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Technical University of Munich

Dr. Alexander Wentland

Head of Research Group

Innovation Research

Dr. Alexander Wentland is the Head of the Transforming Mobility & Society (TraMS) Lab and a lecturer at the Department of Science, Technology, and Society at TU Munich. His research examines how the legacies of past technological ambitions—both realized and abandoned—continue to structure present-day innovation, shaping everything from mobility systems to regional economic development.

His work explores questions such as: What traces do past notions of progress leave in the infrastructures and imaginaries of today? How do places with deep industrial legacies negotiate their roles in a rapidly changing global economy? What role do testbeds, living labs, and experimental spaces play in innovation policy? Through ethnographic methods, discourse analysis, and comparative case studies, he investigates how innovation is governed, contested, and embedded within broader sociopolitical and economic contexts.

Alexander Wentland holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from TU Berlin and has held research and teaching positions at Harvard University, TU Munich, and the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB). In BMBF- and DFG-funded inter- and transdisciplinary research projects, he has closely collaborated with stakeholders from city governments, companies, and NGOs, ensuring that his research remains connected to policy and practice.

 

  • Regional diversity in innovation
  • Epistemic governance of economic transformations
  • Mobility, transportation, infrastructures
  • Sociotechnical imaginaries and futures
  • Political sociology

Journal Articles

Jung, M., & Wentland, A. (2024). Beyond scalable impacts: Roles of mobility experiments in local transition governance. GAIA - Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society, 33(1), 80–86.

Meinherz, F. X., & Wentland, A. (2024). Urban mobility policy in pandemic times: An exploration of how Covid-19 affected policy framings and priorities in eight European cities. Soziologie und Nachhaltigkeit, 9–29.

Meinherz, F., Mögele, M., Heese, J., Jung, M., Ruf, S., & Wentland, A. (2024). Wie Experimente zur verantwortungsvollen Gestaltung der kommunalen Mobilitätswende beitragen können. KommunalPraxis Bayern, 2024(11), 375–380.

Pfotenhauer, S. M., Wentland, A., & Ruge, L. (2023). Understanding regional innovation cultures: Narratives, directionality, and conservative innovation in Bavaria. Research Policy, 52(3), 104704.

Ryghaug, M., Subotički, I., Smeds, E., von Wirth, T., Scherrer, A., Foulds, C., Robison, R., Bertolini, L., Beyazit İnce, E., Brand, R., Cohen-Blankshtain, G., Dijk, M., Pedersen, M. F., Gössling, S., Guzik, R., Kivimaa, P., Klöckner, C., Nikolova, H. L., Lis, A., … Wentland, A. (2023). A Social Sciences and Humanities research agenda for transport and mobility in Europe: Key themes and 100 research questions. Transport Reviews, 43(4), 755–779.

Klimburg-Witjes, N., & Wentland, A. (2021). Hacking Humans? Social Engineering and the Construction of the “Deficient User” in Cybersecurity Discourses. Science, Technology & Human Values, 46(6), 1316–1339.

Wentland, A., & Jung, M. (2021). Der asynchrone Weg zur urbanen Mobilitätswende. TATuP - Zeitschrift Für Technikfolgenabschätzung in Theorie Und Praxis, 30(1), 23–28.

Wentland, A. (2020). Warum elektrische Utopien festgefahren sind: Das Imaginary Automobilität als Grenze der Verkehrswende am Beispiel der Elektromobilität in Deutschland. Behemoth - A Journal on Civilisation, 13(1), 70–82.

Engels, F., Wentland, A., & Pfotenhauer, S. M. (2019). Testing future societies? Developing a framework for test beds and living labs as instruments of innovation governance. Research Policy, 48(9), 103826.

Canzler, W., Engels, F., Rogge, J.-C., Simon, D., & Wentland, A. (2017). From “living lab” to strategic action field: Bringing together energy, mobility, and Information Technology in Germany. Energy Research & Social Science, 27, 25–35.

Wentland, A. (2016). Imagining and enacting the future of the German energy transition: Electric vehicles as grid infrastructure. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 29(3), 285–302.

Book Chapters

Wentland, A. (2024). Zukunftsbilder und Imaginaries der Mobilität. In W. Canzler, J. Haus, A. Knie, & L. Ruhrort (Eds.), Handbuch Mobilität und Gesellschaft (pp. 1–13). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.

Wentland, A. (2021). Die Glaubenssätze einer innovationsbasierten Transformationspolitik, ihre Artikulationen und Fallstricke am Beispiel der Stadt Dortmund. In J. Herberg, J. Staemmler, & P. Nanz (Eds.), Wissenschaft im Strukturwandel. Die paradoxe Praxis engagierter Transformationsforschung (pp. 117–139). oekom verlag.

Wentland, A., & Klimburg-Witjes, N. (2021). »Die Benutzer sind das Problem, nicht das System«: Verantwortung, Vertrauen und Vulnerabilität in IT-Sicherheitsdiskursen. In K. Braun & C. Kropp (Eds.), Politik in der digitalen Gesellschaft (1st ed., Vol. 2, pp. 167–188). transcript Verlag.

Lösch, A., Böhle, K., Coenen, C., Dobroc, P., Heil, R., Grunwald, A., Scheer, D., Schneider, C., Ferrari, A., Hommrich, D., Sand, M., Aykut, S. C., … Wentland, A. (2019). Technology Assessment of Socio-Technical Futures—A Discussion Paper. In A. Lösch, A. Grunwald, M. Meister, & I. Schulz-Schaeffer (Eds.), Socio-Technical Futures Shaping the Present (pp. 285–308). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.

Canzler, W., Engels, F., Rogge, J.-C., Simon, D., & Wentland, A. (2017). Energiewende durch neue (Elektro-)Mobilität?: Intersektorale Annäherungen zwischen Verkehr und Energienetzen. In S. Giacovelli (Ed.), Die Energiewende aus wirtschaftssoziologischer Sicht: Theoretische Konzepte und empirische Zugänge (1st ed., pp. 119–147). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH.

Wentland, A. (2017). An automobile nation at the crossroads: Reimagining Germany’s car society through the electrification of transportation. In G. Verschraegen, F. Vandermoere, L. Braeckmans, & B. Segaert (Eds.), Imagined futures in science, technology and society (Vol. 34, pp. 137–165). Routledge.

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