A Tale of Two Labs: Governance, Deliberation and Standardisation in China and the UK

In this paper I approach the policy developments from IVF towards stem cell therapy as a micro-level problem. Comparing two in-depth case studies of bench research from the People''s Republic of China and the United Kingdom, I show how national narratives, individual desperation for therapies and new science governance have led to global convergence - despite of local political and cultural diversities. A result of three years cross-cultural STS research, the paper examines this process of standardisation of research practice on the local levels which is increasingly moulding a convergent, global policy landscape. It seems that 21st century biopolitics is increasingly affected by convergent transnational collaborations between public and private networks - across traditional political boundaries marked by regimes and regulations. Hence global science governance might be different than we thought.