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In this thesis, I draw on a co-productionist reading of “soft law” as both an epistemic and normative governance device that reconciles imperatives to innovate for the public good with imperatives to protect it in politically legitimate ways. I investigate and compare the making of "soft law" instruments for the governance of emerging neuro-technologies in the US, EU, and OECD, and reveal considerable differences in the way political communities constitute norms and principles for the governance of emerging technologies., Die Dissertation stützt sich auf das Konzept der „co-produktion“ und schlägt vor, „soft law“ als epistemisches und normatives Steuerinstrument zu verstehen, das öffentliche Innovationsimperative in Einklang mit dem Wohle der Allgemeinheit bringt. Ich untersuche und vergleiche die Entwicklung dieser weichen Gesetzgebung für Neuro-Innovation in den USA, der EU, und der OECD, und zeige erhebliche Unterschiede auf wie politische Gemeinschaften Normen für die Governance von Innovation konstituieren.

Diese Arbeit behandelt am Fallbeispiel der Schließung des Bosch Werks in München Berg am Laim den Zusammenhang zwischen Beschäftigung in der Automobilzulieferindustrie und dem System der Automobilität. Dafür wurden Interviews mit Beschäftigten des Standorts, dem Betriebsrat, Gewerkschaft und am Widerstand gegen die Schließungspläne beteiligter Zivilgesellschaft durchgeführt. Ergänzend erfolgten Feldzugänge am Werk und teilnehmende Beobachtungen bei relevanten Veranstaltungen. Basierend auf Elementen der Grounded Theory und Ethnografie wurden die gesammelten Daten hermeneutisch-interpretativ ausgewertet und unter Einbezug aktueller Veränderungsprozesse der Automobil- und Zulieferindustrie mit der analytischen Linse der Zukunftsbilder in das gesellschaftliche System der Automobilität eingeordnet. Dabei wurden sichtbare Veränderungsprozesse der Branche (Beschäftigungsrückgang, Wandel zur Elektromobilität, verändertes Gefüge zwischen Herstellern und Zulieferern) sowie reduzierte Bedeutung der Beschäftigung bei Zulieferern, Ablehnung von Veränderungen durch Beschäftigte, zunehmendes Konfliktpotential zwischen Akteuren, geringe Chancen für Konversion, reduzierte Stabilität der Automobilität und Handlungsbedarfe für Transition und Kompensation für Beschäftigte ermittelt.

The "Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-Border Higher Education" were developed and adopted to support and encourage international cooperation and enhance the understanding of the importance of quality provision in cross-border higher education. The purposes of the "Guidelines" are to protect students and other stakeholders from low-quality provision and disreputable providers (that is, degree and accreditation mills) as well as to encourage the development of quality cross-border higher education that meets human, social, economic and cultural needs. The "Guidelines" are not legally binding and member countries are expected to implement them as appropriate in their national context. Based on a survey about the main recommendations of the "Guidelines", this report monitors the extent to which Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries and a few non-member countries comply with its recommendations. The Survey was sent out in June 2010 to all OECD countries. The main conclusion of the survey is that (responding) countries report a high level of compliance with the Guidelines recommendations. On average, responding OECD countries conform to 72% of the main recommendations made to governments, tertiary education institutions, and quality assurance and accreditation agencies. The level of compliance decreases to 67% when recommendations to student bodies are included, but the level of missing information, and thus uncertainty about actual compliance, increases significantly. Appended are: (1) Country Overview of Compliance Levels with the Guidelines for Different Stakeholders; (2) Country Overview of Compliance Levels with Six Key Objectives of the Guidelines; (3) Methodology; (4) Country Answers to the Survey; (5) Overview of National Contact Points; and (6) Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-Border Higher Education. (Contains 2 tables, 12 figures and 1 footnote.)

The overarching theme of this thesis is creativity and its role in the modern workplace. Through design and evaluation of a tool for creativity measurement, and three creativity support systems, the thesis highlights the opportunity that creativity support can offer in terms of ergonomic optimization of system performance, and recognizes human factors/ergonomics as particularly suited discipline to tackle creativity measurement and amplification in a human-centered way., Kreativität und ihre Rolle im modernen Arbeitskontext stellen den Kern dieser Arbeit dar. Durch Entwicklung und Evaluation eines Instruments zur Kreativitätsmessung sowie dreier Systeme zur Kreativitätsunterstützung wird aufgezeigt, welche Möglichkeiten Kreativitätsunterstützung im Hinblick auf ergonomische Optimierung der Systemleistung bieten kann, und identifiziert Human Factors/Ergonomie als prädestiniert, um Messung und Unterstützung von Kreativität auf menschzentrierte Weise zu entwickeln.

