All Projects
Future organisms
July 2021 – July 2024
Future organisms: synthetic genomics and responsible innovation in the UK, the USA and Japan
The aim of this project is two-fold: to carry out a social scientific investigation into synthetic genomics and to develop new approaches to responsible research and innovation through this investigation.
Building alternative practices for RRI in Japan and the UK
November 2018 – June 2021
With funding from the ESRC, we are working together to create a more expansive and critical agenda for Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in emergent scientific and technological fields, in a manner that is sensitive to national differences and promotes renewed reflexivity in both contexts. The project’s main activities centre around two workshops: the first in the United Kingdom and the second in Japan.
Funding Cultures Lab.
April 2018 – On going
Research funding organisations are a preeminent site of science policy. They set priorities for their respective fields, provide science advice and contribute to national debate on topics relating to science, technology and innovation. In collaboration with funding agency staff we explore questions about the roles and responsibilities of these frequently-overlooked organisations. How are decisions about the scope of a research agenda achieved? How are differing ideas of valuable research negotiated? And with these same staff, we develop new governance methodologies to shape emerging scientific fields in democratic societies.
UKRI Centres for Doctoral Training
2018 – 2024
Engineering life
September 2014 – February 2020
The emerging field of synthetic biology promises to engineer the living world. Its proponents argue that it will deliver new fuels, medicines and materials that will drive the next industrial revolution. A field of such potentially huge significance requires informed social scientific attention. And because of synthetic biology’s bold ambitions and disruptive potential, scholars from the social sciences and humanities have become enrolled into synthetic biology research projects in a manner that is unprecedented.