Interdisciplinary Research Methods in Technology, Innovation and Policy Studies A short intensive Summer School IST, Lisbon, June 10-12 Overview: This two days Summer School aims to assist post- grad students in the study of technological change, innovation patterns and related policy research through in- depth discussion and practical validation of interdisciplinary research methods. An Innovation Policy Laboratory will be established by groups of students working in critical issues of technological innovation across various emerging areas. The summer school offers a space for interdisciplinary conversations about contemporary issues in Technology and Policy, including the emerging context of uncertainty in urban studies and industrial development at a global level. Emphasis is given to the development of skills for emerging challenges faced by contemporary societies to deal with modern engineering. Target Audience: Post- grad students working in engineering design, technological change and policy, as well as those in the humanities, natural sciences, architecture and business who have serious interest in exploring these areas together with engineers. A joint organization of: Doctoral Program in Engineering Design and Advanced Manufacturing, EDAM, at IST Lisbon, University of Porto and University of Minho, with the support of the MIT- Portugal Program. Doctoral Program in Engineering and Public Policy, EPP, at IST Lisbon and at University of Porto, with the support of the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program. Doctoral Program in Architecture, at IST Lisbon. IN+, Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research, at IST Lisbon LARSyS, Robotics and Engineering Systems Laboratory Preliminary event: June 10, Bike Tour in Sintra For those enjoying nature and sports, the Summer School will be preceded by a Bike Tour in the Mountain of Sintra, near Lisbon, June 10 (a National Holiday in Portugal). It starts at 12:00 in Colares and it is expected to finish by 4:30 pm, also in Colares, Sintra. Duration of technical meetings: two days, June 11-12 Venue: Room EDAM; IST, Mech Eng. II, level - 1. Schedule: Workshops, seminars and other sessions to be defined individually details to be defined Preparatory work: Prior to the meeting in June 11-12, each student must conduct a series of one to three interviews with actors of cases of innovation and/or policy making and to analyze them in terms of a relevant technical issue to be discussed and solved. A brief 2- page report, with the transcripts of the interviews attached, should be submitted by June 10 for discussion in the Workshops to be included in the Summer School. Terms of reference are enclosed. 1
Coordination: Manuel Heitor, Full Professor, IST (Mechanical Engineering Dept.); LARSyS, Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research, IN+ Faculty: o Anne McCAnts, Professor of History, Massachusetts Instit. of Technology, USA https://history.mit.edu/people/anne- e- c- mccants o Giorgio Sirilli, IRCrES, Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth of National Research Council, CNR, Italy http://www.ircres.cnr.it/index.php/it/staffircres/23- cv o Gary Rhoades, University of Arizona, USA; http://www.coe.arizona.edu/faculty_profile/788 o Jussi Välimaa, Finnish Inst. for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä, FINLAND; http://ktl.jyu.fi/ktl/english/staff/jussi_valimaa o Eduardo Beira, Senior Research Fellow; LARSyS, Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research, IN+; http://in3.dem.ist.utl.pt/research_team.asp?teamtipoid=2&teamid=147 o Teresa V. Heitor, Full Professor, IST (Architecture) http://www.civil.ist.utl.pt/~teresa/ o Nuno Arantes e Oliveira, Coimbra Genomics; http://in3.dem.ist.utl.pt/research_team.asp?teamtipoid=2&teamid=136 2
Schedule Day 1, Thursday - June 11 9h: Workshop - 1: Student introduction and brief presentation of interviews/work conducted 10h30: Lecture 1 - Anne McCAnts Title: Introduction to interdisciplinary research methods in technology, innovation and policy studies 11h45: Lecture 2 Giorgio Sirilli Title: Statistical indicators: their relevance, limitations and use in innovation studies and policy making 13h00: Lunch 14h00: Lecture 3 Gary Rhoades Title: Framing, conducting, and analyzing interviews, observations, document analysis, and images - 1 15h00: Lecture 4 Jussi Välimaa Title: Research design, research questions and research methods? 