Symbolic Capital or Social Glue? Recognition in Collaborative High-Energy Physics Research
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24030650 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Helene Sorgner (0000-0002-3881-7601, University of Klagenfurt) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-08-18 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Studies of Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0306-3127 • E-ISSN: 1460-3659 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/03063127261474439 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 64 |
A trend towards more and larger research collaborations in the sciences raises questions about how individual scientists who work primarily in collaborations receive recognition. Experimental high-energy physics is known for exceptionally large research collaborations, with publications featuring thousands of authors in alphabetical order. Consequently, the question of how individual scientists receive recognition has been explicitly discussed in this discipline. In this article, I describe discussions and efforts to improve the recognition of individual researchers in the ATLAS collaboration at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN), based on an analysis of documents and interviews with collaboration members of all career stages. I analyze these accounts by introducing a conceptual framework distinguishing between elementary and institutionalized recognition, and recognition as appreciation and admiration , respectively. I show that articulations of recognition are mobilized by the collaboration to reproduce the experiment and the community. Drawing on these observations, I argue for a broader concept of recognition in the social studies of science. Beyond the notion of recognition as symbolic capital for individuals, we should also consider the reproductive and stabilizing capacity of recognition for scientific communities. I also show how receiving community-oriented appreciation creates a dilemma for early-career researchers who desire admiration to compete in academic labor markets. The need to value a broader range of contributions in collaborative research therefore requires structural changes in academic career systems.
Toward a Comparative Sociology of Valuation and Evaluation
Hyperauthorship
Team size matters
The Increasing Dominance of Teams in Production of Knowledge
Being highly prolific in academic science
Care, collaboration, and service in academic data work
The Politics of Recognition
Ethnographic Methods
Valuation Studies? Our Collective Two Cents
Honneth, Butler and the Ambivalent Effects of Recognition
Collaborating in Life Science Research Groups
Hermeneutical Injustice, (Self-)Recognition, and Academia
Filling in the gaps
The making of professors
The costs and benefits of ‘red tape’
Communicating and compromising on disciplinary expertise in the peer review of research proposals
How Superorganisms Change
Variants of Epistemic Capitalism
Unsustainable Growth, Hyper-Competition, and Worth in Life Science Research
Postdoctoral Life Scientists and Supervision Work in the Contemporary University
Variation in Valuation
Meritokratie als Problem
What’s the Point of Authors
Die Macht des Offensichtlichen
Priorities in Scientific Discovery
Scientific Communities or Transepistemic Arenas of Research? A Critique of Quasi-Economic Models of Science
Addressing Recognition Gaps
The specificity of the scientific field and the social conditions of the progress of reason
Introduction
Let's Get Organised
Epistemic Cultures
Flexibility and Fairness
Stratification in American Science
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |