Vaikuttavuuden vaatimus ja tutkimustulosten paketointi

Vuonna 2005 Suomen yliopistolainsäädäntöön lisättiin niin sanottu kolmas tehtävä. Tämä vaikuttavuuden vaatimus muotoiltiin laissa vuorovaikutukseksi ympäröivän yhteiskunnan kanssa, jolla tulee edistää elinikäistä oppimista sekä tutkimustulosten että taiteellisen toiminnan vaikuttavuutta. Vaikka terminä kolmas tehtävä on osin harhaanjohtava, on vaikuttavuus yksi keskeisimmistä tavoitteista esimerkiksi tutkimus- ja innovaationeuvoston viimeisimmissä linjauksissa (TIN 2014). Korkeakoulujärjestelmän radikaalin kehittämisen ohella kaksi tärkeintä linjausta ovat tutkimus- ja innovaatiotoiminnan tulosten hyödyntäminen ja vaikuttavuuden edistäminen sekä uusien kasvulähteiden, aineettoman pääoman ja yritystoiminnan vahvistaminen. Nämä linjaukset antavat signaalin siitä, miten vaikuttavuus mielletään. Tutkimuksen tulee tukea taloudellista kasvua ja yritystoimintaa.

Aihetta on viime aikoina sivunnut myös Tuomas Aivelo Kaiken takana on loinen –blogissaan, jossa hän kiinnittää huomiota hallituksen niin sanottuun lippulaivaohjelmaan. Lippulaiva-tutkimuskeskittymien tavoitteena on tutkimuksen yhteiskunnallinen ja taloudellinen vaikuttavuus. Lippulaiva-termi on tutkimuksen kansainvälistymisen työryhmän antia, mutta työryhmän linjauksissa tutkimuksen vaikuttavuus rinnastuu taloudelliseen kasvuun: ”Huippuluokan osaamista tarvitaan, jotta Suomessa voi syntyä uusia innovatiivisia ja menestyviä yrityksiä.” (OKM 2017, 23). Se, että pohdintaa yhteiskunnallisen vaikuttavuuden eri muodoista ja ulottuvuuksista ei käydä, vinouttaa ymmärrystä siitä, mitä tutkimuksen tekeminen pitää sisällään ja minkälaisiin yhteiskunnallisiin kehityskulkuihin tai ongelmiin tutkijat pyrkivät työllään vastaamaan.

Tutkimuksen arviointimalleissa ovat viime aikoina korostuneet vuorovaikutukselliset prosessit. Suuntaus itsessään on perusteltu etenkin kun ajatellaan aloja, joissa vuorovaikutuksen mekanismit liittyvät paikallisiin yhteistoimintamuotoihin sekä sosiaalisten tai yhteiskunnallisten ilmiöiden ymmärtämiseen ilman ensisijaista kaupallista motiivia. Suomessa tällainen ala on esimerkiksi oppimisvaikeuksien tutkimus, joka on kytkeytynyt vahvasti koulujärjestelmän kehittymiseen. Kun suurin osa ikäluokasta osallistui opetukseen, huomattiin, että kaikki eivät koulun vaatimuksista selviä. Nykyään oppimisvaikeuden diagnosointi vaatii sen, että oppilas on saanut riittävän määrän tukiopetusta. Koulusta tulee vaatimustason nousun kautta myös ehdollistava ja altistava tekijä. Näin oppimisvaikeuksilla on sekä kieleen että kouluihin oppimisympäristöinä liittyvä vahva kulttuurinen luonne.

Mitä enemmän ilmiöistä, kuten oppimisvaikeuksista, tiedetään, sitä enemmän niitä myös kategorisoidaan. Tutkijaa voivat kiinnostaa ilmiön synty ja esiintyminen sekä se, miten oppimisvaikeuksia voidaan ennustaa, mutta kysymys kuuluu myös mitä asialle halutaan tehdä. Alan tutkijat, joita olen seurannut väitöskirjassani, näkevät työnsä osana hyvinvointivaltion perinnettä: heidän kehittämänsä diagnostiset menetelmät, oppimismateriaalit ja kuntoutusvälineet halutaan lasten käyttöön mahdollisimman aikaisessa vaiheessa ja maksutta. Koska Suomessa tilanne on hyvä ja oppimisen vaikeuksiin pystytään puuttumaan osana neuvola- ja koulujärjestelmää, ovat tutkijat siirtäneet katseensa globaalille tasolle. Viemällä tutkimukseen perustuvaa oppimispeliä Afrikkaan tutkimusryhmän tavoitteena on lukutaidon lisääminen maailmanlaajuisesti.

