Norwegian-Russian Network: Science, Technology and Medicine - Global Challenges (completed)

The goal of this network is to expand and sustain collaboration between Norwegian and Russian researchers to address global challenges in science, technology and medicine in society. The network brings together scholars from the Russian Federation and Norway as well as from third countries to jointly address current health challenges and advance the interdisciplinary research area of the social studies of science, technology and medicine.

National Research Tomsk State University (TSU)

About the project

Global health challenges in society include risks due to antimicrobial resistance, persistent environmental pollutants, and changing needs in healthcare provision with aging populations, to name a few. Developments in technoscience, systems biology, new ‘omics’ approaches, personalized medicine, e-health, robotics in healthcare provision have challenged previous ways of studying these and given rise to societal concerns. Citizen science, popular epidemiology and new publics emerging with social media demand novel ways of engaging with health and biotechnology matters. Ways to address global health challenges locally need to be grounded in an in-depth understanding of the relations between knowledge, technologies and societies.

Our network and collaborative research project aims to contribute to the above field by opening up the societal aspects of responding to these global health challenges. A transnational approach with a focus on the Russian Federation and Norway has great potential to enrich previous research into societal issues in science, technology and medicine in this area. The relationships between science and the state, health registries and data technologies as well as the organization of healthcare services are distinct and have been co-shaped by post-socialist conditions in Russia and the Scandinavian welfare state in Norway.

The network especially aims to bridge the fields of Science and Technology Studies (STS), health policy studies, and medical humanities. STS has emerged as a vibrant field of research that can make key novel contributions into addressing global health concerns. The value of these contributions lies in going beyond approaches that focus solely on technological, biomedical or policy-making domains and providing analytical resources to address and respond to the public health challenges. The network helps facilitate conditions in which collaboration can be sustained and joint innovative research developed. The network comprises senior and junior scholars from different disciplines related to the social studies of science, technology and medicine.

The kickoff meeting of the network was held at the Norwegian University Centre St. Petersburg on 14th-16th November 2017. The network held its second workshop at the TIK Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo on 4-6 June 2018, in conjunction with a Seminar “Developing Research-Based Education: Towards Participatory Engagement with Health Matters”. The third Network Meeting took place as Strategy Meeting 10-12 December 2018, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture (TIK), University of Oslo, including a visit to the Norwegian Research Council.

 

Ongoing and future activities: 

The group submitted a scholarly panel to  the scientific conference “Social Sciences and Health Innovations: Multiplicities”, held in Tomsk in May 23-25, 2019. The network´s panel Beyond One Health. The Politics of Inclusion and Multiplicity was accepted by the organizers and preparations are under way.

The group will continue to collaborate through exchange activities (students and lecturers) and research-based education under the new educational project “Bridging Boundaries: Science and Technology in Society”, funded for 2019-2020 by DIKU. 

 

Contact:

Susanne Bauer

Published Aug. 11, 2017 9:32 AM - Last modified Mar. 25, 2024 3:39 PM

Participants

Detailed list of participants