Handbook

Handbook introduction
Topic list
Core literature
Examples of thesis
Calendar
Learning outcomes
Stylesheet
Guidelines

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this MA programme, you will be qualified for one of the following options:

employment as a manager or civil servant/policy-maker with special expertise in the interplay of science, technology and social policy /decision making;
continuation of a career in science or technology with additional expertise in related management and governance issues;
further research in the area of SST.
The curriculum for Semester A introduces key current issues, debates, conceptual perspectives and methodological approaches which provide a basis for the research project in Semester B.

Semester A

Upon successful completion of Semester A curriculum, you will be able to:

engage in informed debate about issues of SST in Europe;
analyse such issues from a variety of perspectives;
investigate in depth a selected issue and produce a substantial commentary/report upon it.
identify the scientific and technological dimensions of many key issues facing the European Community;
recognise the complex interplay of the social, scientific and technological in current public debate, research and development programmes and social policy formation;
trace the development and growing awareness of that interplay in the 20th Century;
deploy in outline interdisciplinary approaches to understanding such issues (drawing, for example, upon aspects of philosophy, sociology, anthropology and [multi-]cultural studies).
survey the inter-relationship of science, technology and economic development from a historical perspective;
give an account of the main developments in Europe and related spheres from the first scientific and industrial revolutions to the present;
evaluate critically competing accounts of the innovation process and techno-social-economic transitions;
position current issues and debates in a broader historical perspective.
comment critically upon current concerns with globalisation;
analyse examples of the shifting spatial and organisational structuring of high technology industries;
identify the key interests groups and their roles and tactics;
evaluate Europeanisation as a response to globalisation;
contextualise the economic issues in the context of broader debates about, for example, the risk society, the information superhighway or global sustainable development.
refer to a range of accounts of the making of science and technology in practice;
evaluate critically accounts given by scientists and technologists of what they do;
discuss critically the claim that scientific knowledge is socially constructed.
articulate your own values in relation to issues of society, science and technology in Europe;
engage in critical dialogue about the political and ethical issues;
discuss the relative merits of competing epistemological stances, with particular reference to issues of gender and Euro-centrism;
analyse the political issues involved in a current social/scientific/technological controversy;
offer appropriate options for negotiating the political agendas of different interest groups in such controversies.

Semester B

Upon successful completion of Semester B curriculum, you will be able to:
formulate the problematique of the issue within the conceptual frameworks explored in Semester A and further developed in Semester B;
analyse the issue using a methodological approach and related research methods encountered in Semester A or B;
generate either a report designed to influence policy or a dissertation which will contribute to analysis from a European perspective;
adopt this approach or adapt other approaches in SST studies to new issues and problems;
engage in planning, negotiation and critical debate with a range of other actors in tackling an issue;
proceed with an awareness of regional and [multi-]cultural differences within Europe and in Europe’s global relationships;
continue to develop and apply your learning in SST in Europe

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