Science Technology and Innovation Studies
The Science Technology and Innovation Studies subject group, has been formed to bring together the interdisciplinary network of researchers working in these fields. The University of Edinburgh is a leading centre for such research.
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Expectations and expertise in artificial intelligence: specialist views and historical perspectives on conceptualisation, promise, and funding
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-07-13)Artificial intelligence’s (AI) distinctiveness as a technoscientific field that imitates the ability to think went through a resurgence of interest post-2010, attracting a flood of scientific and popular expectations as ... -
Contested environmental futures: rankings, forecasts and indicators as sociotechnical endeavours
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-01-10)In a world where numbers and science are often taken as the voice of truth and reason, Quantitative Devices (QDs) represent the epitome of policy driven by facts rather than hunches. Despite the scholarly interest in ... -
Internationalisation dynamics in contemporary South American life sciences: the case of zebrafish
(The University of Edinburgh, 2022-04-04)We tend to assume that science is inherently international. Geographical boundaries are not a matter of concern in science, and when they do – e.g. due to the rise of nationalist or populist movements – they are thought ... -
Smart solar futures: politics and instability in off-grid electrification in Odisha, India
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)This thesis explores the politics and social structures surrounding community-scale, off-grid, solar PV micro-grids in eastern India. It offers a novel, synthetical perspective drawing on a situated, grounded and ... -
Money league, elite men’s football and rankings: an interpretive narrative
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)The 2020, 23rd edition of the Deloitte Football Money League (DFML) opened with the headline that 'FC Barcelona reached the top of the money league for the first time and became the first club to break €800m revenue barrier'. ... -
Finding virtue in open science? Biological scientists' constructions of openness in historical, advocacy and policy contexts
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)Science has a special relationship with the term “open” and its connotations. A traditional story about scientific openness goes as follows: if scientists share their findings, scientific communities can collectively build ... -
Distributed Infrastructuring and Innovation: an ethnographic enquiry into collaborative modes of work in an internet of things ecosystem
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)Emerging low-power wireless networks are being used for a range of data collection systems such as asset tracking, environmental monitoring, smart agriculture and smart city facilities. The relatively low costs of hardware ... -
Interplay of authority and expertise in online self-improvement communities
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-08-06)In online environments, users who wish to learn anything face several problems. Other users are usually anonymous or pseudonymous, information is plentiful and its quality variable, and it can be difficult to discern ... -
Infrastructuring Yachay: contexts in action, temporalities and expectations in Ecuador's 'Yachay the city of knowledge'
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-08-06)This thesis explores the temporalities involved in the infrastructuring of “Yachay, the city of knowledge” - the most ambitious and controversial public infrastructural project in Ecuador’s history. Yachay, which means ... -
Fabricating Silicon Savannah
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-06)This PhD research thesis offers an historicised account of Silicon Savannah, a digital technology entrepreneurship arena in Nairobi, Kenya. Silicon Savannah is an opportunity to study the appropriation of technology ... -
How co-innovation anticipates scaling: the modulating function of a co-innovation space
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-06)Characterised as a mindset rather than method, co-innovation is a systems-inspired approach to agricultural innovation activity. The application of co-innovation is underpinned by guiding principles of collaboration, ... -
WTO and technological development of transition economies: the 'crucial case' of Kazakhstan
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-06)After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, former communist republics started the process of integration into the global economy by joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO). To become members, transition economies were ... -
Selective citation and the shaping of scientific knowledge: citation network analysis and the diet-heart debate
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-06)Scientific knowledge is based, in part, on empirical evidence. Scientists contribute to a particular evidence-base by publishing the results of their experiments and observations, but in writing their papers they also use ... -
Scottish space sector and innovation: a PERIpatetic study of an emerging innovation system and the roles of innovation intermediaries
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-06)This thesis seeks a more effective understanding of Open Innovation (OI) and the available strategies for its development within (geographically–bound) sectoral systems of innovation (GSSIs). Theoretically, it draws upon ... -
How do planets find their way? Laws of nature and the transformations of knowledge in the Scientific Revolution
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-01-13)Laws of nature are perceived as playing a central role in modern science. This thesis investigates the introduction of laws of nature into natural philosophy in the seventeenth century, from which modern science arguably ... -
Telegraphists’ cramp: the emergence and disappearance of an occupational disease between 1875 and 1930
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-25)This thesis is a historical, qualitative case study of the emergence and disappearance of telegraphists’ cramp in the British Post Office between 1875, when it was first reported, and 1930, by which point it was in ... -
American imperialism, anthropology and racial taxonomy in the Philippines, 1898-1946
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-25)Racial classification and taxonomy of the population in the Philippines was formed primarily based on the colonial perception of race. In the time of the Spanish colonial era that spanned across three centuries, the ... -
Life as-we-don’t-know-it: research repertoires and the emergence of astrobiology
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-07-08)This thesis presents an ethnographic study of the repertoires, sets of social and material practices, that scientists adopt to practice and promote the search for life in the universe, commonly known today under the ... -
Amphibious researchers: working with laboratory automation in synthetic biology
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-07-08)This thesis analyses the use of robots and automation in academic biosciences laboratories in the UK. Both system vendors and policymakers argue that robots, specifically liquid-handlers and robotic arms, offer more ... -
Particle physics in public: legitimising curiosity-driven research on the Higgs boson and beyond
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-07-08)The publicity surrounding the discovery of the Higgs boson hints at the enduring status of curiosity-driven research in modern society. However, the contemporary governance of scientific research emphasises efficiency, ...
