The STS Department focuses on analyzing the conditions and consequences of the technical sciences in thoroughly technologized societies. This includes new modes of technoscientific knowledge production, how technoscience is governed in (technical) universities, and how it is entangled with political funding strategies, industrial applications, and/or the expectations and objections of civil society.
Projects
Our Research Field: TechnoScienceStudies
Illustrative Projects
Research Projects Overview
Project status
Funded by
Project type
| NLawP: Natural Language Processing and Legal Tech | The research team will inquire into how data governance can enable a responsible and efficient adoption of Natural Language Processing. The project will allow research into this emerging field of AI with a view to innovation, adoption, responsible uses, and infrastructures. The project will also look into the following steps concerning a sustainable data infrastructure for the legal sector and potential stakeholders’ innovations and imaginaries. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Christian Djeffal; Prof. Dr. Florian Matthes
|
Themes
AI language technologies; Legal Tech; AI Technologies in the Legal Field; Natural Language Processing
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more | ||||||||
| REMODE: A participatory risk governance method to re-innovate content moderation | The REMODE project will establish ways to integrate the user in the assessment and design of content moderation on social media platforms. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Christian Djeffal, Daan Herpers MA
|
Period
01.07.2022-31.06.2023
|
past |
Themes
Content Moderation; Digitization; Applied Ethics; Standardization; Participatory Design.
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more | ||||||
| Basics in Data Law and Governance (BDLG) | Today, data protection law has become an important and indispensable prerequisite for activities in organizations. The aim of the project is to train students and researchers at TUM in the confident and socially responsible use of data, by creating a comprehensive asynchronous online course in English, that provides essential legal knowledge on important aspects of data governance. |
Project leader(s)
Akanksha Bisoyi
|
Themes
Data Law; Data protection
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more | ||||||||
| In-Forest. A multi-method study of inequality and its epistemic effects in forest research | In-Forest is a multi-method study that examines the interplay of valuation and inequalities in science, using the interdisciplinary and planet-critical field of forest research as empirical case. Combining scientometrics, ethnography and comparative content analysis, it explores which/whose knowledge is recognised on what grounds, and how social dimensions like gender and geographical location impact on scholars’ social and epistemic positions. The project will generate in-depth findings on inequality from a hitherto underexplored field and share the latter with the forest research community for joint discussion and reflection. It is conducted by an African-European research team comprising scholars at TUM, Stellenbosch University, Leiden University and the Tanzania Forestry Research Institute. |
Project leader(s)
Dr. Susanne Koch; Prof. Nelius Boshoff (Stellenbosch University)
|
Period
01.02.2022-31.01.2026
|
future |
Funding institution
DFG
|
DFG | dfg |
Project type
|
third-party-funded-project | more | ||
| The Language of Biofacts. Semantics and Materiality of High-Tech Cultivated Plants | Molecular biotechnology has given rise to a continuously increasing amount of objects that, like the cloned sheep and the genetically modified tomato, speak a language whose semantics undermine the traditional distinction between inanimate technology and living nature. This has triggered severe and sometimes persistent controversies, e.g. with regard to patent registration and release of genetically modified organisms. The view that technical objects are manufactured by man but living objects emerge from natural growth processes, and both object groups are clearly defined, obviously has lost its epistemological and real-life validity. Technical philosophy has taken account of this and developed the terms Biofact (Nicole C. Karafyllis) and Biotic Artefact (Keekok Lee). |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Karin Zachmann
|
Period
01.03.2015 - 31.08.2017
|
past |
Funding institution
BMBF
|
BMBF | bmbf |
Project type
|
consortium-project | more | ||
| Obviously Excellent? Evidence practices in preparing scientific research and biographies when applying for ERC starting and consolidator grants | In the contemporary scientific system, high scientific quality – often framed as excellence – has become both a key goal of scientific and political activities and the center of many controversies How, for example, can excellence be defined, measured, compared and made evident? |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Ruth Müller
|
Funding institution
DFG
|
DFG | dfg |
Project type
|
drittmittelprojekt-third-party-funded-project | more | ||||
| Skills in Motion. On the Practice of Evaluating and Recognising Foreign Professional Qualifications from the 1960s to the Present Day | Since the middle of the 20th century, population movements in the western world have increasingly been dictated and controlled by the individual skills of (potential) migrants rather than their national origins. Skills have not only been considered a condition for entering the country, but also for being able to work in adequate employment positions on the labor market. |
Project leader(s)
Olga Sparschuh
|
Project type
|
postdoc-projekt-post-doc-project |
Themes
Migration, globability, politics of measurement
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more | ||||||
| The Risk Industry. Evidence for safety as a new field of research and enterprise (1960s to 1980s) | This project investigates changing evidence practices for technical safety in Germany during a key period from the 1950s to the 1980s. Whereas the first project phase focused mainly on the two technological domains of nuclear and automotive technology, the second phase will concentrate on the emergence of what we call the risk industry. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Karin Zachmann, Dr. Stefan Esselborn
|
Period
01.08.2020 – 01.08.2023
|
past |
Funding institution
DFG
|
DFG | dfg |
Project type
|
third-party-funded-project |
Themes
technical safety, risk, nuclear power, automobile, FRG, GDR
|
more | |
| QRONITON – Privacy Preserving Processing of Personal Data (P4D) to Manage the COVID-19 Pandemic and Future Crises | The project addresses the goal of privacy-preserving contact tracing, particularly in work environments from a technical perspective including law by design and critical design approaches. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Gerog Carle, Prof. Dr. Marc-Oliver Pahl
|
Period
01.09.2020 – 01.06.2021
|
past |
Funding institution
German-French Academy for the Industry of the Future
|
German-French Academy for the Industry of the Future | german-french-academy-for-the-industry-of-the-future |
Project type
|
third-party-funded-project |
Themes
COVID-19; QRONITON; Law by design; Critical Design; Privacy Preservation; Contact Tracing
|
more | |
| Responsible Robotics (RR-AI). Tracing Ethical and Social Aspects of AI-Based Transformations in Healthcare Work and Knowledge Environments. (bidt) | The integration of embodied Artificial Intelligence (AI) into healthcare and society is expected to deliver major benefits in future decades. However, innovations such as AI operating robots, AI prosthetics, care- or at some point even micro- and nanorobots will come with a number of ethical, social, political and legal challenges, among them ground-breaking shifts in the work cultures and expertise of medical professionals. RR-AI therefore seeks to 1) empirically study the social and ethical and legal dimensions of two novel AI-based technologies – a service robot named GARMI, and a smart arm exoprosthesis – as they are being developed and implemented in healthcare practice; 2) develop a practical toolbox for future interdisciplinary AI innovation, as well as concrete standards and recommendations for responsible integration of embodied AI into healthcare work practice and training; 3) experimentally test these tools and recommendations through interdisciplinary co-creation and work-place integration of embodied AI applications. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Ruth Müller
|
Period
04.2020 - 06.2023
|
past |
Funding institution
Funding institution: Bayerisches Forschungsinstitut für digitale Transformation (bidt)
|
Funding institution: Bayerisches Forschungsinstitut für digitale Transformation (bidt) | funding-institution-bayerisches-forschungsinstitut-fr-digitale-transformation-bidt |
Project type
|
consortium-project | more | ||
| Rule of Law, Legitimacy and Effective COVID-19 Control Technologies | Rule of Law, Legitimacy and Effective COVID-19 Control Technologies |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Christian Djeffal, Prof. Dr. Mark Findlay
|
Period
01.08.2020 – 01.08.2021
|
past |
Funding institution
Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence (IEAI), TUM
|
Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence (IEAI), TUM | institute-for-ethics-in-artificial-intelligence-ieai-tum |
Project type
|
third-party-funded-project |
Themes
COVID-19; Rule Of Law; Law by design; Critical Design; Privacy Preservation; Contact Tracing, Control Technologies
|
more | |
| TrustMLRegulation – Managing Trust and Distrust in Machine Learning with Meaningful Regulation | Regulation and governance is crucial for managing trust and distrust in Machine Learning. Yet, how to implement governance for machine learning still is unclear. The project investigates what “meaningful regulation” means on a technical, social and political level by mapping current regulatory models and test selected approaches in an experimental setup. The results of the project will not only be disseminated scientifically, but also used for public engagement workshops and policy recommendations. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Klaus Diepold, PD Dr. Jan-Hendrik Passoth
|
Period
15.10.19-31.10.20
|
past |
Funding institution
TUM IEAI
|
TUM IEAI | tum-ieai |
Project type
|
-third-party-funded-project |
Themes
AI, Regulation, Software Engineering, Sociology, MCTS
|
more | |
| Plastics – Publics – Politics (BMBF) | Plastics and specifically microplastics in the environment are increasingly receiving public attention. Headlines such as “Dangerous mini-poison-bomb” (Focus online, 2012) or “Underestimated Danger – Plastic particles contaminate food” (Spiegel online, 2013) point to an increasing public discourse about microplastics as a potential environmental and health risk. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Ruth Müller
|
Period
03.2018 – 08.2021
|
past |
Funding institution
BMBF
|
BMBF | bmbf |
Project type
|
consortium | more | ||
| Cultivating Engagement: A Citizen Participation Forum on Vertical Farming | How can citizens shape the development of healthy and sustainable food, and what role should technology play in this process? What methods can engage publics on diverse issues across food, health and sustainability? |
Project leader(s)
Dr. Mascha Gugganig
|
Period
09.2017 - 12.2018
|
past |
Funding institution
EIT Food
|
EIT Food | eit-food |
Project type
|
verbundprojekt-consortium-project | more | ||
| The ‘Digital Twin‘ – Much more than a replica! | "Original - isn't it?" New Options for the Humanities and Cultural Studies The proposed project aims to creatively and critically engage with the metaphor of the ‘digital twin’ which is presently hyped as an expression of artificial intelligence. By now, digital twins have mostly been deployed in industrial production. As variety of intelligent tele-care, they are also envisioned to enhance the monitoring of human health conditions in the future. |
Project leader(s)
Judith Igelsböck
|
Period
July 2021 to July 2023
|
past |
Funding institution
Volkswagenstiftung
|
Volkswagenstiftung | volkswagenstiftung | more | ||||
| Public Imaginations of Genome Editing in Livestock (Bayerische Forschungsstiftung) | In science and in society, the CRISPR-Cas9 system is currently discussed as revolutionary new genetic technology. The novel technique promises more precise and cost-efficient ways of genetically “editing” the genomes of a wide variety of species. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Ruth Müller
|
Period
09.2018 – 05.2021
|
past |
Funding institution
Bayerische Forschungsstiftung
|
Bayerische Forschungsstiftung | bayerische-forschungsstiftung |
Project type
|
verbundprojekt-consortium-project | more | ||
| Test beds & Living Labs in Energy und Mobility Transitions |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Pfotenhauer
|
more | ||||||||||
| Coding Public Value: Public Service Media and Software for the Common Good | The project Coding Public Value focuses on the development and evaluation of methods for responsible software engineering for the common good and corresponding institutional, political and organizational frameworks for public-service media platforms. How can legal, political and user-oriented requirements of public media be translated into requirements, methods and quality assessment practices for the engineering of software and which institutional, political, and organizational requirements have to be implemented in order to operate public service media platforms on the foundation of such public service-oriented software engineering? The project combines Science & Technology Studies, Media and Communication Research, Legal Studies, and empirical Software Engineering in an interdisciplinary collaboration. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Christian Djeffal, PD Dr. Jan-Hendrik Passoth, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Daniel Mendez, Prof. Dr. Hans-Bernd Brosius, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulz
|
Period
01.01.2020 - 31.03.2023
|
past |
Funding institution
bidt
|
bidt | bidt |
Project type
|
third-party-funded-project |
Themes
Public Service Media, Software Engineering, Platforms, Infrastructures
|
more | |
| Understanding Regional Innovation Cultures | A Comparison of five German City-Regions and their Adoption of Global Innovation „Best Practices“. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. S. Pfotenhauer, Dr. A. Wentland
|
Period
04.2018 – 04.2021
|
past |
Funding institution
DFG
|
DFG | dfg |
Project type
|
drittmittelprojekt-third-party-funded-project | more | ||
| Transforming TechKnowledgies: the Case of Open Digital Fabrication |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Sabine Maasen
|
more | ||||||||||
| Comparative Covid Response: Crisis, Knowledge, Politics | What makes expert knowledge credible, legitimate, and reliable for use in public policy? Together with colleagues from TUM and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Prof. Sebastian Pfotenhauer analyzed Germany’s political pandemic response as part of a larger comparative study organized by Harvard, Cornell, and Columbia universities and funded by the National Science Foundation and Schmidt Futures. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Pfotenhauer
|
Funding institution
National Science Foundation, Schmidt Futures
|
National Science Foundation, Schmidt Futures | national-science-foundation-schmidt-futures |
Project type
|
consortium-project | more | ||||
| Evidence in Citizen Science | Between Non-Certified Expertise, Professional Supervision and Mechanization |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Sabine Maasen; Prof. Dr. Sascha Dickel (Uni Mainz)
|
Period
05/2017 - 04/2020
|
past |
Funding institution
DFG
|
DFG | dfg |
Project type
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project
|
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project | Array |
Themes
Citizen Science, Participation, Public Engagement with Science and Technology (PEST), Trust in Science, Digitisation, Transdisciplinarity
|
more |
| Situating Environmental Epigenetics. A Comparative, Actor-Centered Study of Environmental Epigenetics as an Emergent Research Approach in Three Research Fields (DFG) | Epigenetics explores changes in gene expression that do not result from gene mutation, but from chemical modifications on the DNA. In recent years, such epigenetic modifications have been found to respond to numerous stimuli from the environment – such as toxins, nutrition, trauma or stress – giving rise to the field of ‘environmental epigenetics’. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Ruth Müller
|
Period
10.2018 – 09.2021
|
past |
Funding institution
DFG
|
DFG | dfg |
Project type
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project
|
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project | drittmittelprojekt-third-party-funded-project | more | |
| Institutional Reflexivity in Sociotechnical Networks (DFG) | SFB 768, Subproject A11 |
Project leader(s)
PD Dr. Jan-Hendrik Passoth, Prof. Dr. Sabine Maasen, Tobias Drewlani, Johan Buchholz, Dr. Uli Meyer
|
Period
|
past |
Funding institution
DFG
|
DFG | dfg |
Project type
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project
|
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project | drittmittelprojekt-third-party-funded-project | more | |
| Constructions of Gender in Sexrobotics | As a disruptive technology, sex robots will not only fundamentally change individual sexual behaviour but will also break up much broader traditional dichotomies (man/woman, man/machine, nature/culture, etc.). The project analyses their conception and technology design from a queer-feminist, neomaterialist and critical-posthumanist perspective and explores their potential for socio-technological innovation beyond anthropomorphic stereotyping. |
Project leader(s)
Dr. Tanja Kubes
|
Project type
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project
|
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project | post-doc-project | more | ||||||
| METAFORIS: Making Europe through and for its research infrastructures | This project aims to explore how transnational European research infrastructures have been both a vehicle for, and the beneficiaries of, European integration project. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. S. Pfotenhauer
|
Period
01.01.2019 – 01.01.2022
|
past |
Funding institution
DFG
|
DFG | dfg |
Project type
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project
|
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project | Array | more | |
| PROLAB – Living Labs as prototypical milieus | Prototypes are able to make vague but visible statements about future technologies and about how one might possibly interact with them. Moreover, they open up alternatives but are able to direct imaginations along a certain path. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Sabine Maasen
|
Period
09.2018 – 08.2021
|
past |
Funding institution
BMBF
|
BMBF | bmbf |
Project type
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project
|
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project | third-party-funded-project-consortium-project |
Themes
Prototyping, Living Labs, participation, digitalization, health, mobility, futures, materiality, innovation
|
more |
| Public Service Media, Platforms and Digital Infrastructures | The project focusses on the role of public service media in the context of digital platforms. How do public value oriented alternatives to streaming services, content networks, editorial and algorithmic content curation or recommender systems look like? How can they be technically, politically and legally designed? |
Project leader(s)
PD Dr. Jan-Hendrik Passoth
|
Period
|
past |
Funding institution
Bavarian Public Broadcast
|
Bavarian Public Broadcast | bavarian-public-broadcast |
Project type
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project
|
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project | drittmittelprojekt-third-party-funded-project | more | |
| Facing health crisis: human relations and digital technology in redesigned workspaces | German French Academy „Facing health crisis: human relations and digital technology in redesigned workspaces“ (together with J. Igelsböck, C. Guner (TUM) and Institute Mines-Télékom Paris) |
Project leader(s)
Cansu Guner, Dr. Katrin Hahn and Dr. Judith Igelsböck
|
Funding institution
German-french academie for the industry of the future
|
German-french academie for the industry of the future | german-french-academie-for-the-industry-of-the-future | more | ||||||
| Taking Tacit Knowledge into Account by Using Problem Cases as Guidelines in HMI Development |
IMPROVE is aiming for developing a more efficient way of providing plant field maintenance in highly complex industrial facilities. Therefore, knowledge based models and devices for data mining and processing are to be created in order to support the facility’s maintenance operators who keep the system running in a good condition.