Suomessa verovaroin tuettu tutkimus on tutkijoiden mielestä luonnollisesti yhteiskunnan eri toimijoiden käytössä. Näyttäisi siltä, että myös ulkomaille suunnatuissa hankkeissa tutkijat ovat luottaneet enemmän niin sanottuihin perinteisiin vuorovaikutusmuotoihin työssään kuin innostuneet kaupallisten ratkaisujen luomisesta. Tutkijat mainitsivat ristiriidan ns. tuoteajattelun ja tutkimuksen välillä. He kokivat, että heidän työllään on vaikutusta nimenomaan jos sitä ei ”paketoida tuotteeksi”. Tämä ”paketoiminen” tarkoitti heille sitä, että tutkimustyö pysähtyisi, vaikka se ei ole heidän mielestään tutkimuksen luonne. Tutkimusryhmän johtajan mukaan ei ole olemassa tietoa oppimisesta, joka pysähtyisi johonkin pisteeseen, vaan tieto elää jatkuvasti.

Oppimisvaikeuksien tutkimus on esimerkki siitä, miten tutkimuksen yhteiskunnalliset motiivit yhdistyvät tieteen sisäisiin tavoitteisiin ja vuorottelevat näiden kanssa. Lisäksi tutkimusmenetelmien ja –välineiden muovautuminen tutkimuksen edetessä mahdollistaa tutkimuksen tekemisen sekä aineiston keruun uusilla tavoilla. Ymmärryksen lisääminen oppimisvaikeuksista ilmiönä on ollut tutkijoiden työn perusta, johon on vahvasti kuulunut soveltaminen sekä ongelmiin puuttuminen. Puhuminen kolmannesta tehtävästä tutkimuksen ja opetuksen rinnalla irrottaa tutkimuksen vaikuttavuuden helposti omaksi alueekseen, vaikka lähtökohtaisesti tiede ja tutkimus ovat yhteiskunnallista toimintaa ja tutkimuksen motiivit ovat usein yhteiskunnalliseen ongelmanratkaisuun pyrkiviä.

Tässä valossa hallituksen uudet lippulaiva-kaavailut eivät tunnu kovin innovatiivisilta. Niissä ei oteta kantaa vaikuttavuuden muihin kuin taloudellisiin ulottuvuuksiin, puhumattakaan siitä, että keskustelua heräteltäisiin laajemmalti siitä halutaanko julkisella tutkimusrahoituksella mahdollisesti edistää demokratian, terveyden, tasavertaisuuden tai palvelujen saatavuuden arvoja.

Terhi Esko

tohtorikoulutettava, Helsingin yliopisto

Lähteet:

TIN (2014): Uudistava Suomi: tutkimus- ja innovaatiopolitiikan suunta 2015 – 2020. Tutkimus- ja innovaationeuvosto.

http://80.248.162.139/export/sites/default/OPM/Tiede/tutkimus-_ja_innovaationeuvosto/julkaisut/liitteet/Linjaus2015-2020.pdf

OKM (2017): Yhteistyössä maailman parasta. Korkeakoulutuksen ja tutkimuksen kansainvälisyyden edistämisen linjaukset 2017–2025. Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön julkaisuja 2017:11

http://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/79438/okm11.pdf?sequence=3

… And a Flower Blooms

‘Jurassic Park’ the blockbuster movie was one of the technically advanced movies of its time. The story is located in a theme park of dinosaurs long dead resurrected using latest biotechnological advancements. Scientists in this movie locate an amber from the Ice Age, which has a mosquito preserved in it; they extract the DNA of the mosquito and then combine it with frog’s genome to complete the genetic missing links. Thus, with such technology they resurrect dinosaurs ranging from Triceratops to Tyrannosaurs in the present times. [1]

