ABSTRACT
Recent analysts have claimed that the science system in developed countries is in transition to a post-modern or distributed phase of organisation. Traditional research sites and practices are being supplemented by new and more varied forms of knowledge production. This chapter provides an empirical example of these changes in relation to the UK Human Genome Mapping Project. It is argued that the project Resource Centre occupies a novel position in the science system as neither a laboratory nor a warehouse for reagents. At this Centre the demands of providing a unique service have been uncoupled from the demands of a traditional research programme. One result of this process is that some employees have developed different skills and ways of innovating than they might otherwise have done in a research-based laboratory.
