Collaborative Research and Education Architecture for Transformative Engagement with STS (CREATE/STS)

A research project funded by the National Science Foundation (#2121207) and a James Madison University Madison Trust grant.

Facilitating Ethical Reasoning In Undergraduate STEM Contexts: Responsible Innovation and Emerging Technologies

The notion of “responsible innovation” (RI) frequently appears within academic and popular writings regarding the development of new and emerging technologies.  Although the term is often deployed as a “buzzword” in various contexts, whether regarding the development of autonomous vehicles or genetically modified organisms, it is difficult to find a consistent and thorough definition of the term, and few scholars have attempted to methodically think through and write extensively on the topic. This project aims to develop a comprehensive literature review regarding the use of the term “responsible innovation” in scientific and engineering research, as well as social science and humanities literatures.  We ask: In what ways has the term been deployed? In what contexts?  Are there any overarching themes that can be identified across diverse literatures and contexts?

In tandem with the development of a scholarly review on use of the term responsible innovation within the literature, we also ask the question of what does it mean to be a responsible innovator?  How can engagement with questions of responsibility, ethics, and social contexts more broadly be integrated into STEM pedagogies? We are particularly interested in examining student self-generated definitions of responsible innovation, within the STEM classroom context, and also in hands-on technical undergraduate capstone projects.  Our methods for engaging these questions include the use of science fiction as well as a range of hands-on activities in undergraduate classes and research projects.

Co-Imagining Sociotechnical Futures

This research study has four interrelated purposes, all broadly related to producing knowledge that supports the anticipatory governance of emerging technologies. This study builds on work in Science and Technology Studies that embraces modes of knowledge production that emerge through critical participation and collaborative engagement with the subjects of ethnographic research. Specifically, we propose to incorporate techniques of collaborative imagination into our ethnographic engagements with subjects in academia, industry, and government who are engaged in technology research and development. Thus, in addition to (and often as a part of) semi-structured interviews and observation, we will work with our subjects to co-create scenario analyses and design fictions that interrogate potential futures that may emerge from their R&D work. Scenario analysis is a method of developing plausible scenarios within a specific domain and timeframe. Design fiction is a blend of science, design, and science fiction, created using 2D and/or 3D visual media, to provoke critical thinking, reflection, and conversation about how specific technologies may be embedded in everyday human practices in near- to mid-range futures. Additional methods and techniques of collaborative imagination may emerge as a result of this collaborative work.

Expertise in a “Post-Truth” World

In an increasingly interconnected and globalized world, national boarders become blurred as destabilizing forces such as climate change, cyber crime, population explosions, refugee crises, decaying infrastructures and many other issues challenge the resilience of existing intuitions.  Who can authoritatively speak to these risks, many of which transcend traditional boundaries, such as the nation state, academic disciplines, and others?  There is a pressing need for experts to play a role as international, national, and local institutions struggle to adapt to these wicked problems.  Yet, with populist ideologies on the rise in United States and elsewhere, there exists increased skepticism regarding the role that experts and institutions have to play, and distrust in their authority.

A primary theme of this research area is making sense of the emerging tension between experts and the public.   What is, and what should be, the role of experts and institutions, as societies grapple with emerging and unprecedented crises? How are scientific and legal experts and institutions participating in and shaping national conversations around emerging threats?  What is the proper role of expertise in a democracy?  What does the future of expertise within democracies look like?

The Future of Holistic Problem Solving

For several decades, there has been a growing awareness that educating citizens who can successfully meet pressing global challenges requires something more than a traditional discipline-centric education.  A growing body of literature documents this educational challenge (e.g. Brown et al. 2010, Seagar et al. 2011, Bammer 2013, Clark et al. 2012, Bennett et al. 2010).  Degree programs aspiring to address this need have appeared using descriptors such as “interdisciplinary,” “multi-disciplinary,” “integrated,” “systems-oriented”, “socio-technical,” and others. In some cases, these programs look very similar to existing disciplinary programs, with the addition of courses from other disciplines, all being taught in the traditional discipline-centric focus. In other cases, programs seek to achieve some sort of interdisciplinarity through a kind of jigsaw architecture, borrowing existing courses from multiple traditional discipline-centric degree programs and mostly taught from a disciplinary point of view (Clark, et al 2011).  In these programs, the burden for doing the integration is thereby placed almost entirely on the students (Schlosberg, et al. 2017).

