Professor Maja Horst

Visiting Professor

Science and Technology Policy

Maja Horst received her MA in social science and communication from Roskilde University, Denmark, in 1996. She then worked as a research assistant and doctoral student before gaining a PhD from Copenhagen Business School (CBS) in 2003. Her doctoral thesis focused on public controversies about biotechnology. She was employed as an assistant and associate professor at CBS until 2011, when she became Head of the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication at the University of Copenhagen. She was appointed as a full professor of Science Communication in 2014. In 2019 she moved to DTU – Technical University of Denmark, where she became professor of responsible technology. She chairs a group in this area within DTU Management. Maja Horst is a member of the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences and has been awarded the Danish Science Minister’s communication prize for her work with dialogical science communication installations. She has been appointed to a number of public positions and currently chairs the Board of the Danish Independent Research Fund. She has also been elected as president of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology. In 2021 she was awarded the Hans Fischer Senior Fellowship at TUM-IAS.

Maja Horst conducts research into the relationship between science, technology and society – and particularly public communication about new and controversial technologies. She is engaged in research and teaching within the following areas:

  • Public communication about technology
  • Values and social responsibility in technology development
  • Innovation and science communication
  • The social responsibility of universities
  • Sociology of innovation
  • Science and Technology Studies

Selected Journal Publications:

  • Maja Horst (2021): Science Communication as a Boundary Space: An interactive installation about the social responsibility of science. Science, Technology and Human Values doi.org/10.1177/01622439211003662
  • Lene Gjørtler Elkjær, Maja Horst & Sophie Nyborg (2021): Identities, innovation and governance: a systematic review of co-creation in wind energy transitions. Energy Research and Social Science 71(2021)101835).
  • Qiaoyan Zhu & Maja Horst (2019): Science communication activism: Protesting Traditional Chinese Medicine in China. Public Understanding of Science. 28(7)812-827
  • Sarah Rachael Davies, Megan Halpern, Maja Horst, David Kirby & Bruce Lewenstein (2019): Science stories as culture: experience, identity, narrative and emotion in public communication of science. Journal of Science Communication 18(5), https://doi.org/10.22323/2.18050201
  • Ana Nordberg, Timo Minssen, Sune H Holm, Maja Horst, Kell Mortensen & Birger Lindberg Møller (2018): Cutting edges and weaving threads in the gene editing (r)evolution: Reconciling scientific progress with legal, ethical and social concerns. Journal of Law and the Biosciences 5(1)35-83 lsx043, https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsx043
  • Cecilie Glerup, Sarah R Davies & Maja Horst (2017): ‘Nothing really responsible goes on here’: Scientists’ experience and practice of responsibility. Journal of Responsible Innovation 4(3)319-336
  • Alan Irwin & Maja Horst (2016): Communicating trust and trusting science communication – some critical remarks. Journal of Science Communication 15(6)L01:1-5
  • Sarah R Davies & Maja Horst (2015): Crafting the Group: Care in research management. Social Studies of Science 45(3)371-393
  • Lisa Callagher, Maja Horst & Kenneth Husted (2015): Exploring societal responses towards managerial prerogative in entrepreneurial universities. International Journal for Learning and Change 8(1)64-82.
  • Cecilie Glerup & Maja Horst (2014): Mapping ‘Social Responsibility’ in Science. Journal of Responsible Innovation 1(1)31-50. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/23299460.2014.882077
  • Maja Horst (2014): On the weakness of strong ties. Public Understanding of Science. 23(1)43-47. 10.1177/0963662512473392
  • Maja Horst (2013): A field of expertise, the organization or science itself?: Representing research in public communication. Science Communication. 35(6)758-779. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1075547013487513
  • Ursula Plesner & Maja Horst (2013): Before Stabilization: Communication and non-standardization of 3D digital models in the building industry. Information, Communication & Society. 16(7)1115-1138.
  • Ursula Plesner & Maja Horst (2012): Selling the Selling Point: How Innovation Communication creates Users of Virtual Worlds Architecture. Convergence.18(1)49-70.
  • Maja Horst & Mike Michael (2011): On the shoulders of idiots – Re-thinking Science Communication as ‘event’. Science as Culture 20(3)283-306.
  • Maja Horst (2011): Taking our own medicine – on an experiment in science communication. Science and Engineering Ethics 17(4)801-815.
  • Maja Horst (2010): Le réseau des cellules souches: Une installation spatiale pour communiquer les sciences sociales. Questions de Communication. #17, 2010.
  • Maja Horst (2010): Collective Closure? – Public debate as the solution to controversies about science and technology. Acta Sociologica 53(3)195-211.
  • Maja Horst & Alan Irwin (2010): Nations at ease with radical knowledge: on consensus, consensusing and false consensusness. Social Studies of Science. 40(1)105-126.
  • Maja Horst (2008): The laboratory of Public Debate: understanding the acceptability of stem cell research. Science and Public Policy 35(3)197-205.
  • Maja Horst, Alan Irwin, Peter Healey & Rob Hagendijk (2007): European scientific governance in a global context – resonances, implications and reflections. IDS Bulletin 38(5)6-20.
  • Maja Horst (2007): Public Expectations of Gene Therapy: Scientific Futures and their Performative Effects on Scientific Citizenship. Science, Technology and Human Values 32(2)150-171.
  • Maja Horst (2005): Cloning Sensations: Mass Mediated Articulation of Social Responses to Controversial Biotechnology. In Public Understanding of Science, 14(2)185-200.