Translational science emerged in the 2000s as a movement within the biosciences that aimed to hasten the pace at which basic discoveries become health interventions. In “Metrics Producing Science” (2025), Molldrem and colleagues use approaches from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and document analysis methods to demonstrate the strong influence of evaluation practices on the development of translational science as a field from 2005-2023. They describe its particular “evaluative way” and frame it as emblematic of a particular style of co-production between science and policy that solidified in the early 21st century US. This research was supported through IBHH’s longstanding collaboration with the UTMB Institute for Translational Sciences (ITS), which is funded through the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The full citation is: Molldrem, Stephen, Jacob D. Moses, Elise M. R. Smith, Emma Tumilty, and Jeffrey S. Farroni. “Metrics Producing Science: The Evaluative Way in the Emergence of US Translational Science.” Science & Technology Studies, May 15, 2025. https://doi.org/10.23987/sts.145702. [Open Access]