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 theThe 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. In response to the 2005 evaluation and decisions arising from that evaluation, TIK centre has chosen to consolidate and concentrate its research activities 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. Nearly all of extant research projects at TIK are conducted in one or the other of these two research groups. 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 from the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo (40-45 percent) and external finance mainly the Norwegian Research Council and the EU (55 - 60 percent).
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 began her period of tenure in September 2006 and is Professor in Research Policy on leave from CIRCLE (Centre for Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy), Lund University.
Research at TIK is focused on the 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. A key assumption that guides TIK research is that 'science and technology, nature and the economy are mutually shaped by society and culture'.TIK's research investigates the potential of knowledge production, but also the challenges that science and technology represent to the individual and to society. Given its intellectual mandate, it is only natural that TIK is a multi-disciplinary environment where researchers employ a variety of disciplinary based perspectives and methods to understand the phenomena science, technology, culture and innovation. Our work spans the breadth of the humanities and social sciences and includes historical and sociological studies as well as the economics and policies that underpin the structures for governing science, technology and innovation. Several projects focus on normative and ethical issues or matters related to identity; power, governance and redistribution; and with globalisation and internationalisation in a comparative perspective.
TIK centre also conducts research training programme within the ambit of the PhD programme at Faculty of Social Sciences. The language of instruction is English and courses are open to PhD students from other institutions within the University of Oslo and other European and Nordic countries. Since its start in 1999, a total of 16 doctoral degrees in social sciences and the humanities have been finalised at the TIK centre. In 2007, TIK expects to graduate 6 doctoral students.
In addition to the PhD programme, TIK currently offers two Masters programmes, the ESST and TIK masters programmes respectively. The ESST programme admits some 20 students every year within the European consortium of co-operating universities. In August 2006 the number of admitted students increased to 30 as a new 2-year MA programme in Technology, Innovation and Knowledge based on the ESST courses and additional courses was initiated.
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 (NOE) under the 5th and particularly the 6th Framework programme and intends to participate in the next framework programme. TIK is currently an institutional member in DIME NOE (Dynamics of Institution and Markets in Europe) and one of two Norwegian national representatives in the COST Action 'Science and Technology Research In a Knowledge-based Economy'. TIK regularly cooperates with other national actors in Norway such as NIFUSTEP, the Institute of Transport Economics and Statistics Norway. TIK researchers are also individual members in a number of international research associations including the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S).