|
Project leader(s)
TUM Maschinenwesen, PD Dr. Jan-Hendrik Passoth, Prof. Dr. Sabine Maasen
|
Period
01.10.2016 – 31.08.2019
|
past |
Funding institution
H2020
|
H2020 | h2020 |
Project type
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project
|
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project | drittmittelprojekt-third-party-funded-project | more | |
| Secure Agile Software Development. Practices, Processes, Artefacts | The project empirically investigates practices and processes of agile software engineering in small, medium-sized and large teams. It specifically looks at opportunities and limits of the integration of formal and standardizes IT security requirements and develops recommendations and artefacts for the organization and governance of agile software engineering projects. |
Project leader(s)
PD Daniel Méndez, PD Dr. Jan-Hendrik Passoth, Dr. Kristian Beckers (Siemens)
|
Period
Since August 2018
|
past |
Funding institution
Siemens AG
|
Siemens AG | siemens-ag |
Project type
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project
|
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project | drittmittelprojekt-third-party-funded-project |
Themes
Agile Methods, Software Development, Security
|
more |
| Developing a Digital Toolkit to Enhance the Communication of Scientific Health Claims |
The project develops a digital toolkit (Web App/App) for communicating health claims in cooperation with colleagues from linguistics and and public health organizations. We follow the development ethnographically and develop formats and practices of responsible software design and the participation stakeholders and concerned publics. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Rodney Jones (University of Reading), Jaed Kahn (FoodMaestro), Bridget Benelam (British Nutrition Foundation), Prof. Dr. Christian Djeffal
|
Period
01.2020 - 12.2021
|
past |
Funding institution
EU EIT Food
|
EU EIT Food | eu-eit-food |
Project type
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project
|
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project | drittmittelprojekt-third-party-funded-project |
Themes
Nutrition, Recommender, Data, Food
|
more |
| The Dormant Potential of Neoinstitutionalism | Neoinstitutionalism is one of the leading theories organisation studies. Starting from empirical problems this theoretical approach of Neoinstitutionalism contributed to our understanding of organisations in multiple ways. |
Project leader(s)
Dr. Uli Meyer
|
Period
|
past |
Funding institution
DFG
|
DFG | dfg |
Project type
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project
|
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project | Array | more | |
| Human centric innovative approach and training for the management of human Resources through the Integration of the Next Generation of AI technologies (HIRING) | The project aims to prepare the current and next generation of human resources manager to the integration of artificial intelligence tools in their position. It's objectives are: training the HR managers and students to the digital transformation to come in their work environment, valuing fair and responsible soft skills for implementing AI technologies at the work place and promoting a more open-minded HR generation opened to atypical career pathways. |
Project leader(s)
PD Dr. Jan-Hendrik Passoth
|
Period
09.2019-08.2022
|
past |
Funding institution
EU ERASMUS+
|
EU ERASMUS+ | eu-erasmus |
Project type
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project
|
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project | third-party-funded-project |
Themes
AI, HR, innovation, responsibility, education, regulation
|
more |
| Agile Project Management and New Customer Requirements | The project investigates how collaboration between companies is changing in the context of digitalization. It deals particularly with new expectations that customers have against companies and the impact these have within those organizations. |
Project leader(s)
Dr. Uli Meyer, Elena Zelesniack
|
more | |||||||||
| Technoscientific Constitutionalism | This German-American research exchange centered around a joint symposium in Washington DC will explore how science and technology (re-constitute) society through the lens of "technoscientific constitutionalism“. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. S. Pfotenhauer (TUM), Prof. Dr. Ben Hurlbut (ASU), Prof. Christopher Kelty (UCLA), Prof. Dr. Sabine Maasen (TUM), Prof. Shobita Parthasarathy (University of Michigan), PD Dr. Jan-Hendrik Passoth (TUM), Prof. Malte Ziewitz (Cornell University)
|
Period
10/2017 - 07/2029
|
future |
Funding institution
DFG - NSF
|
DFG - NSF | dfg-nsf |
Project type
Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project
|
Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project | Array | more | |
| SCALINGS – Scaling up Co-Creation: Avenues and Limits for integrating Society in Science and Innovation (EU Horizon 2020) | The European Research Consortium SCALINGS explores the avenues and limits for the wider dissemination and use of co-creation practices across Europe. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Sebastian Pfotenhauer
|
Period
09.2018 – 09.2021
|
past |
Funding institution
Horizon 2020
|
Horizon 2020 | horizon-2020 |
Project type
Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project
|
Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project | consortium |
Themes
Co-creation; Open Innovation; Robotics; Urban energy; Autonomous Vehicles; Public procurement of innovation; Living Labs; Co-creation facilities; comparative research
|
more |
| Mapping Digitization in Highly Regulated Spaces | In highly regulated sectors the impact of AI is very profound. Ethical dilemmas and legal questions make the digitization in fields such as healthcare and the legal domain the center of interdisciplinary questions. Students that will end up working in these fields should be prepared to answer questions that fall outside the traditional boundaries of Master programs. In this Plug-in module, students will work in interdisciplinary teams to understand how AI is used in the healthcare and legal domain and what legal and ethical implications it has and can have in the future. Through different digital media platforms, students will share their findings with their fellow students but also with people outside the university community. |
Project leader(s)
Dr. Eduardo Magrani
|
Period
01.09.2020 - 31.08.2021
|
past |
Funding institution
Internal Funding
|
Internal Funding | internal-funding |
Project type
Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project
|
Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project | plug-in-module |
Themes
Artificial Intelligence; Machine Learning; Digitization; Healthcare; Legal Domain; Regulation; Rule of Law; Legal Tech.
