The Role of Infrastructure

Why has RMBL persisted for 80+ years? Will it make it to its 100th birthday? I recently spent time with individuals responsible for a wide range of scientific infrastructure projects exploring the general issue of sustainability. Infrastructure projects, e.g., field stations, marine labs, biological databases, natural history collections, are any set of shared resources used to support the scientific activities of a community of users.

Why does some scientific infrastructure, such as RMBL persist, while other projects disappear?
A couple of discussions grabbed my attention. There was a great deal of talk about understanding both who wants access to infrastructure and why they want it. This isn’t a simple issue. While RMBL’s mission of facilitating research and education in and around Gothic has remained constant, the way in which we provide value changes as innovation drives science in new directions. Historically providing housing was critical. Gothic was hard to get to and there were limited housing facilities outside Gothic. Modern transportation and neighboring resort communities makes housing less important. Indeed, advances in remote and distributed sensing may reduce the need for being onsite. However, future scientists may find value not so much in the housing, but in the community and dynamic exchange of ideas. And, as scientists push to answer increasingly complex questions, they may find greater value in talking with other scientists who know a great deal about the ecosystem or in accessing historic data.

Another concept that emerged was “excitement decay”. Initial investments in infrastructure are costly and only come about when an idea is exciting enough to unite a community of users. However, at some point the infrastructure is no longer the newest, sexiest idea. Another project grabs attention. And because starting a new project is very expensive, this new project attracts substantial funds while the older project struggles to obtain funds for operation.

Field stations have an advantage over many infrastructure projects, however, because their value potentially increases with time. In astronomy, technological innovation renders older telescopes obsolete. However, because complex, dynamical biological systems can only be understood by sustained investigation, field stations do not become obsolete. As long as field stations innovate to keep up with the changing demands of scientists, they offer increasing scientific opportunities through time. Understanding, predicting, and managing a changing world is the challenge of our generation. Field stations stand at the center of that endeavor. As one of the world’s largest and oldest field stations, it is in society’s best interest that we ensure the value of RMBL is fully realized.