This dissertation investigates how visions of future societies are tested, contested and materialized through “test beds” as an increasingly prominent policy instrument in science, technology and innovation policy. I draw on the concept of co-production to explore how test beds as situated geographical sites of experimentation and demonstration co-produce and tentatively co-stabilize new socio-technical orders. They “test” and reconfigure society around particular visions of desirable futures centered around new sets of technology and associated modes of governance., Diese Dissertation untersucht „Test Beds“ als prominente Instrumente der Wissenschafts-, Technologie-, und Innovationspolitik und geht dabei der Frage nach, wie durch diese Orte zukünftige Gesellschaftsentwürfe getestet, ausgehandelt, und materialisiert werden. Mithilfe eines co-produktionistischen Ansatzes zeige ich, wie Test Beds durch Praktiken des Experimentierens und Demonstrierens neue soziotechnische Ordnungen ko-produzieren und vorläufig stabilisieren. Sie testen und rekonfigurieren die Gesellschaft auf Basis einzelner Zukunftsvisionen und der damit verbundenen Technologien und Governance-Modi.

This research, lying in between Urban Studies and Studies of Science and Technology, is an ethnography of Times Square in New York City and the different controversies that resulted before, during, and after its pedestrianization process in 2009. I went to Times Square to see what kind of semiotic-material resources, strategies, and methods I could get from that place to grasp and represent the location itself. The main question that shaped this process was: what can STS learn from Times Square for doing (urban) ethnography?, Diese Forschung, die zwischen Urban Studies und Studies of Science and Technology einzuordnen ist, ist eine Ethnographie des Times Square in New York City und der verschiedenen Kontroversen, die vor, während und nach seiner Wandlung in eine Fußgängerzone im Jahr 2009 entstanden sind. Ich ging zum Times Square um zu sehen, welche semiotisch-materiellen Ressourcen ich von diesem bestimmten Ort erfassen kann, um ihn dahingehend darstellen zu können. Die Frage, die diesen Prozess dabei prägte, war: „Was kann STS vom Times Square lernen, um (städtische) Ethnographie zu betreiben?”

This dissertation aims to provide detailed insights into industry consortia in mobile telecommunications and their workings. It is divided into three studies that build upon each other: 1) An elaboration on the raison d’être of industry consortia, 2) a taxonomy of industry consortia, and 3) an examination of potential implications of industry consortia memberships., Diese Dissertation zielt darauf ab, einen detaillierten Einblick in Industriekonsortien im Bereich Mobilfunk und ihre Tätigkeiten zu geben. Sie besteht aus drei Studien, die aufeinander aufbauen: 1) Einer Untersuchung des Sinn und Zweck von Konsortien, 2) einer Taxonomie von Industriekonsortien und 3) einer Analyse von potenziellen Implikationen von Mitgliedschaften in Konsortien.

This dissertation investigates how visions of future societies are tested, contested and materialized through “test beds” as an increasingly prominent policy instrument in science, technology and innovation policy. I draw on the concept of co-production to explore how test beds as situated geographical sites of experimentation and demonstration co-produce and tentatively co-stabilize new socio-technical orders. They “test” and reconfigure society around particular visions of desirable futures centered around new sets of technology and associated modes of governance., Diese Dissertation untersucht „Test Beds“ als prominente Instrumente der Wissenschafts-, Technologie-, und Innovationspolitik und geht dabei der Frage nach, wie durch diese Orte zukünftige Gesellschaftsentwürfe getestet, ausgehandelt, und materialisiert werden. Mithilfe eines co-produktionistischen Ansatzes zeige ich, wie Test Beds durch Praktiken des Experimentierens und Demonstrierens neue soziotechnische Ordnungen ko-produzieren und vorläufig stabilisieren. Sie testen und rekonfigurieren die Gesellschaft auf Basis einzelner Zukunftsvisionen und der damit verbundenen Technologien und Governance-Modi.