Such ‘bringing back extinct to life’ celluloid fiction turned to reality when scientists in Russia brought back to life a pre-historic flower. While researching in the Siberian Tundra, near the Kolyma River, Russian scientists came across fossilized, squirrel burrows containing variety of seeds including those of the extinct ‘Campion’ plant, which last bloomed in the Pleistocene Age. The team cultivated a cell culture, created permafrost conditions and then implanted it in an artificial biome. The flower bloomed after 32000 years becoming the oldest tissue to live. [2]

Through science, humans have pierced the ‘unbroken’ veil of time. he above resurrection of the past would not have occurred in the absence of technology, for without technological resurrection the Campion plant would have disappeared in the layers of time. Resurrection was only possible because of technological intervention in the fabric of time. Today it is the flower, tomorrow it could be animals and beyond that, humans. If history can be intervened, is there a possibility of a future-story being intervened? The answer is in the assertive although some scientists are skeptical. The reason is that the main characteristic of technology is growth and the possibilities of growth are everywhere, in the present, the past and the future.

However, scientific experiments are not restricted to mere labs. Eventually, they have a spillover effect in the society. Thus, making us re-visualize, re-define the core structure on which the society stands.

Anuradha Nayak,

Doctoral Researcher, Faculty of Law, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi.

Notes:

[1] Janet Maslin, Screen stars with teeth to spare, (New York Times, June 11, 1993) http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F0CE1D71E3DF932A25755C0A965958260

[2] Sharon Levy, Wild flower blooms again after 30000 years on ice: Fruit hoarded by ancient ground squirrels give new life to prehistoric plants, (Nature, Feb 21 2012) http://www.nature.com/news/wild-flower-blooms-again-after-30-000-years-on-ice-1.10069

Debating energy policy at two levels

What makes good policy? How are current and future policy choices justified in political speech? These are some of the questions I have looked at in the context of debates on energy futures at two distinct levels of policy-making: in the national parliament of Finland and in the city council of Helsinki. I focused on recent debates from the years 2011-2015. What I found is an interesting tension, where the end-goal of a carbon-neutral future is the same for both the city council of Helsinki and the national parliament of Finland. However, the means proposed for achieving that future differ.

Parliamentary debates stress the importance of persistency and predictability in energy policy. For example, as a politician stated in the parliament in 2013: ”Regulation regarding energy production needs to be persistent and unambiguous, so that companies can calculate the profitability of their energy investments long enough into the future”. In contrast, a city councilor from Helsinki found it “very good decision-making that changes in the operational environment can be acted upon”. There is a difference between the two, where parliamentarians focus on creating predictability whereas city councilors highlight the importance of adapting to changing circumstances. How could the differences between the two levels be explained?

I suggest the proposed means are so unalike due to the actors’ conceptions of their own possible spaces of action. While the end-goal of carbon neutrality is the same, actors at distinct governance levels conceive the means they have for achieving that in quite a distinct manner. National level actors debate the general regulatory environment and the role of the state in ensuring regulatory stability. Uncertainty over the future is seen as something that can and should be controlled and minimized. Parliamentarians see the role of the state as facilitating favourable investment conditions in Finland, and decreasing the political risks associated with large-scale investments. To achieve such conditions, politicians demand anticipatory knowledge of the future and stabilizing energy policy based on that knowledge for longer periods.

City level actors, in contrast, make choices within national and regional regulatory environments, taking into consideration the technological, legislative and societal changes they see. Views of good policy stress adaptability, agility and the willingness to revisit past decisions. Uncertainty over the future is taken for granted, as something that both constrains making decisions over the future, but also enables responding to and taking up, for example, technological developments. This suggests that cities may be better equipped to incite changes in acting on climate change, as also others have recently argued. City actors are pursuing change through a variety of means, including international networks, such as C40 or the Covenant of Mayors, and more localized efforts. However, favouring adaptable policy in the short-term requires having a sense of direction in the long-term.

