Professor in Technology and Social Change

LINKÖPING UNIVERSITY

Professor in Technology and Social Change

in the Department of Technology and Social Change, Institute of Thematic Studies

Subject area description: The Department of Technology and Social Change is part of The Institute of Thematic Studies, at the Faculty of Philosophy of Linköping University. The Institute contains research, graduate training, and undergraduate education. Research, graduate and undergraduate education at the Institute are organized in multidisciplinary environments (departments). Set programmes within each department instructs the direction of educational activities and research. The Institute places great emphasis on graduate training within cohesive graduate schools within each department. The Institute of Thematic Studies contains four departments: The Department of Child Studies, The Department of Gender Studies, The Department of Technology and Social Change, and The Department of Water and Environmental Studies. Within these departments one can find collaborations between the Social Sciences, the Humanities, the Natural Sciences, and Technology studies. Within the Institute one can also find undergraduate education, both elective classes and educational programmes like the Programme in Environmental Science, and subject specific courses in Geography, Environmental Science, and Thematic Natural Sciences. There are also three international MA programmes at the Institute of Thematic Studies.

The scientific activities at the Department of Technology and Social Change involve critical studies of technical change, of technology's importance in society, and the different understandings and practices that are constructed around technology and science in society. Research is directed towards how social actors create and use technology as well as how technological change is woven together with cultural patterns, everyday life, politics, economics and values. The research is interdisciplinary and contains both historical studies and analysis of the present.

Research and teaching at the Department of Technology and Social Change focuses on several important technical fields with a series of different theoretical perspectives. The department is divided into three broad programmes. One programme focuses on knowledge, practice and organization in technical and scientific activities. In this programme, a gender perspective is applied on technology and society. Another programme within the department studies the development of socio-technical infrastructures like energy, communication and transport systems, and how these systems influence and are used in daily life. A third programme within the Department focuses on political processes surrounding technological change, including environmental issues. Studies of the dynamics of the energy system are also conducted at the Department within the national graduate school Energy System.

The successful candidate for this professorship at the Department of Technology and Social Change will have a broad competence in the social sciences within the fields of politics, economics, or organization, of relevance for the understanding of the institutional context and social dynamics of technology. Relevant academic backgrounds are, for example, (in alphabetical order) business administration, cultural geography, economical history macroeconomics, political science, sociology or an interdisciplinary competency within a relevant field.

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