|
more |
| Practicing Evidence – Evidencing Practice | Evidence in Science, Medicine, Technology and Society. DFG Research Unit 2448 https://www.evidenzpraktiken-dfg.tum.de/en/ |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Karin Zachmann
|
Period
13.12.2016 – 28.04.2023
|
past |
Funding institution
DFG
|
DFG | dfg |
Project type
Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project
|
Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project | verbundprojekt-consortium-project | more | |
| Legal reflection in situations of consulting on technological development (RechTech) | Digital technologies are constantly becoming a bigger part of our everyday life and are shaping our lives and how we live together. Legal advice often plays an important and perhaps still underestimated role when shaping these technologies. The project will shed light on the question whether law can be made fruitful as a design resource. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Christian Djeffal
|
Period
31.03.2021-28.02.2024
|
future |
Funding institution
Federal Ministry of Education and Research
|
Federal Ministry of Education and Research | federal-ministry-of-education-and-research | more | ||||
| Science, Technology and Peace | Seed funding (BayLAT) in the field of “Science, Technology and Peace” together with the Universidad Externado de Colombia |
Project leader(s)
Dr. Katrin Hahn
|
Funding institution
Bayerisches Hochschulzentrum für Lateinamerika (BAYLAT)
|
Bayerisches Hochschulzentrum für Lateinamerika (BAYLAT) | bayerisches-hochschulzentrum-fr-lateinamerika-baylat | more | ||||||
| Toxic Entanglements. A Situated Analysis of Epigenetic Knowledge Production in Environmental Toxicology | The ongoing process of the molecularization of environmental toxicology has challenged longstanding dogmas of the field. Focusing on the object of toxicity, the project examines how the adoption of an environmental epigenetic approach changes established notions of the field asking how toxicity is “made to matter” (Murphy 2006) and with what consequences for the perception of health and disease. |
Project leader(s)
Sophia Rossmann
|
Period
Since 2018
|
past |
Project type
Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project
|
Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project | phd | more | ||||
| Translation and artificial intelligence |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Christian Djeffal
|
Period
September 2019 - December 2020
|
past |
Funding institution
National E-Government Competence Center
|
National E-Government Competence Center | national-e-government-competence-center |
Project type
Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project
|
Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project | third-party-funded-project |
Themes
Artificial Intelligence, Translation, Public Administration, Innovation, Algorithms, Automated Translations
|
more | |
| Thinking Machines: The History, Present and Future of Artificial Intelligence | International lecture series in Summer Term 2020, hosted by Digital Media Lab @ MCTS and the Research Institute for the History of Science and Technology at Deutsches Museum |
Project leader(s)
PD Dr. Jan-Hendrik Passoth, PD Dr. Hajo Greif, PD Dr. Rudolf Seising
|
Period
01.01.2020–31.12.2020
|
past |
Funding institution
Bayerische Forschungsallianz
|
Bayerische Forschungsallianz | bayerische-forschungsallianz |
Project type
Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project
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Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project | third-party-funded-project |
Themes
Artificial Intelligence, History of Technology, Philosophy of Technology
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more |
| Mediacenters of the Future | In the age of digital media available on the internet users have access to abundant content and need to deal with a vast amount of information. Broadcasters and other media companies are searching for solutions to provide users with relevant content. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Sabine Maasen, PD Dr. Jan-Hendrik Passoth, Prof. Dr. Dr. Birgit Spanner-Ulmer (BR), Mustafa Isik (BR), Prof. Dr. Hans-Bernd Brosius (LMU)
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Period
2015 - 2017
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past |
Funding institution
Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities
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Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities | bavarian-academy-of-sciences-and-humanities |
Project type
Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project
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Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project | third-party-funded-project |
Themes
interdisciplinary, data society, media, sociology of algorithms
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more |
| “How Safe Is Safe Enough?” Practices of Evidence for Technical Safety in Times of Societal Uncertainty | The project aims to analyze practices of evidence concerning technical safety in both German states between the 1950s and the 1980s, using two specific technological fields – automobiles and nuclear power – as case studies. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Karin Zachmann, Dr. Stefan Esselborn
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Period
01.04.2017 – 31.03.2020
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past |
Funding institution
DFG
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DFG | dfg |
Project type
Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project
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Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project | postdoc-projekt-post-doc-project |
Themes
technical safety, risk, nuclear power, automobile, FRG, GDR
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more |
| Articulating Metabolic Disease in a Life Course Perspective | Are obesity and related metabolic disorders the result of a lack of self-discipline? This socially and medically widespread assumption is being challenged by medical research findings about the developmental origins of health and disease. |
Project leader(s)
Dr. Michael Penkler
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Period
09.2018 – 09.2021
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past |
Project type
Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project
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Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project | Array | more | ||||
| Gutes Essen. Ernährungstechnologien zwischen Kultur und Natur | Das Projekt untersucht, wie Grenzen zwischen Natur und Technik ganz konkret dort gezogen werden, wo Natur Gegenstand von Technologien wird: in den Agrar- und Lebensmittelwissenschaften |
Project leader(s)
Dr. Barbara Sutter
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Period
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past |
Project type
Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project
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Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project | Array | more | ||||
| A Permanent Revolution. Singapore as a Logistics City, 1848-1942 | Port facilities, stockyards, loading docks, railroad tracks, power grids – functional infrastructures form basic units of both modern cities and logistics. In this relationship, logistics is a conditioning force. |
Project leader(s)
Dr. Felix Mauch
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Period
01.01.2016 – 31.12.2022
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past |
Funding institution
TUM
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TUM | tum |
Project type
Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project
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Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project | postdoc-projekt-post-doc-project |
Themes
Logistische Infrastrukturen, Architekturen und Medien, technische Landschaften, Stadt- und Umweltgeschichte, Technikgeschichten Südostasiens
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more |
