The seven rules for hydrologists and other researchers wanting to contribute to the water management practice

Abstract. This paper addresses the question how hydrologists and other researchers can best contribute to the water management practice. It reviews the literature in the field of science and technology studies and research utilization and presents the results in the form of seven "rules" for researchers. These are (1) Reflect on the nature and possible roles of research; (2) Analyse the stakeholders and issues at stake; (3) Choose whom and what to serve; (4) Decide on your strategy; (5) Design the process to implement your strategy; (6) Communicate!; and (7) Consider your possibilities and limitations. Key notions in this paper are that research always involves selection and interpretation and that the selection and interpretations made in a specific case always reflect the values and preferences of those involved. Collaboration between the researchers and the other stakeholders can increase the legitimacy and utilization of the research and can prevent that the specific expertise of the researchers is lost.

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Seven rules for researchers to increase their impact on the policy process

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences ◽

10.5194/hess-12-1087-2008 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 12 (4) ◽

pp. 1087-1096 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

E. Mostert ◽

G. T. Raadgever

Keyword(s):

Water Management ◽

Policy Process ◽

Science And Technology Studies ◽

Research Utilization ◽

Management Practice ◽

Science And Technology ◽

The Other ◽

Water Management Practice ◽

Specific Expertise ◽

Made In

Abstract. This paper addresses the question of how hydrologists and other researchers can contribute most to water management practice. It reviews the literature in the field of science and technology studies and research utilization and presents the results in the form of seven "rules" for researchers. These are (1) Reflect on the nature and possible roles of science and expertise; (2) Analyze the stakeholders and issues at stake; (3) Choose whom and what to serve; (4) Decide on your strategy; (5) Design the process to implement your strategy; (6) Communicate!; and (7) Consider your possibilities and limitations. A key notion in this paper is that research always involves selection and interpretation and that the selection and interpretations made in a specific case always reflect the values and preferences of those involved. Collaboration between researchers and the other stakeholders can increase the legitimacy and utilization of the research and can prevent the researchers' specific expertise from being lost.

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Making Materials: The Case of Elaborating Qualities of Bioplastics

Design Issues ◽

10.1162/desi_a_00417 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 32 (4) ◽

pp. 64-75 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Damla Tonuk

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Production Process ◽

Science And Technology Studies ◽

Science And Technology ◽

Alternative Route ◽

New Materials ◽

Technology Studies ◽

Properties Of Materials ◽

Made In

This article focuses on materials by taking an alternative route into considering their relationships to products. I draw on approaches from social sciences, especially studies influenced by science and technology studies, and conceptualise materials (and products) as made in their social and technical environment, and their properties as enacted in different environments of which they become a part, such as production and branding. Building on this framework, I focus on the production process in which materials, namely bioplastics, are produced and are transformed into products and so material-product relationships are formed, and new materials are substituted with existing ones. As such this study shows that actually products make materials as well, and that properties of materials are not intrinsic to them so as to be to chosen by designers, but that properties of materials are partly made in relation to the products into which they are made.

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An introduction to Crafting Sustainability – exploring the interconnections between sustainability and craft

Nordic Journal of Science and Technology Studies ◽

10.5324/njsts.v5i2.2430 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

pp. 3-7

Author(s):

Roger Andre Søraa ◽

Håkon Fyhn

Keyword(s):

Science And Technology Studies ◽

Focal Point ◽

Science And Technology ◽

Critical Issue ◽

The Other ◽

Special Issue ◽

Technology Studies ◽

Research Areas ◽

Other Hand ◽

Problems And Solutions

Sustainability has become a critical issue, calling for new conceptualizations of both problems and solutions. This special issue of the Nordic Journal of Science and Technology Studies, explore the concept of “Crafting Sustainability”. Sustainability is a hot topic in contemporary scholarly debates, with methodological, theoretical, and conceptual contributions from a wide array of research areas, also from Science and Technology Studies. Craft on the other hand has been less of a focal point, although all humans relate to craft on some level.

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Remaking Participation in Science and Democracy

Science Technology & Human Values ◽

10.1177/0162243919850885 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 45 (3) ◽

pp. 347-380 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Jason Chilvers ◽

Matthew Kearnes

Keyword(s):

Public Participation ◽

Public Engagement ◽

Science And Technology Studies ◽

Science And Technology ◽

Public Trust ◽

Technology Studies ◽

The Past ◽

Socially Responsive ◽

New Framework ◽

Made In

Over the past few decades, significant advances have been made in public engagement with, and the democratization of, science and technology. Despite notable successes, such developments have often struggled to enhance public trust, avert crises of expertise and democracy, and build more socially responsive and responsible science and innovation. A central reason for this is that mainstream approaches to public engagement harbor what we call “residual realist” assumptions about participation and publics. Recent coproductionist accounts in science and technology studies (STS) offer an alternative way of seeing participation as coproduced, relational, diverse, and emergent but have been somewhat reluctant to articulate what this means in practice. In this paper, we make this move by setting out a new framework of interrelating paths and associated criteria for remaking public participation with science and democracy in more experimental, reflexive, anticipatory, and responsible ways. This framework comprises four paths to: forge reflexive participatory practices that attend to their framings, emergence, uncertainties, and effects; ecologize participation through attending to the interrelations between diverse public engagements in wider systems; catalyze practices of anticipatory reflection to bring about responsible democratic innovations; and reconstitute participation as constitutive of (not separate from) systems of technoscience and democracy.

