d. 21. november 2007 kl. 19:00 på Sociologisk Institut, Øster Farimagsgade port 5 a, 1014 København K i lokale 1.1.18

These are interesting times for the governance of science and technology. Fresh possibilities for socio-technical change and innovation – the nanotechnologies, energy generation systems, biomedicine – are on the horizon (and closer). Globalised pressures for competition and change press individual nations and regions. Meanwhile, and especially across Western Europe, there has been much talk of public dialogue and engagement: of, in the EC`s terms, a `new partnership` between science and society. In this lecture, I will argue that this situation represents a provocation to the social sciences as well as to policy-making. For sociology in particular, the challenges of scientific governance raise core issues concerning continuity and change, the nature of the empirical, and the social role of the analyst