| Innovation of food, innovation of Europe? (DFG) | This research project explores norms, discourses, and practical applications of innovation, technology and experiential knowledge in ‘sustainable’ agriculture, both at the European Union level and in Germany. |
Project leader(s)
Dr. Mascha Gugganig
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Period
01.2019 – 12.2021
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past |
Funding institution
DFG
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DFG | dfg |
Project type
Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project
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Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project | postdoc-projekt-post-doc-project | more | |
| Of Flies and Men: Global Insect Vector Control Regimes, 1960s-1980s | This study takes as its particular subject of inquiry the circulation of knowledge between malaria and river blindness campaigns and hence the various attempts to control anopheles and black flies by techniques such as large-scale spraying of pesticides, water management and bush clearing. Local contingencies as well as the implementation of environmental protection measures gradually re-casted medical development policies. |
Project leader(s)
Dr. Sarah Ehlers
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Period
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past |
Funding institution
TUM
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TUM | tum |
Project type
Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project
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Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project | postdoc-projekt-post-doc-project |
Themes
Insect vectors, environmental intervention, disease control, globality
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more |
| Planning for Persistent Environmental Contamination: Public Health, Indigenous Traditional Knowledge, and Technoscience in Canada | Mein laufendes Forschungsprojekt mit dem Titel “Planning for Persistent Environmental Contamination: Public Health, Indigenous Traditional Knowledge, and Technoscience in Canada” erforscht von Citizen-Science-Projekten verwendete Evidenzpraktiken für Umweltbelastung im Kontext des kanadischen Siedler-Kolonialismus, in dem Evidenzpraktiken dieser Art grundsätzlich umstritten sind. |
Project leader(s)
Sarah Blacker
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Period
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past |
Funding institution
TUM
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TUM | tum |
Project type
Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project
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Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project | postdoc-projekt-post-doc-project |
Themes
Health-environment interactions, Environmental Justice, evidence practices, citizen science, politics of measurement, toxicology, relational ontologies, Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)
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more |
| Innovation Scripts | [Young-Career-Project] In a transdisciplinary effort, existing innovation scripts are put into question and new ones written. |
Project leader(s)
Dr. Judith Igelsböck
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Period
|
past |
Funding institution
Linz Institute of Technology (LIT)
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Linz Institute of Technology (LIT) | linz-institute-of-technology-lit |
Project type
Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project
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Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project | Array | more | |
| Modes of Modelling and Simulation in Artificial Intelligence | The aim of this research project is to provide a systematic and critical reconstruction of the various modes of modelling and simulation in Artificial Intelligence (AI). This reconstruction operates on a conceptual level as well as through empirical investigations into AI research practice. It will thereby help to explain both the heterogeneity and the success of AI. |
Project leader(s)
Hajo Greif
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Period
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past |
Funding institution
DFG
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DFG | dfg |
Project type
Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project
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Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project | Array |
Themes
Models, Simulations, Artificial Intelligence, Pragmatism, Science-in-Practice
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more |
| Traveling Imaginaries of Innovation |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Pfotenhauer
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Period
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past |
Funding institution
NSF
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NSF | nsf |
Project type
Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project
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Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project | drittmittelprojekt-third-party-funded-project | more | ||
| Appropriating urban space in the TechnoSociety | Making sense of urban growth and vacancy |
Project leader(s)
Andrea Schikowitz
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Period
since 2018
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past |
Project type
Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project
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Postdoc-Projekt / Post Doc Project | post-doc-project |
Themes
knowledge practices, controversis, urban planning, appropriation of space, urban vacancy, urban growth, participation, housing, Science Technology Studies (MCTS)
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more | |||
| The Experimental Making of the Future of Work | The aim of the research project is to investigate experimental approaches to alternative forms of work. In the context of discourses on Industrie 4.0 and the Future of Work, organizations try to reflect on the meaning of these often-abstract developments in relation to their own actions, and to develop corresponding programs. |
Project leader(s)
Dr. Uli Meyer
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Period
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past |
Project type
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project
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Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project | Array | more | ||||
| CISTIPs: Complex International Science, Technology, and Innovation Partnerships |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Pfotenhauer
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Period
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past |
Project type
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project
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Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project | Array | more | |||||
| Digitale Prozesssteuerung zwischen Selbstorganisation und Kontrolle | Arbeit in der sogenannten „Industrie 4.0“ wird stark von digitalen Prozesssteuerungstechnologien geformt. Diese erheben mittels Sensortechnik Daten aus dem Produktionsprozess und generieren automatisch Feedbacks in Form von Anweisungen oder Optimierungsvorschlägen. |
Project leader(s)
Dr. Uli Meyer, Simon Schaupp
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Period
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past |
Funding institution
Hans-Böckler-Stiftung
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Hans-Böckler-Stiftung | hans-bckler-stiftung |
Project type
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project
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Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project | Array | more | |
| Industries without Borders? | The project "Industries without Borders?" was launched as part of the German-Franco Academy for the Industry of the Future as a cooperation between the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Institute Mines-Télécom (IMT) in November 2017. |
Project leader(s)
Dr. Uli Meyer, Dr. Judith Igelsböck, Elena Zelesniack
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Period
