Ulrike Felt is professor of social studies of science since 1999 and head of Vienna STS department.

After having finished her PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Vienna in 1983, she worked for nearly five years in an interdisciplinary research team of science historians at the European Center for High Energy Physics (CERN) in Geneva studying social, political and scientific aspects in the foundation period of this first big European research institution. During this period her research interests moved into the field of science and technology studies (STS). After her stay at CERN she returned to Vienna, where she took up a position at the newly founded Institute for Philosophy of Science and Social Studies of Science headed by Helga Nowotny. In 1997 she received her habilitation in Science Studies/Sociology of Sciences.

Ulrike Felt has wide experience in running nationally and internationally funded research projects working with a broad spectrum of social science research methods. She has been visiting professor in a number of institutions, among them at GERSULP/Université Louis Pasteur (Strasbourg), at the Centre Interuniversitaire pour la Recherche en Science et Technologie, Universite du Québec à Montréal, at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme in Paris and at the Collegium Helveticum, ETH Zurich. She has served as member of the council of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) from 1995 until 1999, and of the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) from 2002 to 2004. From July 2002 to June 2007 she was editor of the international peer-reviewed Journal Science, Technology, & Human Values (Journal of the Society for Social Studies of Science). Most recently she has also engaged in setting up an interdisciplinary Masterprogramme "Science - Technology - Society" (taught in English language) at the University of Vienna.

Finally she engaged into policy advise both nationally and at the European level, e.g. as expert in the Advisory Group of the European Commission for the Science and Society priority of the 6th framework programme (2003-2006); as member of the European Research Advisory Board (EURAB; 2006/07); as rapporteur of the expert group Science and Governance (download the report as pdf) and most recently for the European Science Foundation (Policy briefing on The Future of Science in Society).

Over the years several interrelated lines of research have developed:

• knowledge relations: investigate how in contemporary societies relations are built through/on knowledge and how knowledge emerges through specific kinds of relational networks;

• science, technology and democracy: public engagement with technoscience as well as governance and public participation (biomedicine and the life sciences as well nanotechnologies are special foci), science communication;

• the coproduction of temporealities and technoscientific issues whith particular focus on the growing role of future as central 'object' in shaping science and society relations;

• topics in knowledge politics, embracing both the changing cultures of knowing and living in research and their intertwinedness with institutional policy such as university reforms, quality assessment strategies, excellence intitiatives, etc.;

Felt, Ulrike (2010) 'Leben in Nanowelten: Zur Ko-Produktion von Nano & Gesellschaft', in Petra Lucht, Martina Erlemann and Esther Ruiz Ben (eds), Technologisierung gesellschaftlicher Zukünfte. Nanotechnologien in wissenschaftlicher, politischer und öffentlicher Praxis (Freiburg: Centaurus): 19-37. < Download >

Felt, Ulrike and Fochler, Maximilian (2010) 'Riskante Verwicklungen des Epistemischen, Strukturellen und Biographischen: Governance-Strukturen und deren mikropolitische Implikationen für das akademische Leben ', in Peter Biegelbauer (ed), Steuerung von Wissenschaft? Die Governance des österreichischen Innovationssystems. Innovationsmuster in der österreichischen Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Band 7 (Innsbruck: StudienVerlag): 297-328. < Download >

Felt, Ulrike, Fochler, Maximilian and Strassnig, Michael (2010) 'Experimente partizipativer ELSA-Forschung. Eine methodenpolitische Reflexion', in Erich Griessler and Harald Rohracher (eds), Genomforschung - Politik - Gesellschaft. Perspektiven auf ethische, rechtliche und soziale Aspekte der Genomforschung. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, Special Issue, Vol. 10. < Download >

Felt, Ulrike and Fochler, Maximilian (2010) 'Machineries for Making Publics: Inscribing and Describing Publics in Public Engagement', Minerva 48/3, 219-238.

Felt, Ulrike (ed) (2009) Knowing and Living in Academic Research. Convergence and Heterogeneity in Research Cultures in the European Context  (Prague: Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic). < Download >

Felt, Ulrike, Fochler, Maximilian and Winkler, Peter (2009) 'Coming to Terms with Biomedical Technologies in Different Technopolitical Cultures', Science, Technology, & Human Values 35/4: 525-553.

Felt, Ulrike, Bister, Milena, Strassnig, Michael and Wagner, Ursula (2009): Refusing the information paradigm. Informed consent, medical research, and patient participation. Health: an interdisciplinary journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine 13/1, 87-106.

Felt, Ulrike, Fochler, Maximilian, Müller, Annina and Strassnig, Michael (2009): Unruly ethics. On the difficulties of a bottom-up approach to ethics in the field of genomics. Public Understanding of Science 18/3, 354-371.

Felt, Ulrike, Lisa Gugglberger, and Astrid Mager (2009): Shaping the Future E-Patient: The Citizen-Patient in Public Discourse on E-Health. Science Studies 22/1, 24-43.

Felt, Ulrike and Fochler, Maximilian (2008): The bottom-up meanings of the concept of public participation. Science and Public Policy 35/7, 489-499.

Felt, Ulrike, Fochler, Maximilian, Mager, Astrid and Winkler, Peter (2008): Visions and Versions of Governing Biomedicine: Narratives on Power Structures, Decision-Making, and Public Participation in the Field of Biomedical Technologies in the Austrian Context. Social Studies of Science 38/2, 233-258.

Felt, Ulrike, Wynne, Brian et al. (2007) Taking European Knowledge Society Seriously (Luxembourg: European Commission). < Download >

For further publications of Ulrike Felt please visit the departments' list of publications