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
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 years several interrelated lines of research have developed:
- knowledge relations: investigate how in contemporary societies relations are built through/on knowledge and how knowledge emerges through specific kinds of relational networks;
- science, technology and democracy: public engagement with technoscience as well as governance and public participation (biomedicine and the life sciences as well nanotechnologies are special foci), science communication;
- the coproduction of temporealities and technoscientific issues whith particular focus on the growing role of future as central 'object' in shaping science and society relations;
- topics in knowledge politics, embracing both the changing cultures of knowing and living in research and their intertwinedness with institutional policy such as university reforms, quality assessment strategies, excellence intitiatives, etc.
Publications
Felt, U., Fochler, M., & Winkler, P. (2010). Coming to terms with biomedical technologies in different techno-political cultures: A comparative analysis of focus groups on organ transplantation and genetic testing in Austria, France and the Netherlands. Science, Technology & Human Values, 35(4), 525-553.
Felt, U., Fochler, M., & Strassnig, M. (2010). Experimente partizipativer ELSA-Forschung. Eine methodenpolitische Reflexion. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, (10), 33-67.
Felt, U. (2010). Leben in Nanowelten: Zur Ko-Produktion von Nano und Gesellschaft. In Petra Lucht, Martina Erlemann and Esther Ruiz Ben (eds) (2010), Technologisierung gesellschaftlicher Zukünfte. Nanotechnologien in wissenschaftlicher, politischer und öffentlicher Praxis (pp. 19-37). Centaurus.
Felt, U., & Fochler, M. (2010). Machineries for Making Publics: Inscribing and Describing Publics in Public Engagement. Minerva, 48(3), 219-238.
Schumann, S., Felt, U., Schwarz, C., & Strassnig, M. (2010). Making Future Present. On the Co-Production of Nano and Society in the Austrian Context.
Felt, U., Felder, K. F., Öhler, T., & Penkler, M. (2010). Perceptions and Imaginations of Obesity as a Socio-Scientific Problem in the Austrian Context. Poster session presented at Evaluierungskonferenz GEN-AU, Wien, Austria.
Felt, U., Igelsböck, J., Schikowitz, A., & Völker, T. (2010). Querdenken gefragt?! Interdisziplinarität an kontemporären europäischen Universitäten zwischen idealen und realen Rahmenbedingungen. Paradigmata. Zeitschrift für Menschen und Diskurse, 95-99.
Felt, U., & Fochler, M. (2010). Riskante Verwicklungen des Epistemischen, Strukturellen und Biographischen: Governance-Strukturen und deren mikropolitische Implikationen für das akademische Leben. In Governance des Österreichischen Innovationssytems (pp. 297-328). Studien Verlag.
Felt, U. (2010). Vers la construction d'un public européen? Continuités et ruptures dans le discours politique sur les cultures scientifiques et techniques. Question de Communication, (17), 53-58.
Siune, K., Markus, E., Calloni, M., Felt, U., Gorski, A., Grunwald, A., Rip, A., de Semir, V., & Wyatt, S. (2009). Challenging Futures of Science in Society - Emerging trends and cutting-edge issues. Publications Office of the European Union.
Felt, U., & Pernsteiner, J. (2009). Fälschungen in der Wissenschaft weit verbreitet: Jeder Siebte verheimlicht ungünstige Ergebnisse. pressetext.com.
Felt, U. (Interviewee), & Gruber, E-M. (Author). (2009). Gemeinsam oder einsam? Wissenschaft zwischen Teamarbeit und Einzelleistung. Web publication, Retrieved from science.orf.at/science/news/155439
Felt, U. (2009). Knowing and Living in Academic Research. In Felt, Ulrike (ed.), Knowing and Living in Academic Research. Convergence and Heterogeneity in Research Cultures in the European Context (pp. 17-39). Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.
Felt, U. (Ed.) (2009). Knowing and Living in Academic Research. Convergence and Heterogeneity in Research Cultures in the European Context. Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.
Felt, U., & Linkova, M. (2009). Knowing and Living in Research. Policy Recommendations to the European Commission. Unpublished.
Felt, U., & Stöckelová, T. (2009). Modes of Ordering and Boundaries That Matter in Academic Knowledge Production. In Felt, Ulrike (ed.) Knowing and Living in Academic Research. Convergence and Heterogeneity in Research Cultures in the European Context (pp. 41-124). Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.
Felt, U., Bister, M., Strassnig, M., & Wagner, U. (2009). Refusing the information paradigm: informed consent, medical research, and patient participation: informed consent, medical research, and patient participation. Health: an interdisciplinary journal for the social study of health, illness and medicine, 13(1), 87-106.