Socio-Technical Integration Research Project
About STIR
Began: 2009 | Ends: 2012
Science and technology policies around the
world are placing new pressures on laboratories to address broader societal
dimensions of their work in ways that have the potential to influence the
content of science and engineering activities themselves – presumably for
the better (see 2006 Science and Public Policy article by PI Erik Fisher
and Roop Mahajan). Despite longstanding calls for collaborations between
natural and human scientists to achieve this goal, neither the capacity
of laboratories to respond to such pressures nor the role that interdisciplinary
collaborations may play in enhancing responsiveness is well understood or
empirically supported. It is crucial to overcome these limitations in order
to design, implement and assess effective programs aimed at responsible
innovation.
To address these limitations, the Socio-Technical Integration
Research (STIR) project is conducting a coordinated set of 20 laboratory
engagement studies to assess and compare the varying pressures on – and
capacities for – laboratories to integrate broader societal considerations
into their work. Ten doctoral students will each conduct two paired laboratory
studies that extend more traditional ethnographies by engaging researchers
in semi-structured interactions designed to enhance reflection upon research
decisions in light of broader considerations.
The objectives of the STIR project as a whole, as well
as each paired study, are to:
- Identify and compare external expectations and demands for laboratories
to engage in responsible innovation
- Assess and compare the current responsiveness of laboratory practices
to these pressures
- Investigate and compare how interdisciplinary collaborations may assist
in elucidating, enhancing or stimulating responsiveness
Doctoral students base their studies on a protocol developed
by PI Fisher during a previous 33-month laboratory
engagement study. This study provides preliminary evidence that such
activities enable laboratory work to become more sensitive to its potential
societal implications, without compromising laboratory research, education
or strategic goals. The STIR project is investigating whether these results
are applicable across a diverse and globally distributed range of labs and
in a less time- and labor-intensive manner.
Intellectual Merit
The intellectual merit of the STIR project consists in its extension of
the laboratory study as a basis for interdisciplinary collaborations; its
timely and comparative investigation of emerging international pressures
on research; its multi-sited investigation of the capacity for a diverse
set of laboratories in 10 different countries to participate in responsible
innovation; and the globally engaged and communal form of graduate education
that it will pilot and for which it will establish a platform.
Broader Impacts
The STIR project
- Trains a diverse and globally engaged cadre of doctoral students to observe
and collaborate with scientists and engineers in order to participate in
responsible innovation
- Tests and refines a set of techniques that will be made available to others
for use in designing, conducting and assessing effective collaborations
with scientists and engineers that are aimed at responsible innovation;
includes developing a research and education platform that will allow the
continued training and placement of additional and future researchers
- Strengthens linkages between science studies scholarship and science and
technology policy deliberations by informing research, management and education
policies that seek to institute interdisciplinary interactions aimed at
responsible innovation
Support
The STIR project is co-funded through the NSF programs in Science, Technology & Society; Biology and Society;
Mathematical and Physical Sciences and Society; Science of Science and Innovation Policy; and Office of
International Science and Engineering. The project is administered through CNS-ASU.
News Update:
The Colorado Fuel Cell Center (CFCC), one of over twenty laboratories around the world hosting
a STIR researcher, has issued a press release
announcing their participation in the STIR project and welcoming Qin Zhu as an 'embedded humanist'
in the laboratory. The web site for the CFCC may be found at:
http://www.coloradofuelcellcenter.org/.
