Digital (Re-)Infrastructuring of Research Museums: Relations of Science and Publics in the Digital Transformation

• Applicant: Claudia Göbel
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 568992504

This project examines recent transformations of the publics of science emerging under the conditions of increasing digitalization. It is based on the premise that the proliferation of digital media not only alters communication interfaces but also reshapes the underlying infrastructural order that governs the relationship between science and its publics. Rather than adopting a predefined notion of infrastructure, the project investigates how specific practices constitute infrastructures and the forms of publicness that arise with them. The study of the digital (re-)infrastructuring of the relationship between science and its publics uses research museums as an empirical lens. As established scientific collection institutions that engage professional scientists, laypersons, and amateurs alike, research museums serve as sensitive indicators of digital boundary shifts and emerging ambivalences. They are undergoing profound changes: objects are being digitized and integrated into distributed online collections, hitherto closed storage facilities are made accessible, and exhibitions are personalized for visitors. These processes extend the organizational boundaries of research museums, prompt questioning of their traditional tasks and reconfigure their publics. Employing an ethnographic research approach, the project will conduct three case studies to trace practices of (re-)infrastructuring in the context of exhibiting (Leibniz Center for Archaeology, Mainz), preserving (Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin), and collecting (Natural History Museum, Vienna). Three key research questions guide the analysis: (1) How does the use of digital media reshape the modes of assembly, boundaries, and interrelations of internal and external scientific publics in research museums? This includes, for instance, visitor co-curation of exhibitions or the integration of collections across different institutions. (2) How are the internal boundaries between the production and presentation of scientific knowledge renegotiated? This question addresses developments such as the definition of metadata for digital objects or the enrichment of exhibitions with interactive virtual reality formats. (3) How does the organizational embedding of scientific infrastructures change with digital mediatization? This pertains to the evolving role of research museums as custodians of research objects and as local sites of engagement with science, which is increasingly put up for debate. The digital (re-)infrastructuring processes within, of, and by research museums can thus be seen as modifications in the ‘engine room’ of science. They redefine the reference groups, formats and relation of making science public.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Austria
• Cooperation Partner: Dr. Katrin Vohland