This website was archived on November 14, 2013 and is no longer updated.


Sandra Karner
Inter-University Research Center for Technology, Work and Culture (IFZ)
Department of Modern Biotechnology
Schloegelgasse 28010 Graz
Austria
Tel.: +43 316 8139 0943
Fax: +43 316 8126 6111
E-mail: karner@ifz.tugraz.at

Dr. Harald Rohracher
Inter-University Research Center for Technology, Work and Culture (IFZ)
Department of Modern Biotechnology
Schloegelgasse 2
8010 Graz
Austria
Tel.: +43 316 8139 0924
Fax: +43 316 8126 6174
E-Mail: rohracher@ifz.tugraz.at

Inter-University Research Centre for Technology, Work and Culture (IFZ)

Role in project: Coordination of WP2 and WP7, participant in WPs 3, 6 & 8

The IFZ
was established in 1988 and is an interdisciplinary research institute dealing with issues of socially sound technology design and socio-economic aspects of technologies and innovations. Our focus is to identify more appropriate organizational and institutional frameworks for the development of socially and environmentally sound innovations and to organise the process of technology design in a democratic and reflexive way by involving stakeholders and users. Research areas: Ecological Product Policy, Modern Biotechnology, Energy and Climate, Information and Communication Technologies, Women – Technology – Environment. The staff of IFZ comprises an interdisciplinary team of experts in the fields of social and natural sciences, the humanities and engineering. The IFZ is running an information service for environmentally sound procurement (Beschaffungsservice Austria) and the biotechnology information center INFOgen.

Profile of staff members working on the project: Sandra Karner has her MSc. in Biology with a focus on molecular genetics. She is a researcher at the IFZ and her main fields of interest are participatory processes in research, and science and technology studies. She has participated in/coordinated various research projects, and has been working for many years as the interface between science and society. In this context she is in charge of a public information service on biotechnology, she organises international conferences (public engagement actions, science in society events, lectures, and seminars). Dr. Harald Rohracher studied Technical Physics at Graz University of Technology, Sociology at the University Graz and Science and Technology Policy at SPRU, University of Sussex, UK. In the academic year 2009-2010 he has been Joseph A. Schumpeter Fellow at Harvard University. He is the former director at IFZ (1999-2007) and is currently on the scientific advisory board and senior researcher at IFZ. His research focuses on getting a better understanding of the co-evolution of technology and society and strategies to promote socially and environmentally sound technologies.