Performing synthetic worlds: Situating the bioeconomy

This paper explores the role of intermediary organisations in the development of the 'bioeconomy'. Focusing on the strategies employed by UK funding agencies to coordinate research in-the emerging field of synthetic biology, I explore the spatiality of contemporary science and research policy and the practices engaged by research support bodies. While forms of territorial coordination have constituted a crucial strategy in the promotion of biotechnological clusters, regions and cities, a range of 'geographical imaginations' have dominated political and policy discourse on the bioeconomy and institutional responses to the emergence of synthetic biology. Developing a notion of the reflexive creation of hybrid forums, drawn from Callon et al. (2002), in this paper I develop an alternative concept of the performative enactment of interactive spatialities. I argue that in coordinating research in synthetic biology intermediary institutions are engaged in the active composition and management of new networks of actors and institutions.