The analysis reveals the importance of looking at questions of scale and agency when debating energy policy. Long-term goals, such as carbon neutrality in 2050, will translate into different means, policies and practices at distinct governance levels.

Greetings from our Sosiologipäivät STS -working group (23-24.3.2017)

Around three months ago, we published a call for papers for the “Science, technology and society” working group that the STS Helsinki group organized at the Annual Conference of the Westermarck Society, more commonly known as Sosiologipäivät (Sociology Days in Finnish). We were happy to receive quite many abstracts, which resulted in two very fruitful and intense sessions with a total of 17 presentations taking place during the 23rd and 24th of March at the University of Tampere.

We divided our working group into five smaller thematic sessions.

Session 1: ANT and technology

Elina Paju, Minna Ruckenstein and Päivi Berg explored in their paper children’s physical activity as an issue of neoliberal government through the products of ReimaGo activity sensor for kids and the Pokemon GO game. Mervi Jalonen focused on the notion of experiment in an innovation-based society, discussing various examples of experiments aimed to facilitate sustainability transitions. Meanwhile Oskari Lappalainen presented ongoing work on the development of personal data economy through the social movement called MyData.

Session 2: Fertility and reproduction

Elina Helosvuori discussed her ethnographic study on infertility, deploying the notion of excess to grasp the personal experiences generated through IVF. Riikka Homanen turned the focus on transnational egg donation where enacting Nordicness, whiteness and kinness is at play. Lise Eriksson presented a paper on surrogacy and uterus transplantation from the point of view of medical knowledge production.

Session 3: Social research, impact and policy

Reetta Muhonen presented a project tracking research in social sciences and humanities with a practical side by following projects from different sites in Europe. Kamilla Karhunmaa talked about energy policy and different expectations in the field in the Finnish context. Juha-Pekka Lauronen discussed how social research’s impact in society is understood among policymakers, researchers and science administrators. Johanna Hokka introduced research on orthodox definitions of sociology among Finnish and Swedish professors.

Session 4: Knowledge production

Salla Sariola’s presentation discussed the governance of international clinical trials in India, showing how civil society activists managed to negotiate changes in the regulations guiding them. Minna Ruckenstein analysed breakages and gaps in data and the practices of repair involved in using such data for research. Annika Lonkila’s theme was the use and non-use of genomic knowledge on dairy farms, specifically the practices involved in the selection of animals for breeding. Anuradha Nayak presented the case of cryo-preserved life and the legal problems regarding the status and ownership of the preserved ‘material’.

Session 5: Genes and molecular life

Mianna Meskus, explored craftsmanship as a way to describe the use of cutting-edge biotechnology in the field of stem cell research. Secondly, Heta Tarkkala introduced her work on the Finnish biobanking scene, in which genetic uniqueness and difference appear as sources of value for the use of Finnish samples in international biological research. Finally, our last presentation had Venla Oikkonen present some ideas related to how genomes and DNA relate to temporality, belonging and nostalgia.

Finally, we were happy to see that so many scholars with such varied topics, but still many common interests, came together and shared ideas. Hopefully, this was only the first of many other encounters to come in which the STS community in Finland starts to take shape. We would like to especially thank all the presenters for their work and willingness to participate. See you all next year!

Join the the Finnish Reproductive Studies Network (FireSNet)

The Finnish Reproductive Studies Network (FireSNet) brings together scholars from fields of social and political sciences, humanities, law, health sciences and medicine exploring reproduction not merely as physical birth but more broadly as an agent of bodily, biological, viral, sexual and cultural transformation. The common commitment of the researchers in the network is to inquire into the historical and current complexities of reproductive practices and policies. This commitment on reproduction studies derivers from women’s health movements and a long scholarly interest in developing a toolkit to grasp sociotechnical webs that constitute reproductive practice. In short, studies on reproduction not only show how perceptions and practices of reproduction are multiple and contested, but also how questions of power relations, resources, skills, suffering, hope, meaning, and lives are always at stake.

