This paper addresses some key implications in momentous current global energy choices – both for social science and for society itself. Energy can be over-used as a lens for viewing social processes. But it is nonetheless of profound importance. Understanding possible ‘sustainable energy’...

Innovation is about more than technological invention. It involves change of many kinds: cultural, organisational and behavioural as well as technological. And there are no guarantees that any particular realised innovation will necessarily be positive. Accordingly, innovation is not a one-track...

"This paper slightly amends a concluding chapter in the above book on ‘vulnerability in technological cultures’. It offers a personal view of key governance implications of this fruitful concept. Picking up earlier arguments, technological vulnerability is seen in a dual fashion – both in...

For good or ill, technology mediates our relationships with one another and with nature. Whether an ox-drawn plough in the hands of a peasant, or remote sensing equipment feeding back data from a satellite, technology informs and shapes our place in our environments. It is therefore unsurprising...

The recent controversy over genetically modified (GM) foods amply demonstrates the general difficulties encountered in the social appraisal of technological risk. Existing procedures for regulatory appraisal neglect many possible forms of impact and routinely exclude important cultural and...

This study provides quantitative evidence on how the use of journal rankings can disadvantage interdisciplinary research in research evaluations. Using publication and citation data, it compares the degree of interdisciplinarity and the research performance of a number of Innovation Studies...

The ability of innovation—both technical and social—to stretch and redefine ‘limits to growth’ was recognised at Stockholm in 1972, and has been a key feature in debates through to Rio+20 in 2012. Compared with previous major moments of global reflection about human and planetary...

This challenging book takes a broad and thought-provoking look at the precautionary principle and its implementation, or potential implementation, in a number of fields. In particular, it explores the challenges faced by public decision-making processes when applying the precautionary principle,...