, não foram encontrados trabalhos que cobrissem a área de intersecção entre resiliência, SOA e EV. Baseado no modelo de referência de computação autonômica MAPE-K, a arquitetura proposta é auto resiliente e foi concebida ela mesma como SOA; portanto distribuída, com baixo acoplamento e escalável. Além disso, seu projeto contempla as modernas visões de economia orientada a serviços, compreendendo ecossistemas de provedores de serviços de software. Para garantir a permanência da EV em operação, várias técnicas consolidadas de tolerância a falhas foram empregadas, combinadas e adaptadas ao cenário em questão, atuando tanto reativamente como proativamente, e respeitando os níveis de responsabilidade das camadas de negócio, TI e de infraestrutura computacional. Um robusto protótipo de software foi implementado como prova de conceito, onde se buscou utilizar o maior número possível de padrões abertos de TI. Ele foi avaliado experimentalmente em um cenário controlado de EV. Ao se aplicar indicadores de desempenho de referência, a arquitetura mostrou-se promissora, suportando a execução dos sistemas da EV na quase totalidade dos casos mesmo diante de inúmeras falhas. A implementação teve algumas simplificações e o desenho da arquitetura partiu de uma série de pressupostos. Ao final, conclusões finais do trabalho são apresentadas bem como um conjunto de trabalhos futuros é sugerido.Abstract: Virtual Enterprises (VE) is a type of collaborative networked organization in which groups of companies are dynamically, logically and temporally joined to better meet market demands. Acting as a single company, they share resources, costs and business risks, thus representing a prominent sustainability model, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. One of the preconditions for operating as an EV is that the members? IT systems should interoperate in way the business processes associated with EV can be executed by the most diverse involved systems without problems. This thesis exploits a scenario where all company systems are implemented in way they can be exposed as software services in the SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) perspective, being invoked by the VE?s business processes and, at the same time, can be shared with the other members. In this way, when an EV is formed, a large distributed service-based system is dynamically created. Given that new companies can enter and other leave a VE during the general VE process, such system is not static, but rather can change its composition, both at design and run time. Yet, since given companies can participate in many EV simultaneously, this also means that their services can be involved in diverse orchestrations although in different business contexts and quality of services requirements. This computational system (and its many services) should remain operating throughout the VE?s life cycle in order to sustain the execution of the processes and thus of the business. In a system like this, widely distributed and with services implemented in different technologies, several failures can occur. This thesis proposes a resilience system computing architecture for this scenario, making the system able to recover from failures while maintaining the level of general service quality of the VE business. After a literature research, no works were found out that covered the intersection area of resilience, SOA and VE. Based on the MAPE-K autonomic computing reference model, the proposed architecture is self-resilient and was conceived as a SOA itself; therefore, it is distributed, loosely coupled and scalable. In addition, its design adopts the modern vision of service-oriented economy, comprising ecosystems of software service providers. In order to guarantee the VE operation, several fault tolerance techniques were used, combined and adapted to that scenario, acting both reactively and pro-actively, and respecting the responsibility levels of the business, IT and computing infrastructure layers. A robust software prototype was implemented as proof of concept, using as many open IT standards as possible. It was evaluated experimentally in a controlled VE scenario. After the application of reference performance indicators, the architecture showed to be promising, supporting the VE?s systems execution in almost all cases in the presence of numerous failures. The implementation has simplifications and the architecture design has adopted several assumptions. Conclusions are presented in the end, including suggestions for future work