The Finnish Reproductive Studies Network is founded on the need to establish a common discussion forum for scholars scattered in different higher education institutions in Finland, looking at reproduction from various perspectives. The purpose of the network is to support, develop and inspire different collaborative efforts in research and teaching. We will be arranging seminars with international speakers, workshops, and provide a platform for joint funding applications. The network will also distribute research publications authored by its members. The network also has an email list, FiReSNet@uta.fi.

The network invites scholars from all career stages exploring the following questions and more: How does reproduction matter in social life and society? How are our futures, origins, selves and kin organized by societal and institutional power relations? What are the changing conditions for reproductive freedom and justice, and for whom? How are gendered, racialized, sexed and classed human and non-human bodies, body parts and tissue reproduced, commodified, transported, governed and cared for in local and transnational spaces?

The network launch meeting with members from Finland is planned to take place November 17, 2017.

The network is organized by Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Researcher Dr. Riikka Homanen from the University of Tampere and Academy Research Fellow Dr. Mianna Meskus from the University of Helsinki.

If you would like to join the network and the email list, please contact Riikka Homanen, Riikka.Homanen@uta.fi or Mianna Meskus, Mianna.Meskus@helsinki.fi. Also please feel free to distribute this call for members in your own networks.

Avoimia kysymyksiä tulevaisuuden terveydestä ja yhteiskunnasta

Kliininen päätöksenteko perustuu tutkittuun tietoon. Tiedon tarkentuessa sairausluokitukset tulevat paremmiksi, diagnostiikka ja hoitotulokset paranevat ja potilaat hyötyvät. Myös lääkeaineiden aiheuttamat haitat vähenevät. Potilaan autonomia kasvaa, kun palvelut ottavat paremmin yksilön tarpeet huomioon. Koko terveydenhuoltojärjestelmä sekä tehostuu että tulee vaikuttavammaksi. Ennaltaehkäisevät toimet voidaan kohdistaa niihin, jotka todella hyötyvät niistä. Kansalaisten ymmärrys genetiikasta ja terveydestä parantuu, jolloin he pystyvät huolehtimaan itsestään entistä paremmin. Ja lista jatkuu…

Yllä olevan kappaleen lupaukset on poimittu brittiläisen terveysalan think-thankin PHG Foundation huhtikuussa 2017 julkaisemasta raportista ”Personalised healthcare: bringing the future into focus”. Raportissa esitetään tulevaisuudennäkymiä siitä, mitä henkilökohtainen lääketiede oikeastaan tulee tarkoittamaan. Lisäksi raportissa nostetaan esille, mitä eettisiä ja yhteiskunnallisia kysymyksiä terveydenhuollon mahdollisesti radikaaliinkin muutokseen liittyy. Tässä merkinnässä nostan esiin joitakin niistä huolista ja kysymyksistä, jotka tulevat samassa paketissa lupausten kanssa. Kirjoitus perustuu raportin sisältöön.

On tärkeää muistaa, että tiede etenee hitaasti ja uusi tieto on aina osittaista ja rajallista. Uuden tiedon vieminen potilaiden hoitoon ja terveydenhoitojärjestelmään hyödyllisellä tavalla tulee jatkossakin olemaan haastavaa. Edes terveydenhuoltohenkilökunnan ymmärtämys ja tietämys aiheesta ei kenties aina ole riittävällä tasolla. Genetiikkaan ja genomiikkaan liittyvä lukutaito onkin keskeinen haaste koko yhteiskunnalle.

”Personalised Healtcare” -raportissa huomautetaan, että on mahdollista, ettei genomitieto voimaannuta kansalaisia tai tee heistä yhtään enempää valmiita ottamaan suurempaa vastuuta omasta terveydestään. Muutenkaan ei ole aivan selvää, miten visio perimää koskevan tiedon lisääntyvästä käytöstä terveydenhuollossa ja sairaanhoidossa oikeasti vaikuttaa ihmisten terveyttä koskeviin asenteisiin. Voiko tiedon liian suuri määrä johtaa vain välinpitämättömyyteen? Tietoon ja dataan keskittyminen voi myös johtaa siihen, että hoito, hoiva ja ihmisen yksilöllinen kohtaaminen sekä kuuntelu sivuutetaan, kun ihminen näyttäytyy vain terveysdatansa summana. Toisaalta pelkona on, että lisääntyvän tiedon kautta luodaan suuri joukko terveydestään erittäin huolestuneita tai ahdistuneita kansalaisia, joilla ei todellisuudessa ole minkäänlaista akuuttia terveysongelmaa. Ylipäätään ero terveyden ja hyvinvoinnin välillä voi hämärtyä, mikä voi luoda jälleen uusia palvelutarpeita.

