Research Committee on
Sociology of Science and Technology, RC23

Program Coordinators

• Nadia ASHEULOVA, Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Russia, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
• Alice ABREU, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Number of allocated sessions including Business Meeting: 14.

Call for Abstracts
14 April 2015 - 30 September 2015 24:00 GMT
Anyone interested in presenting a paper should submit an abstract on-line to a chosen session of RC/WG/TG

The abstract (300 words) must be submitted in English, French or Spanish.

Session proposals should relate either to the theme of the Forum and/or to the main themes and topics framing the regular activities of RC23 such as:

• Social Studies of Science
• Science and Technology Studies
• History of SST
• Research Policy
• Science, Technology, Innovations and Society
• Public Understanding of Science
• Globalisation of Science and Technology
• International Cooperation and Mobility of Scientists
• Future of Universities and Academies: New Public Management
• Communications in Science and Technology
• Gender and Science and Technology
• Social Positions and Social Roles of Scientists
• Research Funding and the Dynamics of Science
• Research Career Development
• Inequalities through Science and Technology

RC23 will also organize a Young Researchers’ Forum. The session is directed specifically to junior scholars; this includes PhD students, post-doctoral fellows, and those in the first five years post PhD and at the beginning of their careers. The primary aim of the session is to give those new to the field of the Sociology of Science and Technology an opportunity to present their research proposals, their preliminary research finding, and their new ideas to an audience with experience in the field and an interest in their work. If you are interested in participating in the organization of this session please write to the program coordinators.

Sessions in alphabetical order

Challenges and Opportunities of Nanotechnology and Other Technological Advances for the Health and Environment

Session Organizer(s)
Tânia MAGNO, Universidade Federal de Sergipe, Brazil, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Session in English Spanish

The session is focused on the relationship between state, market, science and technology, and also the challenges that social sciences face when dealing with new technologies, with an emphasis on nanotechnology applied in health and food. The central point is the relationship between technological innovation, the new sociotechnical systems, knowledge democratization and governance. In the case of nanotechnology this thread is more than necessary, because it is a technology that works at the level of the invisible, once it becomes possible to operate and manipulate even atoms.
The big challenge is that menaces we may be unaware of could be lying under this scientific discovery. The aforementioned manipulation could bring risks for humans and the environment; risks that are not clear because scientific investigations in nanotoxicity are still very incipient. This way, it is necessary to reflect on the implications of these innovations in multiple instances of public life, because, as Edgar Morin warns us, “Science has become very dangerous to be left in the hands of statesmen [...]. Science became [...] a problem of the citizens”. It is social science’s role to investigate these issues, and yet demystify false promises, propose public policies that actually meet the interests of the majority of the population, especially the poorest, demanding regulatory frameworks based on the precautionary principle.

Global Science and International Collaboration: A Gender Perspective from the South

Session Organizer(s)
Alice ABREU, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Judith ZUBIETA, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Session in English

If we want to invent a better future, science and technology must be at the center of it. The science of the 21st century is a global science, where increasingly, if still slowly, many more countries are involved in promoting a strong research basis that help with their development and advancement. A global science is a science where international collaboration plays a central role, and the new information technologies, as well as data processing and communications, make this possible.
This session would like to discuss international collaboration from a double point of view:

• First from the South: How are the international research networks incorporating researchers from the Global South? How do countries and research groups collaborate and with whom? Does this change depending on the scientific area involved? Does international cooperation in social sciences have specific issues to be addressed?
• Secondly from a gender perspective: Looking at international collaboration, what do we know about gender issues? How do women researchers fare in big international projects? How is all this reflected in scientific publications?

We hope to receive papers from all regions discussing these issues that are important if we want an equitable science and technology system worldwide.

Globalization of Science and Technologies: Present Challenges, Future Acceptance

Session Organizer(s)
Liliia ZEMNUKHOVA, European University at St. Petersburg, Russia, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it


Session in English

Global economic development strongly depends on the success of science and technology (S&T) and their coherence. Each country deals with such globalization in its own way, so that local or national S&T get opportunities to become a ripe actor in a competitive market. Knowledge-based economy place science-intense and hi-tech production in the forefront, but local difficulties and challenges take place. The barriers originate from different levels, such as state policy, the institutional and organizational level, or personal constraints.
Macro-level challenges are associated with the economic situation, state control and policies on S&T sector. For example, auspicious conditions for S&T development should exclude their isolation and bureaucratization. Because of the controversial state activity, organizations and institutions also face hardship when participating in global processes. Since initial circumstances are different in each countries, a small part of academic institutions fits the requirements of ubiquitous competition worldwide. Adequacy of stocks and supply access predetermine success of S&T development as much as individual practices and opportunities within the sphere. Professionals, in turn, are limited with not only material and financial basis, but also mobility and language opportunities.
How do national S&T become global? What are the main obstacles and solutions? How do institutions and people accept challenges of globalization? Is it possible to talk about the future success of global S&T in the present? The session welcomes researchers to bring up these and other questions and to discuss the issues of national or regional situations of S&T development and globalization.

