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

拟议的研究包括一个双向的“双跳”，涉及一个社会科学家和物理科学家在地理和化学系在谢菲尔德大学。对于社会科学家来说，提出的跳跃是关于三个主要挑战，这也是潜在的主要收益。第一个是明确社会科学家与科学合作的确切含义--也就是说，如何将社会科学知识和思维模式以这样一种方式发挥作用，即它们可以与行动中的科学进行富有成效而又具有批判性的合作，通过让科学关注实验室之外的世界来挑战科学的进程。第二个是方法上的挑战，这与PI对社会科学所谓的实质性的持续兴趣有关。在这种情况下，我希望利用跳跃来弄清楚社会科学家如何研究纳米材料，作为材料，而不仅仅是作为道德材料，或者作为材料通过铭文设备转向表征。第一个和第二个挑战都要求PI在一个化学实验室里呆上一段时间，这个实验室愿意听社会科学家的话。在找到这个实验室之后，巩固目前正在出现的合作似乎是明智的。第三个挑战是利用纪律之外的时间进行跨文化思考。在这里，将其反向翻译回社会科学同样重要，并且对于跨学科工作的进展至关重要。事实上，如果这类工作是双向的，它需要找出如何以有意义的方式对社会科学进行反驳--因为这类工作所做的是挑战大多数公认的准则，即人们如何在社会科学中进行研究，以及研究什么。对于物理科学家来说，提出跳跃的基础在于只在极端合作资助的空隙中发生的对话。这些对话使物理科学家暴露在关于物理科学家如何看待材料的想当然的假设中，以及这些想当然的思维模式的影响。因此，与这位社会科学家的谈话，而不是从性质和能力的角度来思考，为物理科学研究带来了一个完全不同的、关键的挑战--一个（i）物理科学家需要在开发新技术解决方案时承认，新材料将不可避免地变老，以及（ii）通过复杂的网络或技术网络考虑技术挑战的重要性。为了进一步对话，并促进更广泛地讨论这种跨学科工作模式，拟议的研究将在赠款的生命周期内举办三次研讨会，向化学家（和其他感兴趣的物理科学家）和在PI相关领域工作的社会科学家开放（通常是STS的跨学科领域，以及人文地理学和社会学的部分）。讲习班将侧重于：1）在高等教育部门跨学科界限工作的挑战。2）在开发新技术时跨学科界限工作的好处。3)当新材料变旧时会发生什么？

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?