Projected Futures: thinking novel and emergent technologies through real world technological networks and social practices.

The proposed research comprises a two-way 'double hop' involving a social scientist and a physical scientist in the Departments of Geography and Chemistry in the University of Sheffield. For the social scientist, the proposed hop is about three major challenges which are also potential major gains. The first is to crystallize exactly what it means for a social scientist to work with science - that is, how to put social scientific knowledge and modes of thinking to work in such a way that they can work productively yet critically with science in action, to challenge the course of that science by getting that science to attend to the world outside the laboratory. The second is a methodological challenge that relates to the PI's ongoing interests in what the social sciences call materiality. In this case I wish to use the hop to work out how a social scientist might research nanomaterials, as materials and not just as materials made ethics or as materials turned to representations through inscription devices. Both the first and second challenges require the PI to spend time in a chemistry laboratory that is receptive to listening to a social scientist. Having found that laboratory, it would seem sensible to cement what is currently an emergent collaboration. The third challenge is to use the time out of discipline to think cross culturally. The reverse translation back into the social sciences is as important here, and is critical for interdisciplinary work's progression. Indeed, if this type of working is to work both ways, it needs to work out how to speak back, in meaningful ways, to the social sciences - for what this type of work does is to challenge most of the accepted canons of how one does research, and on what, in the social sciences. For the physical scientist the basis for the proposed hop lies in conversations that have occurred only in the gaps of the Extreme Collaborations grant. These conversations have exposed the physical scientist to the taken-for-granted assumptions about how physical scientists think about materials, and to the effects of those taken-for-granted modes of thinking. So, rather than thinking in terms of properties and capacities, talking with this social scientist has opened-up a completely different, and critical, challenge for research within the physical sciences - one where (i) physical scientists need to acknowledge in the development of new technical solutions that new materials will inexorably become old, and (ii) the importance of considering technical challenges through complex webs or technological networks. To further dialogue, and to promote wider discussion of this mode of interdisciplinary working, the proposed research will stage three workshops over the lifetime of the grant, open to chemists (and other interested physical scientists) and social scientists working in allied fields to the PI (typically the interdisciplinary field of STS, and parts of human geography and sociology). The workshops will focus on: 1) The challenges of working across disciplinary boundaries within the HE sector.2) The benefits of working across disciplinary boundaries when developing new technologies. 3) What happens when new materials become old?

The academic community within the UK faces a challenging time ahead. It is widely anticipated that the forthcoming Strategic Spending Review (October 2010) will bring news of significant reductions in public funding for UK Higher Education (UK HE). These financial constraints will come at a time when competition across the global research arena becomes ever fiercer, especially from the emerging BRIC countries. When considering these conditions, it is clear to see that the academy will be forced to improve efficiency and productivity over the coming years. This will be particularly true for colleagues in Engineering and the Physical Sciences (E&PS) as these sectors have been earmarked by the UK government as the expected impetus for economic growth. More specifically, given the current Excellence with Impact agenda, our colleagues in those sectors of UK HE will be expected to deliver novel technologies and processes that will deliver a direct benefit to society. However, this appears to be at odds with the traditional high-risk, innovative approach of these disciplines. In the context of the proposed research, we consider the greatest risk to colleagues in the E&PS disciplines as the development of technologies and process that actually fail once released into the real world. In this case, we define failure as a lack of acceptance and uptake by the intended end user, thereby rendering the new technology or process redundant. These failures effectively represent a waste of the resources that have been consumed during the development process. It is clear to see that reducing the failure rate of these new and emerging technologies will both improve the efficiency and productivity of the E&PS sectors whilst concomitantly maintaining a competitive advantage for the UK within the global research arena. Within this project, the participants wish to investigate a new approach to research and development within the E&PS sectors of UK HE that minimises the aforementioned risk whilst still encouraging innovation and creativity on the part of the research community. The approach we wish to adopt will involve the integration of Social Scientific thinking and practices into the traditional research and development processes with the E&PS sectors. Furthermore, this integrated approach could also be applied beyond the academic community in the commercial and industrial sectors of the UK economy. The core principle of this approach can be defined as the need for researchers within the E&PS sectors to appreciate the complex and inter-connected systems into which new technologies and processes are released. More specifically, the complexities of human emotions and behaviours must be accounted for during the development process. This will require a dialogue between the research community and their intended end users. The potential benefits of the proposed research are numerous. The integration of the Social and Physical Sciences will undoubtedly create new opportunities within the research careers of both the participants and the wider academic community. Should this approach prove successful in increasing the rate of acceptance of new and emerging technologies and processes, this would create a much needed competitive advantage for the UK economy as a whole. Furthermore, the necessary dialogue between the research community and the intended end users of their work will create a more transparent interface between those parties, thereby improving the understanding of the role of the academic community.