Governance in Science and Technology: Research, Innovation and Knowledge Sharing

Session Organizer(s)
Luisa VELOSO, New University of Lisbon, Portugal, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Paula URZE, New University of Lisbon, Portugal, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Isabel AMARAL, New University of Lisbon, Portugal, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Session in English French

With this session we aim to discuss governance issues in science and technology at micro, meso and macro levels. The contributions should be focused on, while not be limited to, recent trends and theoretical discussions on the relationships between science and technology.
Research funding and the role played by supra-national and national institutions, on the one hand, and infra-national ones, on the other, are topics of outstanding importance to be addressed, thereby establishing a dialogue at different scales and levels of governance, national and international. Moreover, other relevant issues may encourage sociologists, historians, anthropologists and other social scientists to submit proposals, such as:

• funding from the economic sectors and the consequences it has on the scientific, technological programs;
• the role of intermediate institutions (e.g. technological centers) in science and technology governance;
• knowledge transfer and knowledge sharing and the role played by social actors, both individuals and institutions;
• science policy and technology policy and areas that emerge from the cross influence of science and technology such as: medicine, biotechnology, bioethics among others.

The session welcomes conceptual, empirical and methodological papers that privilege a critical look at governance and further contribute with new insights on social and economic relevant implications and feed the debate on public policies.

New Challenges of Science in Underdeveloped and Emerging Economies

Session Organizer(s)
Rafael PALACIOS BUSTAMANTE, Venezuela, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Session in English

Developing and emerging countries have posed great challenges to combat poverty, social exclusion and inequality. One of the most important objectives within the states’ actions is the reform of scientific, technological and production policy.
However, as often happens, implementing oriented technology transfer policies through mass market, business and technological exchange with industrialized countries, particularly with Asia, in the absence of a comprehensive approach to determine the fundamental conditions required for these countries to take advantage of such cooperation, is very risky.
Precisely, one of the problems that have been observed in emerging countries is the absence of a strong and stable policy, in harmony with the international dynamics in the scientific field. Without a scientific production, it is impossible to achieve technological production and benefit from its impact on the economic development of these countries.
But it is also necessary to rethink the organizational forms of doing science. These forms, in the midst of a massive production of international knowledge, can not keep supporting themselves within the traditional organizational and cultural patterns.
In this session we will be trying to analyze this problem and intend to make some proposals under the new perspectives for the organization of scientific knowledge production for emerging countries.

RC23 Business Meeting

Session in English

Recent Technological Developments and their Implications for (Better) Employment

Session Organizer(s)
Antonio BRANDAO MONIZ, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Session in English

The introduction of technological innovations stands still for economic growth, productivity and improvement of working conditions. The evidence suggests that, taking dynamics of globalization into account, the first two issues are reflecting the digital organization and control of global value chains. However, recent studies focusing on rationalization potentials of digital technologies form the quest for a renewed look into technology-driven working practices (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2014; Frey and Osborne 2013; Neff 2015).
For many years, there has been a strong focus on technology and work across different disciplines, not only in industrial sociology (Schein, 1984; Turel et al., 2011) but also in technology studies (Hinds et al. 2004; Thrun, 2004). Today, however, this relationship seems no longer in the centre of the scientific discourses. Reasons for this decline may lay in the change of the economic structure: in the past, industrial work was very much scientifically discussed.
Although (especially with the development and emerging fields of applications of new technologies) the relationship between technology and work is crucial, specifically with regard to the ongoing rationalisation of sectors, it remains “underanalysed”. This has been already mentioned and criticised by scholars (Pfeiffer, 2010; Wajcman, 2006) and international institutions (Dhondt et al., 2002; ILO, 2006).
We invite empirical and conceptual papers focusing on digital technologies, robotics, health care technologies or other and their implications on employment, employability or working relations. We consider this collection of actual research in the field as a start for further discussions on the normative preconditions of employment with technologies as well as the improvement of employability.

