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The Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture was formally established in 1999 through a merger of two formerly independent units: the Centre on Technology and Human Values (TMV), and the study and research programme under the The European Inter-University Organisation on Society, Science and Technology (ESST). During 1999 a third component was integrated into the centre, a bachelor level course on project work methods for the social sciences, Prosjektforum, which left in 2006 to be reintegrated under the Faculty of Social Sciences. Organized as a unit under this faculty and located in the main faculty building, the TIK Centre has extensive cooperation with and recruitment from the Faculty of the Humanities and other disciplinary environments as well.
The centre studies production and dissemination of knowledge – broadly defined as the development of and interaction between science and technology, innovation and entrepreneurship – through inter-disciplinary linkages between the social sciences and the humanities. Research at the centre is informed by an understanding that science and technology, nature and the economy at one and the same time shape society and culture and are shaped by them. TIKs research investigates the potential of knowledge production, but also the challenges that science and technology represent to the individual and to society. The research is committed to a cross-disciplinary approach, using various perspectives and methods, doing historical studies, and focussing on actors as well as processes and structures in studying the interaction among the actors. At the same time several projects are preoccupied with normative and ethical issues or matters related to identity; with issues related to power, governance and redistribution; and with globalisation and internationalisation in a comparative perspective.
An evaluation of the centre carried out in 2005 was followed by a decision of the Faculty Board in November 2005 to consolidate and concentrate the activities of the centre in two core areas: 1. Technology, science and culture, and 2. Innovation. The mandate of the centre is to carry out research at “a good international level” in both these core areas. Practically all research is currently organized in research groups, one for each of these cores and each being led by a Research Director. The research group has a number of research projects that constitute the basis for the research activity, the Centre’s priority task.
TIK presently (01.05.06) has a staff of around 45 person-years, made up of 16 scientific personnel in permanent or temporary scientific positions, 6 postdoctoral fellows, 18 PhD students, 4 externally recruited Professor II, an administration of 6, and a Centre Director on a 4 year contract. Its current director completes a four year contract in 2006 and is a political scientist on leave from his department.
TIK has a well developed network of international and national contacts. Over the last years it has hired several prominent scientists from foreign institutions to be Professor II (part-time) staff, and it regularly welcomes foreign guest researchers within its fields of priority. It has taken or takes part in several EU-financed integrated projects or networks of excellence under the 5th and particularly the 6th Framework programme and intend to participate in the 7th.
The second priority task of the TIK centre is to organize and carry out a research training programme as a PhD programme under the Faculty of Social Sciences. Courses are all given in English and are open to PhD students from other institutions. Since its start in 1999, a total of 16 doctoral degrees in social sciences and the humanities have been finalised at the TIK centre.
Teaching is the third priority task. The ESST programme has admitted some 20 students every year within the European consortium of co-operating universities. In August 2006 the number of admitted students is expected to increase to 30 as a new 2-year MA programme in Technology, Innovation and Knowledge based on the ESST courses and additional courses is starting up.
The TIK centre is directed by the TIK board and on a daily basis by the Director and a leadership group consisting of the two research directors and the administrative leader. It is financed through a mix of public funding over the Faculty of Social Sciences (40-45 percent) and external finance mainly the Norwegian Research Council and the EU (55 – 60 percent).
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