Professor of Science and Technology Studies, University of Vienna

Ulrike Felt has been Professor of Science and Technology Studies since 1999 and Head of the Vienna STS department.

After having finished her PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Vienna in 1983, she worked for nearly five years in an interdisciplinary research team of science historians at the European Center for High Energy Physics (CERN) in Geneva studying social, political and scientific aspects in the foundation period of this first big European research institution. During this period her research interests moved into the field of science and technology studies (STS). After her stay at CERN she returned to Vienna, where she took up a position at the newly founded Institute for Philosophy of Science and Social Studies of Science headed by Helga Nowotny. In 1997 she received her habilitation in Science Studies/Sociology of Sciences.

Ulrike Felt has wide experience in running nationally and internationally funded research projects working with a broad spectrum of social science research methods. She has been visiting professor in a number of institutions, among them at GERSULP/Université Louis Pasteur (Strasbourg), at the Centre Interuniversitaire pour la Recherche en Science et Technologie, Universite du Québec à Montréal, at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme in Paris, at the Collegium Helveticum, ETH Zurich and at the STS group at Harvard. She has served as member of the council of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) from 1995 until 1999, and of the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) from 2002 to 2004. From July 2002 to June 2007 she was editor of the international peer-reviewed Journal Science, Technology, & Human Values (Journal of the Society for Social Studies of Science). Most recently she has also engaged in setting up an interdisciplinary Masterprogramme "Science - Technology - Society" (taught in English language) at the University of Vienna.

Finally she engaged into policy advise both nationally and at the European level, e.g. as expert in the Advisory Group of the European Commission for the Science and Society priority of the 6th framework programme (2003-2006); as member of the European Research Advisory Board (EURAB; 2006/07); as rapporteur of the expert group Science and Governance (download the report as pdf) and most recently for the European Science Foundation (Science Policy Briefing: Science in Society - Caring for our Futures in Turbulent Times).