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past |
Project type
Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project
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Verbundprojekt / Consortium Project | Array | more | ||||
| Experimente, Reallabore und öffentliche Enaktierungen der Energiewende |
Project leader(s)
Fransika Engels
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Period
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past |
Project type
Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project
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Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project | Array | more | |||||
| Reconfiguring TechnoNatures in the Case of Food | The dissertation project focuses on (re)configurations of nature and technology in and of food innovations. By looking at the ever-changing relations of nature and technology it investigates a currently specific form of the political, through which TechnoSociety actualises itself. |
Project leader(s)
Laura Trachte
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Period
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past |
Project type
Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project
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Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project | Array | more | ||||
| Translating Futures into Action. On the Organizational Sensemaking of the Future of Work. | In his PhD, Tobias studies how organisations try to shape future forms of work |
Project leader(s)
Tobias Drewlani
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Period
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past |
Project type
Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project
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Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project | promotionsprojekt-phd-project | more | ||||
| Responsible Innovation in Transnational Governance Settings |
Project leader(s)
Nina Frahm
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Period
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past |
Project type
Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project
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Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project | promotionsprojekt-phd-project | more | |||||
| Sociality as Code. Innerworlds of Social Robotics | The robot is a social project that arises from people's ideas about other people. The social models (human factors) used in the development environments are sometimes less context-sensitive than the hopes and goals formulated in the project descriptions of the funding lines may suggest. |
Project leader(s)
Henning Mayer
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Period
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past |
Project type
Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project
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Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project | Array | more | ||||
| Translating Virtual Reality into an Artistic Medium |
Recently, more and more artists have begun experimenting with the medium of Virtual Reality (VR) and producing immersive, computer generated worlds. Further, both known and not as well-known museums, festivals and galleries around the world have started exhibiting VR artwork. |
Project leader(s)
Mariya Dzhimova
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Period
Since January 2017
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past |
Project type
Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project
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Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project | promotionsprojekt-phd-project |
Themes
Virtual-Reality, art, aesthetic, field work, MCTS on art, Virtual-reality-art, artistic medium, artistic practices
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more | |||
| (Re-)Exploring Places: „New Space” as a Material-discursive Sustainability Practice | (Re-)Exploring Places: „New Space” as a Material-discursive Sustainability Practice |
Project leader(s)
Michael Clormann
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Period
since 12.2016
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past |
Funding institution
Exzellenzinitiative, Munich School of Engineering
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Exzellenzinitiative, Munich School of Engineering | exzellenzinitiative-munich-school-of-engineering |
Project type
Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project
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Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project | Array | more | |
| Re-Enacting Stress in the Lab. On Environmental Epigenetics, Social Adversity and the Molecularisation of Mental Health | During the last two decades, we can observe a change in how the life sciences conceptualise life: no longer mainly based on an unchangeable genome, but increasingly as affected by the way we live. Environmental epigenetics is an emerging research approach within this perspective and proposes that human bodies and minds are malleable, able to adapt to socio-material environments, among them toxins, nutrition, and stressful experiences. These adaptions, researchers suggest, take place via molecular processes, altering the way our genes are transcribed and therefore the way how our bodies and health develop. While environmental epigenetics offers important novel insights for understanding human life as a biosocial phenomenon, it also extends the biological gaze from the laboratory towards suitable objects of study out in the real world – an extension that possibly implies social and political consequences for individual and community live, as well as for scientific research practices. This thesis therefore studies how a psychiatric research institute uses approaches from environmental epigenetics to better understand the causes for and development of mental health conditions. Within epigenetic research in psychiatry, stressful experiences are described as a crucial “epigenetic environment” which gives rise to research strategies attempting to re-enact stress in the laboratory setting. In my thesis, I provide in-depth insights into these everyday research practices based on ethnographic fieldwork, qualitative interviews, and literature analysis. I specifically investigate re-enactments of stress in three different experimental arrangements: cell models, animal models, and research with human material. Given this context, I argue that these different experimental arrangements enable equally different epigenetic accounts of mental health with diverse social implications. In addition to the analysis of how researchers operate with environment/stress in their experiments, the work also looks at the environment of these research practices and the biological laboratory. Given this perspective, I demonstrate a divergence between the scientists’ ideal imaginations about conducting neat stress research and the actual research conditions. That is to say, that environment in epigenetics not only matters as a stimulus in stress experiments, but also as a real-world phenomenon that influences research practices, such as a noisy construction site, that might have effects on behavioural experiments with mice. Given the central hypothesis of environmental epigenetic research – namely that environmental experiences are reflected in our biology, even down to the cell nucleus – my work provides important insights into how epigenetic perspectives are not only integrated into psychiatric research, but also how environmental epigenetics itself might change biological research. In other words, this thesis shows how epigenetics holds the potential to change the epistemology of the life sciences and our social science understanding of the biological laboratory. |
Project leader(s)
Georgia Samaras
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Period
2015-2020
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past |
Project type
Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project
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Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project | phd | more | ||||
