History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
ESA Conference: Ageing Societies, New Sociology
September 23-26, 2003 in Murcia, Spain
Two streams of sessions of the
Research Network 18: Sociology of Science and Technology (SSTNET)
Convenors:
Raymund Werle: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Köln, Germany (werle@mpi-fg-koeln.mpg.de)
Marja Häyrinen Alestalo: Dept. of Sociology, University of Helsinki, Finland (marja.alestalo@helsinki.fi)
Luísa Oliveira: DINÂMIA/ISCTE, Lisboa, Portugal (luisa.oliveira@iscte.pt)
Maarten Mentzel: 38 Johan de Wittstraat, 2334 AR Leiden, The Netherlands (m.a.mentzel@planet.nl)
First Stream: Governing Science and Technology in the Era of Globalization
Thursday Sept. 25
09.00 - 11.00 session 5 (Campus de La Merced)
Chair: Marja Häyrinen-Alestalo
5.1. Author(s): Jaros, Milan
Institution: Centre for Research in Knowledge Science and Society, Newcastle University
Professional Category:
City: Newcastle upon Tyne
Country: United Kingdom
E-mail: Milan.Jaros@newcastle.ac.uk
FRAGMENTATION AND TERRITORIALISATION OF KNOWLEDGE IN CONDITIONS OF POST-1990 GLOBALISATION: A CASE STUDY
The rapid acceleration and the change of character of globalising tendencies after ca 1990 coincided with a dramatic shift in investment and organisational structures supporting R&D. This process was led by major US and West-European institutions (e.g. IBM, Daimler-Benz). Its far reaching social consequences are being recognised. However, it is not so well appreciated that parallel to e.g. the internet, virtual reality industries, etc. - and to large extent in response to them - there have occurred deep changes in scientific practices of knowledge generation and manipulation themselves. The purpose of this paper is to identify and place into broader conceptual context (sociological, scientific, and philosophical) the specificity of these changes. It will invoke a concrete Integrated Optoelectronics Project spanning the years of 1987-1998. The project was funded by major sponsors (e.g. EU Esprit/Framework programmes), involved key companies (e.g. Daimler-Benz/Chrysler), and brought together contributions of researchers from many European and non — European countries. The study shows that the R&D practices strongly respond to communicational, institutional and trans-national social changes that have accelerated in the last decade. In particular, both the scientific research agenda and its execution and management have become increasingly fragmented. The result is re-territorialization and re-coding of knowledge that is open to a surprising degree to driving forces and algorithms imported from outside of the standard agenda of science and scientific method.
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006