Iso potentiaalinen haaste on sekin, minkälaisia yhteyksiä tulevaisuudessa mahdollisesti luodaan geneettisten riskitekijöiden, sosiaalisen vastuun ja perheen perustamisen välille. Johtaako perimää koskevan tiedon lisääntyminen pahimmillaan hedelmällisessä iässä olevien naisten elintapojen ja terveyden entistä tarkempaan kontrolloimiseen? Samoin perhe- ja sukulaissuhteisiin terveyden ja perimän kysymyksillä on vaikutusta. Terveydenhuollon perusteiden mahdollinen radikaali muutos voi myös muilta osin merkittävästi vaikuttaa siihen, miten jatkossa ymmärrämme toisaalta sosiaalisen ja toisaalta yksilön oman vastuun suhteessa terveyteen. Huolena on, lisääntyvätkö epätasa-arvo ja ihmisten syrjintä – eli kääntäen esiin nousee kysymys siitä, ketkä konkreettisesti hyötyvät geenitiedosta ja keitä nämä lääketieteen uudet lupaukset koskevat?

Hallinnon ja palvelujärjestelmän kannalta haasteena on löytää parhaat toimintatavat. Uhkana on järjestelmän tehottomuus ja liiallinen monimutkaisuus. Raportin mukaan usein nojataan liikaa ajatuksiin innovaatioista palveluihin keskittymisen sijaan. Toisaalta juuri lisääntyvä yhteistyö julkisen ja yksityisen samoin kuin hoidon ja tutkimuksen välillä, nähdään oleellisina osina henkilökohtaisen lääketieteen toteutumista.

Lopulta kysymys on myös siitä, kuinka tuleva terveydenhuoltojärjestelmä kykenee vastaamaan yhä enemmän omasta hoidostaan vastuuta ottavien yksilöiden odotuksiin ja toiveisiin. On ratkaistava, millaisten palvelujen kautta vastataan toisaalta ihmisten haluihin ja odotuksiin, ja toisaalta ihmisten tarpeisiin. Tullaanko potilaita esimerkiksi ylidiagnosoimaan? Odotetaanko meidän kaikkien kykenevän jatkossa toimimaan oman terveytemme ja hyvinvointimme projektipäällikköinä, olemaan yhä enemmän vastuussa omasta terveydestämme, ja yhä lukutaitoisempina geenitietomme suhteen?

Research diving – or understanding one’s way of working in isolation

The Pomodoro technique.

Three hours of writing before checking your e-mail.

The procrastination notebook.

Social media blockers

These have become relatively common techniques to fight the lack of concentration in writing research. At the same time, many lunch conversations drift towards this topic in the hope of finding yet new ones. They usually work for a while, they fail, then we take up a new one. Once we run out of them, we go back to the one that worked for that very productive week. It is almost like remembering an old forgotten love. We go around them in cycles of productivity. It is common to blame the lack of productivity on everyday life annoyances, whether they are work related or not. The objective of those techniques is to build temporary walls between oneself and those disturbances. However, the collapse of those walls is generally one click away and it seems that, as soon as we become too familiar with them, we sort of stop respecting them too.

The procrastination book: every time you remember something you need to do, write it down and do it after you are finished.

