Governance, Innovation and Sustainability

Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Austria

General Description

In recent decades, decision-makers and publics alike have realised that contemporary societies are confronted with serious challenges such as climate change, food security, health, and social and environmental justice. It is quite clear that governance and innovation will be at the core of how societies deal with these challenges. This ESST specialisation focuses on interrelationships between science, technology and innovation, governance, and sustainability, combining STS with other social science perspectives and exploring selected case studies in depth.

Course Content

Topics of particular interest concern the governance of new and emerging technologies (information and communication technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology), the sustainable transformation of infrastructures (energy, data, transport, urban development), and notions of anticipatory, reflexive and participatory governance, including responsible research and innovation (RRI). A further cross-cutting topic concerns the science-policy nexus in risk management and international regimes such as climate policy, including the role of emerging technologies such as climate engineering.

The course core themes are: introductions to theories of governance, innovation and sustainability; innovation and imagined social futures; infrastructures and societal transformations; global environmental challenges at the science-policy nexus; governance of sustainability transformations; innovation governance and social justice; research agendas; and conclusions and outlooks.

Elective Structure and Requirements

The ESST specialisation consists of the course “Governance, Innovation and Sustainability” (8 ECTS), taught from the beginning of March to mid-April, combining student presentations, plenary discussions and group work. For the rest of the semester, students work on their thesis, supervised by staff from Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, with the option of attending an optional work-in-progress seminar.