The Decision-Making Process in the Construction of the Synchrotron Light National laboratory in Brazil

摘要

In 1981, a small group of Brazilian physicists started a very effective campaign to construct a national synchrotron radiation laboratory. By the end of 1984, the project was officially approved and, surviving political shifts brought about by the end of military rule, construction of the lab began in 1987. Why, in these times of declining budgets in world science, should a relatively poor country, struggling with financial difficulties, decide to invest millions of dollars in a Big Science facility? We examine the decision-making process leading tot he lab's Construction, focusing on three intermediate stages: the decision to build the lab; the Choice of its site; and the size of the machine.