Appropriation, tacit knowledge and hybrid social regime in biotechnology in Europe

The article aims to trace the way in which the scientific community works through the study of a specific discipline. The information concerns both a country study and a comparison between different european countries. The analysis deals with different aspects: the role of collaborations through which tacit knowledge circulates among scientists; the way in which scientific teams are involved in market activities and inter-istitutional relations; the relation between laboratories capacity of developing diversified strategies and the central norms of the scientific community. Differentiation and competition characterize public research teams, with a coexistence of different rules, but scientific teams and institutions ahve not still developed a good balance between conflicting goals.