| Engineering Problems: On Creating and Transforming Problems for ‘Optimizing’ Solutions in Software Culture |
While it seems quite easy to find it plausible that people come up with clever ideas and solutions for certain problems, given that those problems are actually there, in front of the person who is dealing with the problem, it is quite hard to imagine the process of coming up with, finding, creating a new idea seemingly out of nothing. |
Project leader(s)
Peter Müller
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Period
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past |
Project type
Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project
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Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project | promotionsprojekt-phd-project |
Themes
Creativity, Hackathon, Software Culture, Invention, Tech Development
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more | |||
| Infrastructuring European Migration and Border Control. The Logistics of Moria Hotspot, Frontex Joint Operation Reporting Application and Frontex Risk Analysis Unit | The PhD-project examines European migration and border control in Greece in terms of infrastructures and logistics. Drawing on MCTS and infrastructures studies it understands infrastructures as material set-ups, which interconnect different places with local practices and personnel via standards, technologies and devices in order to organize trans-local flows of entities. |
Project leader(s)
Silvan Pollozek
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Period
2016-2020
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past |
Project type
Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project
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Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project | Array |
Themes
Infrastructures, logistics, Europe, migration and border control
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more | |||
| Interfacing RobotCare. On the Politics of TechnoSociety | The project investigates the emergence and interconnection of robotics and elderly care within the context of European innovation politics. In doing so, it does not presume the (in)compatibility between both sides. Rather it declares the material and discursive conditions, under which they become (in)compatible its primary research object. |
Project leader(s)
Benjamin Lipp
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Period
10.2014 – est. 05.2019
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past |
Project type
Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project
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Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project | Array |
Themes
Social robotics; elderly care; care robots; EU; prototypes; innovation policy; technology transfer; interfacing
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more | |||
| Robots Wanted – Dead and/or Alive: Attribution of in/animacy to robotic technology | Investigating the perception and (re)presentation of robotic technology as in/animate the context of human-robot-interaction, research and development practice, science communication, marketing, media discourse and political discourse. |
Project leader(s)
Dipl.-Psych. Laura Voss
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Period
2014-2019
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past |
Funding institution
2015-2017: Andrea von Braun Foundation
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2015-2017: Andrea von Braun Foundation | 2015-2017-andrea-von-braun-foundation |
Project type
Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project
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Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project | phd | more | |
| Rule(s) of Prediction | Contemporary societies increasingly rely on predictions based on machine learning in manifold settings, including media distribution, policing, economy, etc. Many scholars are invested in researching the consequences of these transformations. |
Project leader(s)
Nikolaus Pöchhacker
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Period
2016
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past |
Project type
Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project
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Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project | Array |
Themes
Predictive Analytics, Algorithms, Machine Learning, Epistemology, social order, Institutions
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more | |||
| Translational Medicine as the answer to an “urgency”?! | The materiality and discursiveness of Translational medicine |
Project leader(s)
Julia Klering M.A.
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Period
08.2016 – 01.2020
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past |
Project type
Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project
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Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project | Array |
Themes
Translational Medicine, Innovation policy, Technoscientification of biomedical research, Shift in rationality of medical practice
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more | |||
| Ubiquitous datafication. Regimes of data processing and the struggle for critics | Using digital information to organize (social) life seems to be the preferred modus operandi of contemporary societies. |
Project leader(s)
Phillip Arms
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Period
2016 - 2019
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past |
Project type
Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project
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Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project | Array | more | ||||
| Technologies of Change | The role of technical universities in context of a technological changing society |
Project leader(s)
Anton Schröpfer
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Period
10.2014 - est. 05.2019
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past |
Project type
Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project
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Promotionsprojekt / PhD Project | Array |
Themes
Innovation, technical universities, technologies of change, reflexive innovation
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more | |||
| Evidence for Excellence (TUM Gender & Diversity Incentive Fund; MCTS Lab Engineering Responsibility) | Academic excellence has become a key notion within science policy discourses in recent years. Many profound reforms in the European academic research landscape have been argued as necessary in order to improve the scientific excellence of different research systems. |
Project leader(s)
Prof. Dr. Ruth Müller
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Period
|
past |
Funding institution
MCTS Labor Engineering Responsibility, TUM Gender & Diversity Incentive Fund
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MCTS Labor Engineering Responsibility, TUM Gender & Diversity Incentive Fund | -mcts-labor-engineering-responsibility-tum-gender-amp-diversity-incentive-fund |
Project type
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project
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Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project | Array | more | |
| Erfahrungeleiteter arbeitsintegrierter Erwerb von digitalen Medienkompetenzen in der berufsbegleitenden Qualifizierung | Das Projekt MEDEA entwickelt arbeitsintegrierte Bildungskonzepte zum Erwerb von berufsbezogenen digitalen Medienkompetenzen beispielhaft für zwei Berufsgruppen – Fachkräfte in der Produktion und im Dienstleistungsbereich. |
Project leader(s)
Dr. Uli Meyer, Johan Buchholz
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Period
April 2017 - March 2020
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past |
Funding institution
BMBF, Europ. Sozialfonds
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BMBF, Europ. Sozialfonds | bmbf-europ-sozialfonds |
Project type
Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project
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Drittmittelprojekt / Third-party funded Project | third-party-funded-project | more |