Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ulrike Felt
Professor of Science and Technology Studies
Head of the Department of Science and Technology Studies
Head of the research platform Responsible Research and Innovation in Academic Practice
Member of the research platforms "Governance of Digital Practices" und "PLENTY - Plastics in the Environment and Society"
Consultation hour: by arrangement via eMail!
T: +43 1 4277 49611 (secr. -49601)
eMail: ulrike.felt@univie.ac.at
Biography
Ulrike Felt is Professor of Science and Technology Studies since 1999, and Head of the Departement of Science and Technology Studies and of the research platform Responsible Research and Innovation in Academic Practice
After having finished her PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Vienna in 1983, she worked for nearly five years in an interdisciplinary research team of science historians at the European Center for High Energy Physics (CERN) in Geneva studying social, political and scientific aspects in the foundation period of this first big European research institution. During this period her research interests moved into the field of science and technology studies (STS). After her stay at CERN she returned to Vienna, where she took up a position at the newly founded Institute for Philosophy of Science and Social Studies of Science headed by Helga Nowotny. In 1997 she received her habilitation in Science Studies/Sociology of Sciences.
Ulrike Felt has wide experience in running nationally and internationally funded research projects working with a broad spectrum of social science research methods. She has been visiting professor in a number of institutions, among them at GERSULP/Université Louis Pasteur (Strasbourg), at the Centre Interuniversitaire pour la Recherche en Science et Technologie, Universite du Québec à Montréal, at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme in Paris, at the Collegium Helveticum, ETH Zurich and at the STS group at Harvard. She has served as member of the council of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) from 1995 until 1999, and of the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) from 2002 to 2004. From July 2002 to June 2007 she was editor of the international peer-reviewed Journal Science, Technology, & Human Values (Journal of the Society for Social Studies of Science). Most recently she has also engaged in setting up an interdisciplinary Masterprogramme "Science - Technology - Society" (taught in English language) at the University of Vienna.
Finally she engaged into policy advise both nationally and at the European level, e.g. as expert in the Advisory Group of the European Commission for the Science and Society priority of the 6th framework programme (2003-2006); as member of the European Research Advisory Board (EURAB; 2006/07); as rapporteur of the expert group Science and Governance (download the report as pdf) and most recently for the European Science Foundation (Science Policy Briefing: Science in Society - Caring for our Futures in Turbulent Times).
Since 1st September 2015 she is the Head of the interfaculty Research Platform "Responsible Research and Innovation in Academic Practice" at the University of Vienna, which will run until 20th December 2021. Addidionally she's a member of the Research Platform "Plastic in Environment and Society".
Main Research Interests
Over the past decades several interrelated lines of research have developed:
- Participation and governance of science/technology in democratic societies; science communication;
- changes in the institutional, social and epistemological regimes of knowledge production
- on the role of time/temporal regimes and futures in research as well as for the interfaces of science/technology with society
- Values and evaluation in science; science policy; research integrity; ethical issues
- Socio-technical infrastructures and their importance for science and society
- Digitization and Big Data.
The fields I engaged with were rather diverse over time but had a strong focus on biomedicine and the life sciences, environment (enery, plastics, environmental data sciences) and physics (new materials, sensors, nanotechnology, ...).
Publications
Felt, U. (Author). (2017). More work is required to make academic “timescapes” worth inhabiting and to open up space for creative work. Web publication
Bellamy, R. (Author), Merkel, W. (Author), Felt, U. (Editorial Journalist), & Verloo, M. (Author). (2017). Chapter 14—Challenges of Inequality to Democracy’. Report of the International Panel on Social Progress (IPSP). Web publication
Felt, U. (Interviewee). (2017). Ö1 Wissen aktuell - Soll Wissenschaft alles tun, was sie tun könnte?. Radio show, ORF Ö1.
Felt, U. (2017). Neu(es) denken: Aber wie? COMPETENCE – das Magazin für Wissen und Weiterbildung des Postgraduate Center der Universität Wien, (01/17), 8-9.
Felt, U., Felder, K. F., & Penkler, M. (2017). How differences matter: Tracing diversity practices in obesity treatment and health promotion. Sociology of Health and Illness, 39(1), 127-142. doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12446
Felt, U. (2017). Of time-scapes and knowledge-scapes: Re-timing Research and Higher Education. In P. Scott, J. Gallacher, & G. Parry (Eds.), New Landscapes and Languages of Higher Education (pp. 129-148). Oxford University Press.
Felt, U., Fochler, M., Müller, R., & Nowotny, H. (2017). Re-imagining and re-legitimising the university - Where past and future imaginaries meet. In Austrian Council for Research and Technology Development (Ed.), Prospects and future tasks of universities: Digitalization - internationalization - differentiation (pp. 25-42). LIT Verlag.
Felt, U., Fouché, R., Miller, C. A., & Smith-Doerr, L. (Eds.) (2017). The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies. MIT Press.
Felt, U. (2017). Under the Shadow of Time: Where Indicators and Academic Values Meet. Engaging Science, Technology, and Society, 3/2017, 53-63. doi.org/10.17351/ests2017.109
Felt, U., Fochler, M., Müller, R., & Nowotny, H. (2017). Was ist, was soll eine Universität sein? : Imaginaries von gestern und morgen. In Rat für Forschung und Technologieentwicklung (Ed.), Zukunft und Aufgaben der Hochschulen: Digitalisierung - Internationalisierung - Differenzierung (pp. 25-45). LIT Verlag.
Felt, U. (Author). (2016). Associating citizens with the scientific process from the start. Web publication, euroscientist.
Meßner, D. (Editorial Journalist), & Felt, U. (Interviewee). (2016). Audimax 4: Wissenschafts- und Technikforscherin Ulrike Felt. Multimedia output
Tóth, B., & Felt, U. (2016). „Der Bachelor wird das sein, was die Matura einmal war“. Falter, 43(16).
Felt, U., Igelsböck, J., Schikowitz, A., & Völker, T. (2016). Transdisciplinary Sustainability Research in Practice: Between imaginaries of collective experimentation and entrenched academic value orders. Science, Technology & Human Values, 35(5), 404-418. doi.org/10.1177/0162243915626989
Gluzman, Y. (Editorial Journalist), & Felt, U. (Interviewee). (2016). Handbook for the Ages: Peeking into the forthcoming 4th Edition of the STS Handbook. Web publication
Fochler, M., Felt, U., & Müller, R. (2016). Unsustainable growth, hyper-competition, and worth in life science research: Narrowing evaluative repertoires in doctoral and postdoctoral scientists’ work and lives. Minerva, 54(2), 175-200. doi.org/10.1007/s11024-016-9292-y
Felt, U. (Interviewee), & Gurel, A. (Editorial Journalist). (2016). Talking Transdisciplinarity with Ulrike Felt: New Research in Science, Technology & Human Values. Web publication www.4sonline.org/blog/post/new_research_in_science_technology_human_values
Nowotny, M. (Editorial Journalist), & Felt, U. (Interviewee). (2016). Ö1 Mittagsjournal, "Luxusfächer" an den Universitäten. Radio show
Scholz, N. (Editorial Journalist), & Felt, U. (Interviewee). (2016). Ö1 Radiokolleg "Das Arbeitsklima in der Forschung" (22-25.2.2016). Radio show