The Sociology of Science and Technology (SST) group at the Department of Science, Technology and Society (STS) seeks to establish a research program on science, technology and society in the inter - and transdisciplinary environment of the SOT and TUM. The overarching goal of our chair is to combine research on science-society relations with real-world engagements in an interactive, responsive and reflexive way. 

• We develop the analytical framework for understanding and mapping of the genesis, practices and societal impacts of knowledge production in fields such as environmental policy, forest research or engineering. By creating a space for public engagement and critical reflection, our research aims to address – in theory and practice – to solving pertinent and urgent scientific and societal challenges arising e.g. from rapid global climate change, biodiversity, plastics and chemicals as well as emerging technologies (such as Negative Emission Technologies, Neuro-Technologies and Social Media).  
• The chair researches on and enables the emergence of new forums of collaboration between different societal actors from science, civil society, politics and business as well as new formats of knowledge production and governance of science (e.g. public engagement, responsible science, co-creation of knowledge, science-policy interface). Most prominently is Silke Beck’s participation as lead scientist in the IPBES Assessment of transformative change (https://www.ipbes.net/transformative-change).
• The chair stands for the integration of current societal challenges and related research topics into higher education and targets different disciplinary backgrounds and professional training of students (see here for more about teaching).

The research group is contributing to the projects:

• ‘EU-Climateurope2: Supporting and standardising climate services in Europe and beyond’, 2022-2026, 
• ‘BioNET – Multi-level Assessment of Bio-based Negative Emission Technologies’ as part of the BMBF funding measure Methods of Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=49066.
• In-Forest. Science as a field of struggle: a multi-method empirical study of inequality and its epistemic effects in forest research
• Negative emissions and the policies of a projected future
• BetterReading. Mobile application for cooperative reading enhancement of children through AI-supported speech recognition and verification
• For a full list see projects