About
Technological societies are in a continuous state of transformation. Technological developments come with important social, economic and political implications and are sometimes even disruptive. Artificial agents like robots and algorithms fulfil ever more complex tasks and challenge existing notions of agency, expertise, responsibility, and employability. The huge volume of data from increasingly instantaneously communicating devices and machines across platforms and networks is testing not only present-day security and privacy mechanisms but is also challenging norms of ownership. Emerging energy technologies and systems as renewables and electrolysis based hydrogen require new infrastructures, transport logistics, material supply chains, and create new environmental and social challenges and geopolitical relationships. The application of gene editing technologies may affect our responsibilities to future generations and our relations to our own bodies. How do such transformations unfold? How can they be anticipated? How can new and emerging technologies affect society, culture, and human existence? What ethical, societal and policy questions do they raise? And how to design and govern socio-technical innovations in a responsible manner? We address these questions at multiple levels: the level of individual users and human-technology relations, the level of social practices and organizations (e.g., in education, healthcare, industry), and the level of societal and political structures and processes, such as power relations, democratic institutions, legal regulation, and cultural change.
The research theme addresses three main research lines:
1. Socio-technical futures and responsible innovation
Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has been put forward as a priority by the European Union, just as by Dutch science policy. RRI aims to enable the capabilities, structures and processes of researchers, innovators and the related organizations and innovation systems to anticipate and consider societal implications, do research and innovation in inclusive ways, and make these insights actionable. Different BMS research groups with expertise in ethics, philosophy of technology, science, technology and innovation studies, governance studies, public engagement and communication science contribute to this line of research. A broad field of emerging technologies is addressed in these projects with important clusters in the fields of nanotechnologies for health, food, energy, chemistry, biomedical and health technologies, artificial intelligence, smart cities, blockchain technologies, and robotics.
Specific research directions include fundamental philosophical-ethical questions, such as how emerging technologies challenge concepts such as identity, autonomy, democracy, or naturalness, and thus how emerging technologies may disrupt the self-understanding of human beings, trigger techno-moral change, and challenge or contribute to environmental justice. Another important line comprises questions related to the governance and regulation of emerging technologies, such as experimental regulation, the governance of socio-technical transitions, and (geo)political and justice implications. A third line focuses on socio-technical futures, such as the role of future expectations and imaginaries around emerging technologies, the exploration of different anticipatory and imaginary practices, and (constructive) technology assessment. Furthermore, we study innovation processes, practices, and systems. Here research interests include entrepreneurship, user innovation and citizen science, and innovation ecosystems.
2. DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETY
In this research line, we study the ongoing digitalization of goods and services and the role of algorithmic interpretation and decision-making (e.g., AI) in concrete societal contexts such as eHealth, human resource management, and digital collections. Moreover, we focus on the bridging of digital and material worlds through the Internet of Things (IoT), robots, and new forms of data-driven production (e.g., 3D printing) and the emergence of virtual and augmented reality systems that promise to extend the borders of the paradigms of embodied, situated, and distributed cognition.
Not only is BMS at the forefront of making use of emerging digital research tools, we also are promoting Responsible Research and Innovation and Responsible Design by working together with relevant stakeholders including municipal, regional and national authorities, companies, NGOs, cultural institutions, and citizens. Not only do we bring our expertise into the design and evaluation process to enable and safeguard deployment of novel applications. We also develop and bring in a critical perspective to decolonize digital technologies, promote digital commons, and challenge AI myths. At the crossroads with the two other research lines, we study and support attempts at making proliferating digital and data infrastructures more sustainable.
3. NEW AND EMERGING INFRASTRUCTURE TECHNOLOGIES FOR GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY
In this line researchers are concerned with questions relating to innovations in socio-technical and socio-ecological infrastructure systems, such as energy, water or digital infrastructures. These new and changing infrastructure technologies are of major importance as they shape to a large extent the conditions for societies to become more sustainable. BMS researchers investigate the modes of governance of infrastructure systems in the diverse social and political contexts of the Global South and the Global North, environmental and societal impacts, and innovation processes and systems. A broad field of new and emerging technologies are addressed in these projects, for instance smart grids, renewables (e.g. solar, wind, green hydrogen, anaerobic digestion), new (waste)water and solid materials treatment technologies, NetZero technologies (neutralization of greenhouse emissions), or technologies that affect the environmental impact of digital infrastructures.
Societal impact is created via analysing and assessing governance models and providing policy advice in collaborative projects with societal partners, including governmental authorities, NGOs and the industry, and in pilot projects that allow to focus on conditions and implications of concrete local and regional implementation contexts. Core competences feeding into this line of research are governance studies, science and technology studies, innovation studies, business and entrepreneurship, sustainability sciences, and ethics.
Board members
Theme chair:
Daily board:
Support Staff:
emerging technologies theme events
UPCOMING EVENTS
On November 6, 2025 the BMS research conference will take place showcasing research of all BMS research themes. More information.
From April 15-17, 2026 we will host the STS NL Conference assembling Science and Technology Studies researchers from the Netherlands and abroad. This will be preceded by an early career event on April 14, 2026.
PAST EVENTS
On March 17, 2025, we discussed how current and future research in the theme relates to the four ‘impact domains’ that the UT has defined as its key areas to focus research on and create societal impact: health, safety, climate and chip production.
Here are the programme and abstracts of the 2024 Emerging Technologies & Societal Transformation conference, held on September 25.
And the programme and abstracts of the 2023 Emerging Technologies & Societal Transformation conference, held on September 21.
emerging technologies Example Projects
- NWO Gravitation grant: The ethics of socially disruptive technologies
- NWO-KIC SepsPIC – Sensing Sepsis
- HaiCu – Digital Humanities Artificial Intelligence Cultural Heritage
- MISD - IPCEI Modular Integrated Sustainable Datacentre project
- H2020 SERENE: Sustainable and Integrated Energy Systems in Local Communities
- Interreg Northsea project WaterWarmth