Biography

Nina's work centres on the complex and dynamic relationships between infrastructures, innovation, and shifting geopolitical landscapes. Her research employs qualitative, empirical methods to develop a grounded understanding of the interplay between global politics and technological transformations. Particularly, her work focuses on outer space governance, exploring topics such as cooperation, militarization, and environmental justice, as well as the nexus between security infrastructures, (digital) technologies and innovation discourses.

In 2022, Nina Klimburg-Witjes was awarded an ERC Starting Grant for her project "FUTURESPACE" The project uses the European Ariane 6 rocket as a case study to investigate the complex connections between large-scale infrastructures, European integration practices, and envisioned space futures in the new space race. Methodologically, Nina and her team will conduct an interdisciplinary ethnography, linking social science and aerospace engineering to explore the material, political, and imaginative dimensions of space infrastructures and their politics.

Nina is an active member of the international STS community. She regularly organizes panels at leading STS conferences and participates in various international academic networks and societies. She holds elected positions on the Council of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and the Austrian Academy of Science (ÖAW) Young Academy, co-founded the international network for the Social Studies of Outer Space (SSOS) and is a member of the International Network on Security and Technology in Outer Space.

Nina Klimburg-Witjes received her PhD in Science and Technology Studies (STS) from the Technical University of Munich in 2017 (MCTS) and was co-leader of the research group "Science, Technology and Security" of the Engineering Responsibility Lab. She was a visiting researcher at the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) in Vienna, a research fellow at the Austrian Research Foundation for International Development (OEFSE) as well as the Austrian Institute for International Policy (OIIP), and a research fellow at the Institute of Sociology at the Albert Ludwig University Freiburg.

Main Research Interests

Imaginaries and Politics Outer Space
Infrastructures of In/Security
Technology, innovation and Securitization
Social studies of outer space and future visions of Earth-Space relations,
Science, technology and international relations
Fieldwork in contexts of secrecy

Current Research Projects

FutureSpace: Making the Ariane Rocket: Negotiating relations between European integration and the future of Europe in space.

Completed Research Projects

Europas Forschungsinfrastrukturen – Akteure der Integration (FWF; 01/2019 – 06/2023)

Recent Publications

The Security-Innovation Nexus in (Geo-)Political Imagination

Autor(en): Christian Haddad, Dagmar Vorlicek, Nina Klimburg-Witjes
Abstrakt: Security and innovation have become increasingly entangled at the level of political rationalities, imagination, and material practice, forming what we conceptualise as the ‘nexus of security-innovation’. The extension of and various shifts in this nexus merit critical attention, as it engenders the emergence of new technopolitical issues, conflicts, and novel sets of actors involved. This article constitutes both an Introduction and an individual contribution to a Special Issue that examines recent shifts in the security-innovation nexus and its relation to geopolitical imaginations. Here, we propose to conceptualise the nexus along three lines – as an empirical phenomenon, a set of problems confronting security actors, and as an analytical approach. We then map the tensions between security and innovation rationalities before introducing the contributions to this Issue and their individual approaches to studying the security-innovation nexus. We conclude by discussing how the ‘innovationization’ of security reshapes security practices, co-constitutes new actors, and restructures the spaces – imagined and actual – in which they operate.
Organisation(en): Institut für Soziologie, Institut für Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung
Journal: Geopolitics
Band: 29
Seiten: 741-764
Anzahl der Seiten: 24
ISSN: 1465-0045
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2024.2329940
Publikationsdatum: 03-2024
Peer-reviewed: Ja
ÖFOS 2012: 506007 Internationale Beziehungen, 509017 Wissenschaftsforschung
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete: Geography, Planning and Development, Political Science and International Relations
Link zum Portal: https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/83abc4b8-9e54-4391-8056-0b3a581cccb6