16h00: Lecture 5 - Eduardo Beira Title: Simulation technologies as a research method: economy and public policy in mid 20th century reflections on Unemployment and money. The principles involved by Michael Polanyi (1941) 17h- 20h: Workshop - 2: Studio work with students and faculty 20h30: dinner Day 2, Friday - June 12 9h: Workshop - 3: Discussion with brief presentations by Students 10h00: Lecture 6 - Gary Rhoades Title: Framing, conducting, and analyzing interviews, observations, document analysis, and images - 2 11h30: Studio work - Jussi Välimaa, Giorgio Sirilli, Gary Rhoades, Anne McCAnts Title: Doing interviews and analysing the answers 13h00: Lunch 14h00: Lecture 7 Teresa Heitor Title: Building a narrative in urban studies: case studies in innovation studies in architecture 15h30: Lecture 6 - Eduardo Beira Title: Visual analysis, non- linearities and complexity: from Neurath to modern visualization 17h00: Lecture 7 - Anne McCAnts Title: Research Ethics and Other Lessons learned from technology, innovation and policy studies 18h00-19h30: Workshop - 4: Final discussion with students 20h30: dinner and party in old Lisbon (St. Antonio night in Lisbon) 3
Annex 1: Assignment (to be submitted by June 10) "Interview: tales from the field, anatomy of cases of discovery and innovation" Each student is expected to contribute with an interview about technical change, innovation and/or technology policy, especially in an industry or public policy environment. Please avoid, for this exercise, interviews with experts in academy. Rather, the goal is to attempt working on the anatomy of a technological innovation case in a social and economical environment. The written interviews will be additions to a process of oral collection about technical change and innovation. An oral collection is an important resource for innovation studies research (see, for example, the work of Pierre Latour). In this context, participants in the Summer School should identify a specific case for research and carefully look for the actors (people, institutions, devices) and materials (facts, stories, pictures) that may contribute for the narrative of the case. Avoid speculations and speeches/personal opinions about innovation theories: the focus should be on the anatomy of the innovation process, focusing on the people and their circumstances (social, historical, other) as well as the facts involved and the social and economic circumstances of the developments along a time line. Each interview should be a deep semi structured interview with duration around 45 to 90 minutes. Personal stories and career paths of people involved / actors are to be covered. Look also for antecedents and post- events. How did the important ideas appeared? What about technology, business and people relationships? What about money? What about the environment? What is the path dependency? Which were the barriers and the obstacles? Competition and rivalry? What are the networks involved? How did past technological facts, past experiences of the actors and tradition influenced the case? Remember: time is the "glue" of any narrative or story. Things happen along time. The Case to be selected can be anywhere in the world. If needed, use video interview by Google Talk or Skype and record the interview (there are software tools available for that; easier with audio only, but also feasible with video). But mail / chat interviews based on text will not be accepted. Delivery of the (video) record of the spoken interview and its transcription is mandatory. Final edited interviews should be made available in English language (additional original language versions are optional, for archive). Each participant must also deliver the tape/file record in digital format, for archive, eventually after some basic "cleaning" editing (if needed, but this is always optional). The interviews should be presented during the Summer School as well as a short analysis grounded on it. Faculty of the summer school will comment and discuss them. Please consider the following details: Try to follow the actors and events as they pop up along the interview. Use tripod or have the camera/smartphone well stable over something to avoid shaking. Although you will be not producing documentaries, consider recording the conversations for future use and easier transcription. Transcript: convert from oral discourse to written one, keeping the meaning and richness of the original discourse. But exact transcripts of each word or gesture are not our 4
objective. Each participant must deliver, by June 10, to Afonso Babo (afonso.babo@tecnico.ulisboa.pt): 1. A short statement with the justification of the case selected (up to a single page, 500 characters). 2. A discussion paper, up to 3 pages long (about 6000 characters, with spaces) 3. An edited transcription of each interview (word file) 4. A file with the video recording of the interview (to be sent by dropbox,...) 5