Employers are now calling for “T-shaped” professionals that embody boundary-spanning characteristics.  The capital letter “T” serves as a metaphor for an individual that possesses both breadth and depth of knowledge and skill.  The top, or horizontal part, of the T represents a breadth of expertise, while the stem, or vertical, part represents a depth of expertise and skill in a specific field or domain (Conley et al. 2017).  The term originated as a call for a new type of digital-age “renaissance person” who could synergize business management expertise with a deep knowledge of information technology (Guest 1991).  But the question remains: How to cultivate these integrated, or “T-shaped,” skillsets within an undergraduate context?

Anticipatory Governance and Emerging Technologies: Negotiating Socio-technical Contracts

The anticipatory governance framework argues that broad based capacities for the governance of new and emerging technologies need to be cultivated, so that society can “build its muscles” and proactively grapple with the implications of new technologies. Anticipatory governance maintains that it is possible to productively and actively engage with new science and technology, as it is being built, and therefore shape the resultant trajectories and the modes by which they become reified in society in particular ways. This project presents a counter- perspective to the law lag and technological somnambulism arguments, two models that maintain that society’s efforts to govern technology are perennially lagging behind the speed at which technology develops. Utilizing case studies in the governance of assisted reproductive technologies, we argue that the relationship between technology and society is more complex than the pacing problem and technological somnambulism frame it to be, that rather than there being a vacuum or a disconnect in the space between the law and technology, there exist anticipatory capacities for proactively thinking through the governance of new and emerging technologies. This work interprets this relationship not as a case of the tortoise and the hare, with society, ethics, and policy constantly racing to catch up with society, but instead as an ongoing and evolving process, in which active negotiations of socio-technical contracts are occurring on a continuing basis.

Science Fiction and Pedagogy: A Case Study in Frankenstein and Responsible Innovation

This project utilizes the tools of anticipatory governance and applies them to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) as an undergraduate STEM case study focused on responsible Innovation.  Within this project, we ask the question of what does it mean to be a responsible innovator? How can engagement with questions of responsibility, ethics, and social contexts more broadly be integrated into STEM pedagogies? We are particularly interested in examining student self-generated definitions of responsible innovation within the STEM classroom context. Our primary research question centers around how, if at all, reading Frankenstein influences student perceptions of responsible innovation. The 2018 bicentennial of the novel’s publication provides an opportunity for students to reflect on what it means to be a “responsible innovator” and an ethical practitioner, both historically and in the present day. We have developed a pre/post worksheet that also serves as an assessment instrument in order to understand the effectiveness of Frankenstein as a pedagogical intervention in stimulating student thinking around what it means to be a responsible innovator. We conducted qualitative data analysis on student pre/post definitions of the term responsible innovation. Initial analysis of the pilot data indicates that Frankenstein can be a useful tool for stimulating and enhancing reflection on responsible innovation in the classroom setting. 

Nanodreams and Nanoworlds: The Emergence and Disciplinary Formation of Nanoengineering

This project analyzed data stemming from ethnographic methods, including interviews and laboratory observation, to examine the social, political, technical, and institutional factors that shaped the consolidation of NanoEngineering as a disciplinary program at the University of California, San Diego. Bringing together analyses of high-tech innovation, the political economy of higher education, STEM education, and the societal dimensions of nanotechnologies, this case study produced knowledge about the cultural reproduction of reseach-based engineering as an intrinsically entrepreneurial practice.