Technological Innovation and Social Change

Publikationer
lots of interesting papers on research and research policy.

Shaking Up Trade Theory
Economists start to question ideas of comparative advantage - fancy a postindustrial Freidrich Liszt anyone?

Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program - Research - Science, Technology, & Globalization OXFORD HANDBOOK OF INNOVATION is now out!

postgraduate course in Science and Technology Policy Management - PREST/MBS:
"(PREST) is part of the Institute of Innovation Research within Manchester Business School, one of the largest groupings of science, technology and innovation studies researchers in Europe. The scale of the new Institute will allow us to offer an even broader range of postgraduate programmes, both taught and research.

This programme provides an essential introduction to current research on the social, economic, political and managerial dimensions of science, technology and innovation, and high quality training in the application of social research methods to the study of these areas. The aim of the programme is to produce highly qualified, well trained analysts of science, technology and innovation, able to apply their knowledge at both the firm and the policy level. It gives graduates an excellent basis to pursue careers in policy, management, consultancy, academic research and teaching.
Aims and Objectives

Our aims in providing the programme are to:
* produce highly qualified, well-trained analysts of science, technology and innovation, equipped to engage in intellectual and practical challenges of technical and industrial change
* offer an interdisciplinary perspective, allowing students to understand the organisational and policy challenges of technical change
* develop students with practical experience and "fresh" graduates in their knowledge and research skills in science, technology and innovation studies
* deliver teaching in a research-led environment at the forefront of the academic field.

On successful completion of the programme, students will have demonstrated subject knowledge and understanding of:
* economic, sociological, management and public policy approaches to science, technology and innovation studies
* the application of key conceptual frameworks from the above
* key issues and emerging topics, including the broader socio-economic environment for technological change
* the application of knowledge at both an organisational (firm) and policy level.

cognitive skills to:
* synthesise and critically analyse academic literature on science and technology policy and management
* present and support arguments
* analyse critically the strategies and policies of organisations engaged in science and technology policy and management.

professional and practical skills to:
* frame, design, execute and write up a substantial piece of research
* access and use diverse information sources
* develop a theoretical and practical grounding in social science research methods as applied to science, technology and innovation studies
* apply a range of analytical techniques for policy planning and evaluation"

AskTog Design Section some nice pieces on design (good, bad and ugly)

The 2004 EU Industrial Research Investment Scoreboard research investments of top R&D companies. from annual reports.

ShouldExist || Good ideas, free for all! source for innovatirs everywhere!

Skeptical Inquirer magazine: list of on-line articles
True sceptics! check out also the interesting pages on hoaxes here

Closer to Truth | PBS programmes on topics like SF and science, autism,. consciousness...

whatwould alan turing have done after 1954?

Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution 1999 book of essays on open source.

Eco-Economy Indicators: "Eco-Economy Indicators highlight the most important trends that affect progress toward an eco-economy." Nothing on green innovation though.

CSPO - Consortium For Science, Policy & Outcomes - Our Library: "scientific inquiry is inherently and unavoidably subject to becoming politicized in environmental controversies..... three reasons for this. First, science supplies contesting parties with their own bodies of relevant, legitimated facts about nature, chosen in part because they help make sense of, and are made sensible by, particular interests and normative frameworks. Second, competing disciplinary approaches to understanding the scientific bases of an environmental controversy may be causally tied to competing value-based political or ethical positions. The necessity of looking at nature through a variety of disciplinary lenses brings with it a variety of normative lenses, as well. Third, it follows from the foregoing that scientific uncertainty, which so often occupies a central place in environmental controversies, can be understood not as a lack of scientific understanding but as the lack of coherence among competing scientific understandings, amplified by the various political, cultural, and institutional contexts within which science is carried out.... I briefly explore the problem of why some types of political controversies become “scientized” and others do not, and conclude that the value bases of disputes underlying environmental controversies must be fully articulated and adjudicated through political means before science can play an effective role in resolving environmental problems. " by Daniel Sarewitz

Philosophy of Science & Information Technology Links to papers largely inspired by Kuhnian analysis of paradigm change, and critiques of this. Very wide-ranging - Paul Kennedy to Geoff Bowker and beyond; social philosophy, computer science, learning organisations and all.

STS Links Just what its says, list of links in S&T and Society studies.

A good effort at reflexive critique of STS is here, by the way:

http://www.nowotny.ethz.ch/pdf/GuggenheimNowotny_Joy_fin.pdf

Here's a citation that enables me to make a point or two, not in entirely well-referenced and nuanced form.... Reconstructing Humants: A Humanist Critique of Actant-Network Theory -- Vandenberghe 19 (56): 51 -- Theory, Culture & Society

"This model is critically applied to ANT by suggesting that its 'fetishist' attribution of social power to nonhumans effectively results from a failure to account for the emergent properties of the broader relational and cultural systems in which they are embedded, and which overdetermine the blackboxed object worlds which ANT has described."
Or, I would argue, the whole rationale for the "actant" construct was simply that sociology (and social science in general, had taken a linguistic turn, and was deep in the grip of the idea that discussion of the materiality and functionality of technology was crude technologi9cal determinism.
But since we have to deal with a world which doesnt just do what we want as a matter of magic, it was necessary to allow nonhuman entities the power to engage in discourse, to negotiate (a favoured and revealing term) with us.
Thus call them actants and treat them as able to engage in this way.
(The worse example oif this in my own experience was a talk about the US space programme, where th Moon was one of the actants along with NASA and some other organisation...)
This also allowed for a move on from the radical relativism of social coinstructivist approaches to science. which didnt have to cope with functionality, but still did run into difficulties when it came to dealing with experiments and observations seeming to have a little more to them than a few lab-lifers say-so.
Now that materiality has been allowed to re-enter social science, perhaps its time to stop using the term "actant" and where appropriate employ terms like "artefact", "entity", "hypothesised object" and so on.
The "sosial shaping" approach at least implies that there is something to be shaped!

While sounding off, whay is it that so few people use Molina's provocative "Sociotechnical Consitutency" approach, which is more elaborated and a better guide to doing research IMHO than ANso-calledT? (Though I do like the terms "stabilisation" and "translation" from ANT.)

TIIP Newsletter
The TIIP (Technological Innovation and Intellectual Property) newsletter summarizes new research on technological innovation and intellectual property as an aid to both scholarly researchers and interested non-academics. The aim is to help develop a new understanding of the social, cultural, economic and legal effects of different property rights and practices on innovative activity.
The newsletter consists primarily of brief summaries (500 words) of research in economics, law, history, management and sociology covering topics including patents, licensing, innovation, open source/free software, public goods, copyrights (non-artistic) and trade secrecy.
Appears to be intellectually and politically diverse!

kuro5hin.org || technology and culture, from the trenches
Tech and culture news, plus comments, stories, blogs...

The Cathedral and the Bazaar Erik Raymond's book - download it (in many languages), listen to it, read criticisms and elaborations...