Annex 2: Recommended literature 1. Methods Abbott, Andrew (2004), Methods of Discovery, 2004 Atkinson, Robert (1998), The life story interview, Sage Creswell, J. W. (1998), Qualitative Inquiry And Research Design. Choosing among Five Traditions. Sage 1998. Creswell, J. W. (2003), Research Design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches, Sage Publ. Inc., London. Creswell, J. W. (2013), Research Design. Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. Sage 2003. The 4th edition was published 2013. Clandinin, D. Jean and Connelly, F. Michael, Narrative Inquiry. Experience and Story in Qualitative Research, Jossey- Bass (Wiley) (B) Czarniawska, Barbara (1998), A narrative approach to organization studies, Sage Elliott, Jane (2005), Using Narrative in Social Research. Qualitative and Quantitative approaches, Sage. Eisenhardt, K. (1989), Building Theories from Case Study Research, The Academy of Management Review, 14 (4), pp. 532-550. Ferguson, Eugene (1992), Engineering and the Mind s Eye, MIT Press Gabriel, Yiannis (2000), Storytelling in Organizations. Facts, Fictions and Fantasies, Oxford University Press Henderson, Kathryn (1999), On line and on paper. Visual Representations, Visual Culture and Computrer Graphics in Design Engineering, The MIT Press Latour, Bruno (1987). Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, USA. Latour, Bruno (2005). Reassembling the social: an introduction to Actor network theory, Oxford ; New York, Oxford: University Press. ISBN 978-0- 19-925604- 4 Latour, Bruno (1996), Aramys or the Love of Technology (translation by C. Porter), Harvard University Press Leenders, Michciel and Erskine, James (1999), Case research: the case writing process, The University of Western Ontario Meissner, Jens O. and Sprenger, Martin (2010), Mixing Methods in Innovation Research: Studying the Process- Culture- Link in Innovation Management, Qualitative Social Research, 11(3), http://www.qualitative- research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1560/3073 Perks, Robert and Thomson, Alistair (eds.) (1998), The Oral History Reader, 2 nd ed., Routledge Rubin, Herbert and Rubin, Irene (1995), Qualitative Interviewing. The Art of Hearing Data, Sage Vinck, Dominique (ed.) (2009), Everyday Engineering: An Etnography of Design and Innovation, The MIT Press Yin, R. K. (2003). Applications of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 6
2. General studies in technical change, innovation and technology policy Aghion, P., Julian Boulanger, J. and Cohen, E. (2011), Rethinking Industrial Policy, Bruegel Policy Brief, June 2011. Biejker, W., Hughes, T. and Pinch, T. (1989), The Social Construction of Technological Systems, MIT Press. Callon, M., Lascoumes, P. and Barthe, Y. (2001), Acting in and uncertain world an essay on technical democracy, MIT Press. Conceição, P., Heitor, M. and Lundvall, B.A., (2003), Innovation, Competence Building, and Social Cohesion In Europe: Towards a Learning Society, Edward Elgar. David, P. A. (2007), PATH DEPENDENCE A FOUNDATIONAL CONCEPT FOR HISTORICAL SOCIAL SCIENCE, Stanford University and the University of Oxford The Journal of Historical, Economics and Econometric History, v.1, no.2, Summer 2007. Edgerton, D. (2007), The shock of the old: technology and global history since 1900, Oxford Univ Press. Gault, F. (2011) Social impacts of the development of science, technology and innovation indicators. Hidalgo, C. A., Hausmann, R. (2009), The building blocks of economic complexity, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 106, no. 26, 10570-10575, 30 June 2009 Klein, H.K., and Kleinman, D.L. (2002), The Social Construction of Technology: Structural Considerations, Science, Technology and Human Values, 27, 1, 28-52. Lundvall, B.A. (1992). National System of Innovation Towards a Theory of Innovation and Interactive Learning, London: Printer Publishers. Nelson, R. (1993). National Innovation Systems, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Ostry, S. and Nelson, R. (1995), Techno- nationalism and techno- globalism: conflict and cooperation, The Brookings Institution, Washington. Pavitt, K. (1987). The Objectives of Technology Policy, Science and Public Policy, 14, 182-188. Ziman, John (2000), editor, Technological Innovation as an Evolutionary Process, Cambridge University Press. 3. About the nature and essence of technology and modernity Arthur, W. Brian (2009), The Nature of Technology. What it is and how it evolves, Free Press Borgmann, Albert (1984), Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life. A Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Chicago Press Feenberg, Andrew (2010), Between Reason and Experience. Essays in Technology and Modernity, The MIT Press Feenberg, Andrew (1999), Questioning Technology, Routledge Latour, Bruno (2013). An Inquiry into Modes of Existence. Harvard University Press. 7