During January and February I had the chance to use a technique a bit more radical than those everyday life ones. I went to a two-month writing retreat at the Saari Residence, located in Mynämäki, one of the perks of being funded by Kone Foundation. I had wanted to do something like this since I started my PhD back in 2013 and I thought of it as an isolating experience, like building a huge spatial wall between me and the rest of the world. However, I suddenly realized that isolation was not exactly the word to describe it. As Internet lurks nowadays everywhere (and is even a basic tool for the process of writing), I found out that many of those annoyances were still present. It was rather a diving process: I managed to dive into my research and be surrounded by it from morning to evening. This does not mean that I worked 24/7 (is that even possible or sane) but that I would allow myself to write uninterruptedly when I was at my most productive moment. I realized the huge role that social commitments and responsibilities play in my writing and how many times I must leave the office at the end of working hours despite being at the best moment of the day. The retreat was useful in order to let those moments (of inspiration, of focus) come in in full force and embrace them until they are gone.

Surroundings of the Saari Residence

My isolation was not complete, I was surrounded by a great group of people in a similar state of mind, which helped share the experience and understand it. Company is important, for the sake of sanity. This sort of isolation worked for me in a very different way than other techniques. Instead of disciplining my time, I let time discipline my work. This is probably not doable as a long-term venture. Research outside a research community becomes a bit more futile in my opinion, and so everything I wrote did not fully make sense until I went back to civilization. However, I find that such retreats (even shorter ones) can be extremely helpful not only for the sake of productivity but also for the sake of understanding one’s work and connecting with one’s research through immersion.

Perhaps those walls are not so much about blocking annoyances out but about how much space we leave inside for us to work comfortably.

Call for Papers and Panel Proposals for the Nordic STS Conference

Third Nordic Science and Technology Studies Conference

May 31-June 2, 2017, University of Gothenburg

The field of science and technology studies (STS) has grown rapidly in the Nordic countries and the purpose of the biannual Nordic STS conference is to stimulate scientific exchanges among STS scholars by providing a regional forum for presenting on-going work and initiating informal dialogues. At the third Nordic STS conference the keynote speakers are: David Demortain, INRA, Ulrike Felt, University of Vienna and Helen Verran, Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University.

The initiative of organizing the first Nordic STS conference in 2013, coincided with an effort to create a Nordic STS network by strengthening intellectual ties between existing national networks. It was organized by the Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture/TIK, at the University of Oslo and the Department for Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture/KULT at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, The second Nordic STS conference took place in 2015 and was organized by the Techno-Anthropology Research Group at Aalborg University in collaboration with the Danish Association for Science and Technology Studies (DASTS). The third conference is going to take place in Gothenburg, 2017.

The scientific committee and the organizing committee of the Nordic STS conference are now opening up a call for papers and panels for the third Nordic STS conference. Paper proposals should be no longer than 300 words and contain name(s) and institutional affiliation(s) of the author(s). Proposal for thematic panels (3-4 papers) should be short (no longer than 300 words) and contain a brief description of the theme, names and institutional affiliations of the presenters and organisers, and suggestions for papers (title and authors) to be included in the panel (abstract for the papers suggested to be included in the panels are submitted separately). Panels that include scholars from more than one Nordic country are particularly encouraged. The organizing committee can help in identifying potential participants from other Nordic countries (contact: STS2017@gu.se).

Abstracts for papers and panels should be submitted no later than 1 March 2017. Accepted panels and papers will be notified no later than 1 April. Proposals for panels and papers should be sent to: STS2017@gu.se

The conference is organized by the Department of Sociology and Work Science and Theory of Science at the Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg.

Scientific committee:

Kristin Asdal, University of Oslo

C-F Helgesson, University of Linköping

Sampsa Hyysalo, Aalto University

Christopher Gad, IT-University of Copenhagen

Organizing committee:

Linda Soneryd, University of Gothenburg

Johan Söderberg, University of Gothenburg

Doris Lydahl, University of Gothenburg

For more information about the conference, see the conference webpage which is updated continously: http://socav.gu.se/english/research/third-nordic-science-and-technology-studies-conference

Call for papers: “Science, technology and society” – working group at the Annual conference of the Westermarck Society

The Annual conference of the Westermarck Society will be held under the theme “Excess and Owerflows” at the University of Tampere on 23.-24.3.2017. The keynote speakers are: prof. Christian Borch (Copenhagen Business School, Denmark), prof. Sarah Green (University of Helsinki, Finland), prof. Annemarie Mol (University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands) and prof. Iddo Tavory (New York University, USA).

