STS: Knowledge, innovation and major societal challenges

Innovation is often presented as a necessity to solve grand societal challenges and "wicked problems". Norway is therefore heavily invested in innovation towards more sustainable solutions in for instance issues regarding environment and climate. In the health sector we also see that a coming wave of elderly is often presented as a problem that could be solved with new innovations. Is it possible to solve such societal challenges with innovation and new technology?

A range of actors are involved in most innovation processes. Innovators are of course important, but actors from research, policy work and use also matter and must be taken into account if a "good" social development is to be ensured. At the same time, new innovations have to be adapted to existing material infrastructures in order to succeed. Thus, we need an approach that can handle both social and technical perspectives in order to understand the role of innovations in society. In this course the students will develop a socio-technical innovation competence that is important to understand and handle change and development in public as well as private sectors. The course explores innovation as a phenomenon at the intersection between culture and socio-technical processes of change, and we ask how and why innovation has become so central in the present.

The course is open to all students, and is part of the STS (studies in knowledge, technology and society) one-year study program.

Students who have completed this course have knowledge of:

• what innovation is and how innovation is done, different innovation theories and innovation models
• different perspectives on knowledge work, expertise and interdisciplinarity
• critical perspectives on innovation

Students who have completed this course have the skills to:

• work independently and in groups with problem solving on the basis of knowledge from the subject
• plan and carry out a small study project on social change - write reasoning texts
• apply professional knowledge to practical and theoretical issues, including drawing own conclusions

The course is taught in three parts: 1) introductory lectures, 2) combined lectures and seminars on 2-3 different topics (eg restructuring processes, public innovations and urban development), and 3) seminar with project work.

One mandatory task must be approved before the first exam assignment.

The exam is in assignment form: It consists of one shorter exam assignment (constituting 20% of the total grade) and one longer exam assignment due towards the end of the semester (constituting 80% of the total grade). Both exams must be approved in order to get the final grade.