Scientific Committee - Biographies

Chair

Professor Ulrike Felt 

University of Vienna, Department of Social Studies of Science
http://sciencestudies.univie.ac.at

Ulrike Felt has been professor of social studies of science since 1999 and head of the Vienna STS department.

After having finished her PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Vienna in 1983, she worked for nearly five years in an interdisciplinary research team of science historians at the European Center for High Energy Physics (CERN) in Geneva studying social, political and scientific aspects in the foundation period of this first big European research institution. During this period, her research interests moved into the field of science and technology studies (STS). After her stay at CERN, she returned to Vienna, where she took up a position at the newly founded Institute for Philosophy of Science and Social Studies of Science headed by Helga Nowotny. In 1997 she received her degree in Science Studies/Sociology of Sciences.

Ulrike Felt is also engaged in policy advice both nationally and at the European level, e.g. as expert in the Advisory Group of the European Commission for the Science and Society prioritising the 6th framework programme (2003-2006); as member of the European Research Advisory Board (EURAB; 2006/07); as rapporteur of the expert group Science and Governance.

Members

Professor Daniel Barben

Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt | Graz Wien (since Jan 2014)

http://www.sts.aau.at/Team/Barben-Daniel

Daniel Barben has held the position of VDI Professorship/Chair of Futures Studies, Institute of Political Science at the RWTH Aachen University since April 2010. Prior to that, he was Associate Research Professor of the  Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University in the United States.

Daniel Barben's current research interests include Science and technology in society: innovation, intellectual property rights, risk, safety and security, ethics, and acceptance politics; technology assessment; anticipatory and reflexive knowledge/gover¬nance; global challenges and global change; sustainability; bio, nano and neurotechnologies, energy systems transformation, building, climate engineering.  He has published a number of books; Politische Ökonomie der Biotechnologie. Innovation und gesellschaftlicher Wandel im internationalen Vergleich (2007), Biotechnologie – Globalisierung – Demokratie. Politische Gestaltung transnationaler Technologie-entwicklung (2000) and a variety of articles and book chapters, most recently Converging Technologies, Transhumanism, and Future Society (2012, Building a Better Human? Refocusing the Debate on Transhumanism).

Professor Alan Irwin

Copenhagen Business School

Alan Irwin has been Dean of Research at Copenhagen Business School (CBS) since 2007. He was also Acting President of CBS during 2011. Previously, he was Professor of Science and Technology Policy, and Dean of Social and Environmental Studies at the University of Liverpool. His PhD is from the University of Manchester and he has held previous appointments at Manchester and at Brunel University (where he was also Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Enterprise). Alan has chaired the UK BBSRC (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council) Strategy Panel on ‘Bioscience for Society’. Currently, he is a member of the Strategy Advisory Board for the UK Global Food Security Programme. He is an Honorary Fellow of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

Alan Irwin has published widely on issues of science and technology policy, scientific governance, risk, and science-public relations. His books include Risk and the Control of Technology (1985), Citizen Science (1995), Sociology and the Environment (2001) and (with Mike Michael) Science, Social Theory and Public Knowledge (2003). He was also co-editor (with Brian Wynne) of Misunderstanding Science? (1996). His research has been funded by a variety of bodies including the ESRC, Nuffield Foundation, Leverhulme Trust and the European Commission. His most recent research has been on the governance of science – including work with the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on expert advice in the policy process. Collaborating with the think tank Demos, he was one of the authors of ‘The Received Wisdom’ (2006). In 2009 Alan Irwin was awarded the first David Edge prize for the best paper in science and technology studies.

Alan Irwin has been appointed visiting Professor at the Department of Management, University of Glasgow from 1 March 2010 to 28 February 2015.

Dr. Pierre-Benoit Joly

National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRA)

http://www.ifris.org

Pierre-Benoit Joly, economist and sociologist, is Directeur de recherche at the National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRA) in France. He holds a degree in agronomy (1982), a PhD in economics (1987) and the “Habilitation à diriger les recherches” (1995). He is the Director of the IFRIS (French Institute for Studies of Research and Innovation in Society) and of Labex (Laboratory of Excellence) SITES.

Since 1996, his research activities are focused on the governance of collective risks, socio-technical controversies, the use of scientific advice in public decision making and the forms of public participation in scientific activities. He was Member of the expert group “Science and Governance” at the European Commission, he is Member of the Council of European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and of the French Comité de Prévention et de Précaution and he chairs the Scientific Council of the Programme on GMOs at the French Ministry for Ecology. He has published about one hundred articles (of which more than 50 in refereed journals), three books and he has coordinated five special issues of social sciences journals. He lectures at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and at Sciences Po Paris.

Professor Arie Rip

University of Twente, Department of Science, Technology and Policy Studies

http://www.utwente.nl/mb/steps/people/adjoined/rip/

Arie Rip was educated as a chemist and philosopher at the University of Leiden. In the 1970s, he set up and led a program of teaching and research in Chemistry and Society in that University. He was Professor of Science Dynamics at the University of Amsterdam (1984 1987) and Professor of Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Twente (1987-2006) where he continues after his retirement.

He holds a Visiting Professorship at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. Currently, he leads a research program on Technology Assessment of Nanotechnology (as part of the Dutch R&D Consortium NanoNed).

His other main research interests are the changes in knowledge production and the future of science institutions.

Professor Andy Stirling

Sussex University, STEPS - Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/bmec/people/spru/person/7513

Andy Stirling is Research Director for SPRU and the Management School at the University of Sussex, co-directing the STEPS Centre (with IDS) and a research group on Sustainable Lifestyles (with Surrey).

His background is in astronomy and science studies, an MA in archaeology and social anthropology and a PhD in science and technology policy. Working formerly as an archaeologist then an activist, he has served on the boards of Greenpeace International and Greenpeace UK.

He is now an interdisciplinary researcher, focusing (with colleagues) on challenges around ‘opening up’ more democratic governance of knowledge, research, science, technology and innovation – exploring issues like: uncertainty, precaution, scepticism; sustainability; resilience; diversity; transformation; progress; participation and power.

Andy has blogged and published widely on these issues. He has served on advisory committees for the EU on Energy Policy, Science in Society, Collaborative Research, Sustainability and Science Governance and for the UK government on toxic substances, GM Crops, public engagement and science advice – as well as for the Royal Society, Nuffield Council and UN IHDP. He’s worked with industry and civil society groups including the Global Energy Observatory (Paris), and thinktanks Demos and the Green Alliance (UK). He is a member of editorial boards for several academic journals and of the Research Committee of the UK Economic and Social Research Council.

Dr. Tereza Stöckelová

Institute of Sociology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic

http://www.soc.cas.cz/people/en/5/188/People.html

Tereza Stöckelová, PhD., is engaged in studies of science and technology. She has worked on ethnographic studies of changing research practices and environments in the CR, the constitution and role of expertise in environmental issues and the reflexive movements of knowledge between science and society.

She is a research fellow at the Institute of Sociology of CR and a lecturer at Charles University.She collaborates with the Green Circle environmental NGO and is a spokesperson for the ProAlt civic initiative.

Tereza Stöckelov published a book 'Biotechnologization: Legitimacy, materiality and instantiations of resistance' (2008), and edited 'Czech science in flux: Ethnography of making, administering and enterprising knowledge in the academy' (2009).