Between CERN and Cold Spring Harbor: Shaping the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (1967-1978)

Area of Science:

• Molecular Biology
• European Scientific Collaboration
• History of Science

Background:

• Existing historiography places the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) origins in the early 1960s.
• The EMBO Laboratory project underwent significant redesigns between 1967 and 1971.
• Intergovernmental negotiations were key to the EMBL treaty of 1974.

Purpose of the Study:

• To reconstruct the political, institutional, and scientific processes behind EMBL's founding.
• To propose a revised chronology for the EMBO Laboratory project.
• To analyze the role of the European Molecular Biology Conference (EMBC) in the establishment of EMBL.

Main Methods:

• Historical analysis of political, institutional, and scientific processes.
• Examination of the
• Nice proposal
• (1967-68) and the
• Konstanz proposal
• (1969-70).
• Analysis of the siting process for EMBL in Heidelberg.

Main Results:

• The EMBO Laboratory was designed between 1967-71, not 1963-64.
• The European Molecular Biology Conference (EMBC) was central to debating, reshaping, and realizing the EMBL project.
• The siting of EMBL in Heidelberg resulted from intergovernmental competition and national research agendas.

Conclusions:

• EMBL's establishment is situated within the dynamics of European integration in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
• The creation of EMBC and EMBL served as both a product and an instrument of European integration.
• The history of EMBL highlights the negotiation of disciplinary boundaries and coordination of national interests within a scientific epistemic community.