The 10th meeting of EMP Seminar Series in Academic Year 2015
Paul Luff, Professor, King’s College London will lecture in the EMP Seminar Series. It is valuable opportunity, we welcome all participating.
Date and Time: February 19 (Fri.), 2016, 12:15AM-1:30PM
Room: 3B218, Dai-San Area, University of Tsukuba
Speaker: Paul Luff, Professor, King’s College London
Title: COLLABORATION AND INTERACTION: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH IN TECHNOLOGICAL DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT
Abstract: Contrasted with debates that were common 25 years ago about the role social scientists could have in technological research and development projects, it now seems quite common for research teams to involve social scientists in some way. This may be to help with developing the requirements for a technology, to assess a system or to consider how an innovation might be deployed. In this paper, I draw on over 30 years of working in collaborative research projects both with industrial and academic partners to discuss the challenges and opportunities made possible by this kind of interdisciplinary work. By discussing particular examples I will endeavour to show that this collaboration can offer more than social scientists evaluating a new prototype or providing information about the ‘real world’. I will suggest that through interdisciplinary collaboration it can be possible to develop new methods and ways of conceiving of technology and its uses, and have more fundamental consequences for both computer and social sciences. Indeed, there are opportunities for both empowering informatics and social scientists.