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Building Bridges

Science & Technology Studies ◽

10.23987/sts.102808 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 34 (3) ◽

pp. 138-143

Author(s):

Stefan Laser

Keyword(s):

Science And Technology Studies ◽

Cultural Anthropology ◽

Science And Technology ◽

The Other ◽

Recent Book ◽

Technology Studies ◽

The One

This paper discusses three recent book publications devoted to a detailed description and reflection of methodology. These are three different contributions that focus on different disciplinary approaches to STS methods: sociology (via Meier zu Verl's monograph "Daten-Karrieren und epistemische Materialität" [Data Careers and Epistemic Materiality]), cultural anthropology (represented by Estalella's and Criado's edited volume "Experimental Collaborations") and, across these discussions, an interdisciplinary lens (brought in by Wiedmann et al.'s "Wie forschen mit den' Science and Technology Studies'?" [How to do research with 'Science and Technology Studies'?]). Based on these publications, a transformation of STS method reflection can be traced. We have now arrived at the gratifying state that the methods literature aims to build bridges to mediate between methodological ideals on the one hand and research realities on the other. At the same time, the field creatively reflects on the diverse effects of STS method practices.

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Cybersecurity Research Meets Science and Technology Studies

Politics and Governance ◽

10.17645/pag.v6i2.1385 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 22-30 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Myriam Dunn Cavelty

Keyword(s):

Social Practice ◽

Science And Technology Studies ◽

Science And Technology ◽

The Other ◽

Material Objects ◽

Social Actors ◽

Technology Studies ◽

Circulation Of Knowledge

This article sets out to show how different understandings of technology as suggested by Science and Technology Studies (STS) help reveal different political facets of cybersecurity. Using cybersecurity research as empirical site, it is shown that two separate ways of understanding cybertechnologies are prevalent in society. The primary one sees cybertechnologies as apolitical, flawed, material objects that need to be fixed in order to create more security; the other understands them as mere political tools in the hands of social actors without considering technological (im)possibilities. This article suggests a focus on a third understanding to bridge the uneasy gap between the two others: technology defined as an embodiment of societal knowledge. The article posits that in line with that, the study of cyberpolitics would benefit from two innovations: a focus on cybersecurity as social practice―enacted and stabilized through the circulation of knowledge about vulnerabilities―and a focus on the practices employed in the discovery, exploitation and removal of those vulnerabilities.

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The jar and the footbridge. Humanities, nature and culture in the view of science and technology studies and biosemiotics

Tekstualia ◽

10.5604/01.3001.0014.5618 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 3 (62) ◽

pp. 15-30

Author(s):

Katarzyna Machtyl

Keyword(s):

Science And Technology Studies ◽

Human Subject ◽

Science And Technology ◽

The Other ◽

Bruno Latour ◽

Critical Perspective ◽

Field Of Study ◽

Technology Studies ◽

Nature And Culture ◽

The One

The paper aims at juxtaposing two main disciplines: science and technology studies, on the one hand, and biosemiotics, on the other, from the methodological perspective (i.e. concerning epistemology and methodology) and the ontological one (concerning the object of research). Thus, the analysis concerns the opposition of naturalism and antinaturalism in reference to the huma-nities and sciences and nature / culture in reference to the field of study. Science and technology studies (Bruno Latour) and biosemiotics are of key importance in challenging two kinds of binarism: the humanities vs. sciences and nature vs. culture. The discussion further touches upon the question of how the human subject can know nature as well as the issue of discourse, language, reference and the scientifi c text. A critical perspective on science, proposed by both science and technology studies and biosemiotics, possibly anticipates a revolution.

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Science and Technology Studies, Ethnomethodology of

International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences ◽

10.1016/b978-0-08-097086-8.85049-7 ◽

2015 ◽

pp. 192-199

Author(s):

Michael Lynch

Keyword(s):

Science And Technology Studies ◽

Science And Technology ◽

Technology Studies

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Trois regards sur la notion de « culture chinoise »

Asiatische Studien – Études Asiatiques ◽

10.1515/asia-2017-0080 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 72 (1) ◽

pp. 87-116

Author(s):

Basile Zimmermann

Keyword(s):

Case Studies ◽

Science And Technology Studies ◽

Chinese Culture ◽

Science And Technology ◽

Historical Overview ◽

Asian Studies ◽

Interactional Expertise ◽

General Argument ◽

Technology Studies ◽

Chinese Studies

Abstract Chinese studies are going through a period of reforms. This article appraises what could constitute the theoretical and methodological foundations of contemporary sinology today. The author suggests an approach of “Chinese culture” by drawing from recent frameworks of Science and Technology Studies (STS). The paper starts with current debates in Asian studies, followed by a historical overview of the concept of culture in anthropology. Then, two short case studies are presented with regard to two different STS approaches: studies of expertise and experience and the notion of interactional expertise, and the framework of waves and forms. A general argument is thereby sketched which suggests how “Chinese culture” can be understood from the perspective of materiality.

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