Prof. Dr. Sebastian Pfotenhauer
Associate Professor for Innovation Research
Innovation ResearchSebastian Pfotenhauer is the Co-Director of the Munich Center for Technology in Society (MCTS) and Carl von Linde Associate Professor for Innovation Research at Technical University of Munich. An STS and innovation policy scholar, he heads the Innovation, Society and Public Policy group co-located at MCTS and the TUM School of Management. Sebastian’s research interests include regional innovation cultures and strategies, the governance of emerging technologies, co-creation and responsible innovation practices, sustainable mobility transformations, and the critical political economy of innovation.
Sebastian is the coordinator of the Munich Cluster for the Future of Mobility in Metropolitan Regions (M Cube), a EUR 50 Million flagship initiative on sustainable mobility innovation, and serves as the coordinator of the EU-Horizon2020 project SCALINGS (“Scaling up co-creation: Avenues and Limits for Integrating Society in Science and Innovation”) – a EUR 4 Million European investigating use of new collaborative innovation formats such as living labs and pre-commercial procurement in robotics, autonomous driving, and urban energy systems. He has also been the PI on several DFG funded, e.g. on Regional Innovation Cultures, Europe-making through research and innovation, and Technoscientific Constitutionalism.
Before joining TU Munich, he was a research scientist and lecturer with the MIT Technology & Policy Program as well as a fellow at the Harvard Program on Science, Technology and Society. He has served as consultant on innovation policy to various regional and national governments, as well as for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris, France. His work has appeared, among other outlets, in Social Studies of Science, Research Policy, Nature, and Issues in Science and Technology. He holds an S.M. in Technology Policy from MIT, a PhD in Physics from the University of Jena, Germany, and has received post-doctoral training in STS and public policy at Harvard and MIT. In his spare time, Sebastian enjoys playing the violin, spending time in Mexico, and reading (for fun).
- Innovation Cultures: Co-production of technoscientific and social/political order in the innovation society
- Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy
- National, regional, and institutional innovation strategies
- Global circulation and adoption of innovation models
- Innovation and social responsibility
- Complex international science, technology and innovation partnerships
- Capacity-building in science, technology, higher education, innovation
- Governance of complex sociotechnical systems
- Engels, F., Wentland, A., Pfotenhauer S.M. “Testing future societies? Developing a framework for test beds and living labs as instruments of innovation governance,” Research Policy (2019).
- Guridi, J.A., Pertuze, J.A, Pfotenhauer S.M. “Natural Laboratories as Policy Instruments for Technological Learning and Institutional Capacity Building: The Case of Chile’s Astronomy Cluster” Research Policy (forthcoming).
- Garden, H., Winickoff, D., Frahm N. and Pfotenhauer S.M. “Responsible Innovation in Neurotechnology Enterprises” OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers (2018).
- Pfotenhauer, S.M. “Building global innovation hubs: The ‘MIT Model’ in three start-up universities.” In: Wisnioski, M. et al. (eds.) Does America need more innovators? MIT Press, pp. 191-220 (2019)
- Pfotenhauer, S.M., Juhl, J., Aarden, E. “Challenging the ‘Deficit Model’ of Innovation: Framing Policy Issues under the Innovation Imperative,” Research Policy (2018).
- Winickoff, D. and Pfotenhauer S.M. “Technology Governance and the Innovation Process,” OECD Science, Technology and Innovation Outlook (2018).
- Pfotenhauer, S.M. and Jasanoff, S. “Panacea or diagnosis? Imaginaries of innovation and the “MIT model” in three political cultures,” Social Studies of Science (2017).
- Hird, M. and Pfotenhauer, S.,M. “How complex international partnerships shape domestic research clusters: Difference-in-difference network formation and research re-orientation in the MIT-Portugal Program.” Research Policy (2017).
- Introduction to Science and Technology Policy (SS)
- Innovation, Society, and Public Policy (WS)
- Responsible Governance of Science, Technology, and Innovation
- What Future of Mobility? Engaging Technologies, Politics, Economic Scenarios, and Practices
- STS 1: Practices and Politics of Science and Technology
- Technology & Society (Economics, Politics, Ethics, Law, & Media)
- Science and Democracy Network (SDN)
- Society for the Social Studies of Science [4S]
- European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST)
- IEEE
- ESYS2 – Energy Systems of the Future, Joint Project of the German Academies
- Scientific Advisory Board – TATuP – Journal for Technology Assessment in Theory and Practice
- Project co-lead (MIT) for NSF Grant „Technology, Collaboration, Learning: Modeling Complex International Innovation Partnerships,“ 2013-2016
- Project collaborator (Harvard) for NSF Grant „Traveling Imaginaries of Innovation: The practice turn and its transnational implementation,“ (2015-2017)
- Leading Technology Policy Fellowship (MIT), MIT Technology & Policy Program (2010-2013)
- Dissertation with distinction („Summa Cum Laude“)
- MIT Education Excellence Award for graduation with 5.0 GPA
- ERP Fellowship (European Recovery Program), German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy / German National Academic Foundation (2008-2010)
- Undergraduate fellowship, Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst („Academic Foundation of the Protestant Churches“), (2000-2005).