Roundtable for Early Career Researchers

Session Organizer(s)
Matthias GROSS, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Germany, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Leandro RAIZER, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Fabricio NEVES, Brasilia University, Brazil, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Session in English

We invite “early” researchers in the field of Sociology of Science and Technology to submit abstracts for possible presentation in this session. The roundtable is directed specifically to those more junior scholars. This includes PhD students, post-doctoral fellows, and those in the first five years post-PhD and at the beginning of their careers in this field.
The primary aim of the roundtable is to give those new to the field of the Sociology of Science and Technology an opportunity to present their research proposals, their preliminary research finding, and their new ideas to an audience with experience in the field and an interest in their work.

The Knowledge Society and the BRICS: Economic and Social Implications

Session Organizer(s)
Sonia K. GUIMARAES, Federal University do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Session in English

We have been witnessing significant changes in the global economic scenario, facilitated by the spread of information and communication technologies (ICTs), as well as other new technologies like biotechnology and nanotechnology. Innovation is closely associated with technologically-led economic growth. Those changes imposed new basis for economic growth and development, with significant social-economic implications.
This global trend is evidenced by the growing importance of knowledge- and technology-intensive (KTI) services (production of software, deployment and management of networks, data processing, consulting, among others) and manufacturing industries, which comprised about 30 percent of the world gross domestic product (GDP) in 2011. As science, technology and innovation became an integral factor of economic growth and development, global R&D expenditures have grown faster than global GDP: from an estimated US$522 billion in 1996, to approximately US$ 1.435 billion in 2011 (Science and Engineering Indicators, 2014).
BRICS’s governments (Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, China and South Africa) have set out to build a more knowledge-intensive economy to ensure their competitiveness. These policies, among others, include long-term investments in higher education to develop human talent, support for research and development, incentives to promote the relationship between university and firms, in order to stimulate innovation, incentives to the development of innovative micro-, small and medium-size enterprises (MSMEs).
These are some of the issues to be discussed by researchers from the BRICS countries, examining the phenomena pointed out above and the way their societies are reacting and being affected by the new challenges.

The Politics of Science and Technology: Authority, Expertise and Democratic Participation

Session Organizer(s)
Gary BOWDEN, University of New Brunswick, Canada, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Session in English

This session examines the relationship among:

• the authority of science as an institution,
• the social bases of different forms of expertise (e.g. trained scientists and engineers, the local knowledge of fishermen or farmers, the traditional knowledges of aboriginal groups, etc),
• and the construction of boundaries which either hamper or facilitate the democratic involvement of individuals with diverse forms of expertise.

Empirical case studies examining the way these factors manifest themselves in particular situations will be given extra consideration.

Understanding the Shaping of Socio-Technical Futures

Session Organizer(s)
Knud BOEHLE, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Petra SCHAPER-RINKEL, Austrian Institute of Technology, Austria, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Session in English

Attempts to shape the future through socio-technical visions and scenarios are increasing in science and policy. An increasing use of “knowledge objects” embodying socio-technical futures (STFs) such as scenarios, simulations, models, roadmaps in decision-making and innovation processes can be observed. Even visions made by professional visioneers appear to have become a common element of long-term innovation processes, e.g. in the field of new and emerging technologies (McCray, 2012).
The production and the use of visions and scenarios constitute a cross-disciplinary field of practice and research. Sociology of knowledge and action theory is common place when studying the adscription of meaning to technology, the social shaping of STFs, the functions they fulfil and their impact.
However, there are also approaches less centred on objects and actors, advocating a process sociology perspective and investigations of systemic societal dynamics to study “futures in the making” (Adams, 2011). Today interesting analyses also stem from practitioners (foresight, technology assessment), who strive for a theoretical foundation of their prospective and anticipatory practices (Joint Research Center, 2014).
We invite contributions from social science perspectives and from the field of practice aimed to better understand the epistemic status and concrete practices of STFs.

Joint Sessions

Click on the session title to read its description and the scheduled day/time.

How are Science and Technology Engaged in Eco-Innovations?

Joint session of RC23 Sociology of Science and Technology [host committee] and RC24 Environment and Society

Sociology of Innovation: The Social and Cultural Structure of Innovative Societies

Joint session of RC02 Economy and Society and RC23 Sociology of Science and Technology [host committee]

The Future of University Research and the National Innovation Systems

Joint session of RC07 Futures Research and RC23 Sociology of Science and Technology [host committee]