BiCoDa Alliance
The BiCoDa Alliance primarily of the University of Bielefeld, the University of South Carolina in Columbia, and of Darmstadt Technical University was formed to consider how science-technology interactions shape research-practice today and in the past. This “technological” perspective adds a distinctive “t” to the History and Philosophy of Science – in the context of the Alliance, HPS becomes HPtS.
The BiCoDa Alliance organized a variety of workshops including the Dimensions of Measurement conference (Bielefeld, March 2013), The State's Stake in Science (Bielefeld, July 2013), Pictures and Proofs (Columbia, March 2015), and the Spring School on Models and Modelling in Synthetic Biology (Darmstadt, March 2017).
GOTO – Genesis and Ontology of Technoscientific Objects
The ontology of the technosciences differs from the ontology of modern science. Aside from its philosophical interest, this difference deserves attention because these objects challenge received ways of thinking about the natural and the artificial, science and engineering, substance and potentiality.
The French-German collaboration of Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Sacha Loeve, Astrid Schwarz, and Alfred Nordmann was jointly funded by ANR and DFG. With contributions from 12 international collaborators produced a forthcoming volume of essays that promotes the philosophy of technoscience and a systematic understanding of a type of objects that commands considerable attention in our contemporary world. The project started in August 2010 and ended in January 2014.
The final conference What Affordance Affords was organized by Astrid Schwarz in Darmstadt, November 25 to 27, 2013. Speakers included Rom Harré, Harry Heft, Peter Kroes, Lorenzo Magnani, Hans Jörg Rheinberger, Michael Turvey, Catharine Ward Thompson. – A Winterschool for graduate and doctoral studentsModes of Technoscientific Knowledge was organized by Sacha Loeve and took place in Manigod from January 19 to 25, 2014. Contributors included Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Sacha Loeve, Alfred Nordmann, Astrid Schwarz, Xavier Guchet, Anne-Françoise Schmid, and Jean-Pierre Llored.
The volume of collected papers Research Objects in their Technological Setting will appeared in the History and Philosophy of Technoscience Routledge book-series with contributions from Kevin Elliott, Aant Elzinga, Jennifer Gabrys, Peter Galison, Christopher Kelty, Hugh Lacey, Lucie Laplane, Sacha Loeve/Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Colin Milburn, Alfred Nordmann, Sophie Poirot-Delpech, Astrid Schwarz, Jens Soentgen, Pierre Tessier, Simone van der Burg, and Cheryce von Xylander.
Dimensions of Measurement
The conference Dimensions of Measurement took place from March 13 to 16, 2013 in Bielefeld (organizers: Alfred Nordmann, Oliver Schlaudt, and the BiCoDa Alliance). A first collection of papers edited by Lara Huber and Oliver Schlaudt deals with philosophical, historical and sociological issues of Standardization in Measurement. A second collection of papers, edited by Nicola Mößner and Alfred Nordmann, deals with epistemological, representational, and technological issues of Reasoning in Measurement.
CompuGene, Das Akademische Viertel, and the nanoOffice – other activities
- Co-PI of the LOEWE project CompuGene with a focus on engineering principles and notions of design in Synthetic Biology, organizing with Tarja Knuuttila (University of South Carolina) a BiCoDa Spring School „Models and Modelling in Synthetic Biology“ (March 2017) and „Varieties of Experiment and Measurement in Technosciencen – The Case of Synthetic Biology“ (September 2018).
- Interdisciplinary discussion forum on responsible research Das Akademische Viertel (since Fall 2012)
- Office for interdisciplinary nanoScience and Technology Studies/Büro für interdisziplinäre Nanotechnikforschung – nanoOffice/nanobüro (2005-2010)
Recent partnerships in EC-funded and BMBF projects
BMBF-commissioned study on Models for the Regulation of Nanotechnology
The report was produced in 2007/08 by the nanobüro/NanoOffice in close collaboration with Andreas Lösch (lead author) and Stefan Gammel. Along with an extended synopsis in English and various background readings, it was published in Stefan Gammel, Andreas Lösch, Alfred Nordmann (eds.) Jenseits von Regulierung: Zum politischen Umgang mit der Nanotechnologie (Beyond Regulation: On the Governance of Nanotechnologies), Heidelberg: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 2009.
