How can we understand crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, not only in their impact on health, but also in their multiple interrelationships with all areas of everyday life in society? Which policies and instruments are appropriate to simultaneously weigh up health, economic, social, cultural and environmental aspects of the crisis and take them into account for the benefit of all of us in combating the crisis?How does the usage of Artificial Intelligence affect processes, which are based on value judgments such as the decision about public service eligibility? Which technological improvements or social incentive systems are best suited to fight climate change, e. g. by modifying behaviour patterns? Or more generally: How do new technologies and innovation change our society and reflect its influence?

New technologies and innovations have the potential to redraw the image of our society in a completely new way. In doing so, they also challenge the institutions concerned with societal planning, policymaking and coordination because as future objects they are neither predictable nor accessible.

This is precisely where the Sociology of Technology and Innovation team engages in research, teaching and knowledge transfer. Analysing societal phenomena around the genesis, structures and consequences of technologies and innovations, enables us to understand, describe and explain the complex dynamics in technology and innovation.

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