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INTPART-International Partnerships for Excellent Education and Research

Sociomaterial transformations in Norway and East Asia

Alternative title: Sosiomaterielle transformasjonar i Noreg og Aust-Asia

Awarded: NOK 10.0 mill.

Our research, teaching, and collaboration centers around thematic areas within our core institutional competencies for understanding contemporary society and how novel science and technology transformations impact society. SoMaT also emphasizes teaching and education, with several planned winter schools for master’s students, PhD courses, student mobility, visiting research stays, and co-supervision of students between partner universities. We aim to build long-lasting partnerships for world-leading research and education to meet social transformation issues that the world is facing. Good collaboration with East Asia is critical for Norway to better understand and prepare for significant societal changes that social and technological transformations imply—and vice versa, East Asian partners, benefit from Norwegian experiences on sociomaterial knowledge on how to think about, prepare, and discuss major challenges of the 21st century.

This INTPART project investigates sociomaterial transformations in Norway and East Asia from a Humanities-based Science & Technology Studies (STS) framework on three thematic areas: sustainability, digitalization, and diversity. SoMaT strengthens international collaboration between researchers and students from NTNU with one Japanese, one South Korean, and two Chinese universities to develop solid international, interdisciplinary, cutting-edge knowledge and perspectives. This will be done through investigating entanglements of the social and the material in everyday- and organizational life, for which STS perspectives are ideal. We center our research, teaching, and collaboration around thematic areas within our core institutional competencies for understanding contemporary society and how novel science and technology transformations impact society. Project leader NTNU KULT is world-leading in STS research and teaching, as demonstrated through our portfolio of several EU-funded projects, with ERCs, CSA and MSCAs, and RCN-funded projects. We will actively collaborate with these projects in our cross-research-focused approach and with new researcher staff exchange to the Asian partners in the project. SoMaT also emphasizes teaching and education, with several planned winter schools for master’s students, PhD courses, student mobility, and co-supervision of students between partner universities. We aim to build long-lasting partnerships for world-leading research and education to meet sociomaterial transformation issues that the world is facing. Good collaboration with East Asia is critical for Norway to best understand and prepare for significant societal changes that scientific and technological transformations imply—and vice versa, East Asian partners, benefit from key Norwegian experiences on sociomaterial knowledge on how to think about, prepare, and discuss major challenges of the 21st century.

Funding scheme:

INTPART-International Partnerships for Excellent Education and Research