Welcome to the Research Training Group
Entering the Knowledge Society: Science in Applied and Advisory Contexts
The program of the Graduiertenkolleg combines questions taken from the history, sociology, philosophy, and ethics of science and technology.
It focuses on the concept of the knowledge society, around which revolve various societal hopes and anxieties. An essential feature of knowledge societies is the change of the order of knowledge in two ways: 1) Scientific knowledge is increasingly produced and communicated in contexts of application and advice. 2) The institutional framework of knowledge production is diversified. New institutions of knowledge production and knowledge transfer emerge with the result that the epistemic reliability and validity as well as the social legitimacy of knowledge tend to become precarious.
The graduate research school aims at an interdisciplinary understanding of the respective transformations of science and technology in the knowledge society. The Graduate Program is sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and located at the Institute of Science and Technology Studies (IWT). It offers a graduate studies program and fellowships for doctoral students who want to study questions from the following areas: sociology of science and technology, philosophy and history of science and technology, cognitive linguistics and law and society studies.