STS Helsinki is hosting its own working group and announces call for papers:

Working group 29. Science, technology and society

Coordinators: On behalf of the STS-Helsinki group at the University of Helsinki: Jose A. Cañada, Lotta Hautamäki, Mikko Jauho and Mianna Meskus. Please direct possible inquiries to lotta.hautamaki@helsinki.fi.

Science and Technology Studies (STS) is an interdisciplinary field of study that examines the interaction between society, science, and technology. STS pays attention to how different fields, such as law, politics, and everyday life, become intertwined with science and technology. This becomes especially relevant when thinking about heatedly debated topics as diverse as climate change, the role of experts, medicine, genetics, gender, robotics or organic food. The field calls for a deeper understanding of the development, processes, practices and outcomes of such phenomena through problematizing them as social phenomena. In the process, STS explores the mechanisms behind knowledge claims and ontological assumptions that guide our everyday. Or, how one of the most prominent STS scholars, Steve Woolgar, has said in a rather provocative way: look at how the world defined by science and technology “could be otherwise”.

STS-Helsinki calls for theoretical, methodological and empirical papers on current research in social studies of science. Papers both in Finnish and English are welcome. The aim of this working group is to offer a forum to discuss social phenomena at the crossroads between science, technology and society: how is scientific knowledge established and negotiated? How do historical processes contribute to the establishment of certain fields of study or to the development of certain technologies? What are the practices that contribute to the shaping of technoscientific objects and subjects? We also welcome papers discussing the specific topic of excess and surplus. But beyond more specific pressing questions, this working group is defined as a meeting point for both Finnish and international scholars to share and discuss their work with others studying science, technology and society.

The abstract should be sent using Lyyti. (Note that once you are on Lyyti, you can change the language from the upper left corner of the page).

Call for Papers: “Expertise and its tensions” – A Special issue of Science & Technology Studies.

Contemporary societies are permeated by, and depend on, various types of expertise. Expertise is also commonly contested in various domains, such as environment, health, medicine and economics. Debates on expertise commonly involve struggles over propositional power as well as epistemic authority. These struggles might be about relations between lay and expert knowledges, but they might also emerge betwixt scientific experts, or among other forms of expertise and ways of knowing. Furthermore, inter- or multidisciplinary endeavors create tensions as scientific experts from various fields need to fit together their approaches.

Articles can relate to any aspect of expertise, targeting, for example, to any of the three pre-established topics groups: 1) expansion of expertise in the public domain, 2) multidisciplinary expertise and its tensions, 3) experts, politics and policy.

We welcome but do not restrict the scope of articles, on following topics:

Emergence of multiple expertise around distinct phenomena
Multidisciplinary expertise and tacit knowledge
Expertise and wicked problems
Expertise, law and regulation
Socio-materiality of expertise
The place of expertise in social services
Trust in science and/or think tanks
Science-policy dynamics
Triple helix
Expansion of expertise in the public domain
Social media and expertise
Personal values, stances, and expert knowledge
Expertise of risk
Experience based expertise
Politically and economically motivated dissent in science
Public questioning of medical expertise
NGO’s as policy experts
Participatory expertise
Contingency of the boundaries of public expertise
How information systems and databases affect medical expertise
Big data and expertise
Tensions in the multi-disciplinary expertise
The interfaces of expertise
Semantic difference and loss of context in multidisciplinary scientific work
Emotional tensions in multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary interaction
Multiple ontologies and professional languages
Scientific misconduct
Total quality management of expertise
The efficiency of expertise

The guest-editors of this special issue of Science and Technology Studies are: Steven Yearley, Maria Åkerman, Otto Auranen, Harley Bergroth, Ismo Kantola, Sampsa Saikkonen, Jaakko Taipale.

Papers to be submitted should not be published or under review elsewhere. All submissions will be peer-reviewed according to Science & Technology Studies guidelines and procedures. For further manuscript guidelines, please see ‘manuscript submissions’ on Science & Technology Studies website (www.sciencetechnologystudies.org).

Deadline for manuscript submissions is 15th of February 2017.

For further information, please contact Ismo Kantola.