Complex international partnerships have emerged as a policy instrument of choice for many governments to build domestic capacity in science, technology and innovation with the help of foreign partners. At present, these flagship initiatives tend to be primarily practitioner-driven with limited systematic understanding of available design options and trade-offs. Here, we present an analysis of four such partnerships from the university sector between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and governments in the UK, Portugal, Abu Dhabi, and Singapore. Using a system architecture approach in conjunctions with in-depth case studies and elements of interpretive policy analysis, we map how in each country distinct capacity-building goals, activities, and political and institutional contexts translate into different partnership architectures: a bilateral hub-&-spokes architecture (UK), a consortium architecture (Portugal), an institution-building architecture (Abu Dhabi), and a functional expansion architecture (Singapore). Despite these differences in emergent macro-architectures, we show that each partnership draws on an identical, limited set of ‘forms’ that can by organized around four architectural views (education, research, innovation & entrepreneurship, institution-building) and four levels of interaction between partners (people, programs/projects, objects, organization/process). Based on our analysis, we derive a design matrix that can help guide the development future partnerships through a systematic understanding of available design choices. Our research underscores the utility and flexibility of complex international partnerships as systemic policy instruments. It suggests a greater role for global research universities in capacity-building and international development, and emphasizes the potential of targeted cross-border funding. Our research also demonstrates the analytic power of system architecture for policy analysis and design. We argue that, National Science Foundation (U.S.) Science of Science and Innovation Policy (Collaborative Grant 1262263), MIT-Portugal Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Leading Technology Policy Initiative

We present experimental results from an all-optical diagnostic method to directly measure the evolution of the hot-electron distribution driving the acceleration of ions from thin foils using high-intensity lasers. Central parameters of laser ion acceleration such as the hot-electron density, the temperature distribution and the conversion efficiency from laser pulse energy into hot electrons become comprehensively accessible with this technique., Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (contract number TR18), Germany. Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (contract number 03ZIK445), Germany. Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (contract number 03ZIK052)

We present a novel, cascaded acceleration scheme for the generation of spectrally controlled ion beams using a laser-based accelerator in a 'double-stage' setup. An MeV proton beam produced during a relativistic laser–plasma interaction on a thin foil target is spectrally shaped by a secondary laser–plasma interaction on a separate foil, reliably creating well-separated quasi-monoenergetic features in the energy spectrum. The observed modulations are fully explained by a one-dimensional (1D) model supported by numerical simulations. These findings demonstrate that laser acceleration can, in principle, be applied in an additive manner., Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG contract no. TR18), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (contract no. 03ZIK052), European Union (Laserlab Europe)

Thesis (S.M. in Technology and Policy)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2010., Cataloged from PDF version of thesis., Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-205)., As the world turns increasingly towards knowledge economies, the integration of innovation, higher education (HE) and research policies continues to gain importance. In 2006, the Portuguese government and MIT launched the MIT-Portugal Program (MPP) as an integrative, university-centered innovation strategy that aims at reorienting Portuguese engineering education and research around the issues of innovation, entrepreneurship and technology management, serving as an incubator to establish missing links between universities and industry. The program was conceived as a targeted response to Portugal's specific innovation challenges. These challenges derive both from the country's specific socio-economic trajectory as well as general European reform pressure, and include for example the creation of strong graduate programs in engineering and science to address a critical lack in human resources, greater internationalization of Portuguese education and research, the achievement of critical research mass and international competitiveness in some designated key areas, and a greater involvement of external stakeholders and particularly industry in the universities. This thesis provides a real-time assessment of the MIT-Portugal Program one year prior to the completion of its current 5- year funding cycle. The thesis finds that MPP indeed represents an apposite, effective and comprehensive policy response to Portugal's imminent innovation challenges. The concerted combination of multiple policy tools has yielded important and visible successes, most notably in the creation of strong and international education programs, an unprecedented degree of networking and collaboration among Portuguese researchers and institutions, and the re-orientation of engineering education around innovation and industry needs. Secondly, the assessment has revealed significant opportunities for program improvement as well as some persistent barriers to implementation, in particular in the domains o, by Sebastian M. Pfotenhauer., S.M.in Technology and Policy