Helga Nowotny
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Helga Nowotny is Professor Emerita of Science and Technology Studies at ETH Zurich, a founding member and former President of the European Research Council. After a distinguished career at universities and research institutions in several European countries she continues to be actively engaged in research and innovation policy at national, European and international level, among them as Member of the Board of Trustees, Falling Walls Foundation, Berlin; Vice-President of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings; Senior Fellow at the School of Transnational Governance, EUI, Florence; Member of the Council of the Paris IAS; Member of the Austrian Council for Research and Technology Development; Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Complexity Science Hub, Vienna.
She has received many awards and honorary doctorates including from the University of Oxford and the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. She has published widely in Science and Technology Studies, STS, and on social time. Her latest book publications include The Cunning of Uncertainty (2016) and In AI We Trust (2021) which has since been translated into Italian, Spanish, Chinese and German.
Currently Helga Nowotny is also working on the Food Socioscope. The Socioscope project develops a pioneering methodology to study societal transitions. It is a new way of doing social science research by making possible to collect thick data with multi-methods across continents, something that has rarely been applied when studying social phenomena.
In March 2027, she joins the IAS for a one-month writing residency.
Research topics
Social Studies of Science and Technology (STS), Science, Technology and Innovation Policy; Science and Society, Social Time, Risk, Environment, Sustainability, Epistemology and Social Organisation of Social Sciences and Humanities, AI; Digital Humanism.
The Food Socioscope in Conversation with Food and Transition Studies Experts
The research project aims to further develop the design of a series of interviews with internationally renowned experts in the fields of transitions to sustainability and food systems, who will be invited to undertake short stays at the Paris IAS between January 2026 and March 2027.
Drawing on insights from the Food Socioscope project – which analyses the transition mechanisms linking local sustainable development initiatives to the dynamics of meso-level actors and institutions – the research seeks to bring these findings into dialogue with the scientific work and practical experience of experts involved in international sustainable development policies and strategies.
The interviews aim to gain a better understanding of the complex interactions between environmental, health and social justice issues that shape global food systems, ranging from the day-to-day transactions of farmers and fishers to the policies, markets and institutions that govern them. Particular attention will be paid to the role of intermediary actors and the mechanisms that facilitate the flow between local initiatives, formal and informal markets, regulation and public interventions.
This approach will complement the empirical analysis of the 600 cases studied as part of the Socioscope project, exploring in greater depth, in particular, the influence of special interests, changes in consumer behaviour, innovation and R&D, education and the evolution of cultural norms.
Key publications
Nowotny Helga, The Illusion of Control: Living with Digital Others. Global Perspectives, 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2024.117336
Nowotny Helga, “The Re-Enchanted Universe of AI: the Place for Human Agency”, to be published in: Introduction to Digital Humanism, Editors: H. Werthner, C. Ghezzi, J. Kramer, J. Nida-Rümelin, B. Nuseibeh, E. Prem, A. Stanger, Springer Nature, 2023
Nowotny Helga, “Digital Humanism – Navigating the Tensions Ahead” in H. Werthner, E. Prem, E. A. Lee, and C. Ghezzi (eds): Perspectives on Digital Humanism, Springer, 2022
Nowotny Helga, “In AI We Trust. Power. Illusion and Control of Predictive Algorithms”, Polity Press, 2021
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