Mark Elam, BA, MSc, PhD

Associate Professor in Sociology

e-mail: mark.elam@sociology.gu.se
Phone: +46 (0) 317864825

Presentation:

After reading geography at Hull University (BA) and the London School of Economics (MSc) during the 1980s, I crossed the North Sea to complete a PhD thesis on Schumpeter and theories of innovation at the Department of Technology and Social Change, Linköping University in 1993. Thereafter, I headed south working for a brief period at the Unit of Technology Assessment at the Danish Technical University before becoming a Research Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Copenhagen University. I returned to Sweden in 2001, to join the Section for Science and Technology Studies at Gothenburg University before gaining a lectureship in sociology in 2003.

Profile: Sociology of Science and Technology, Environmental Sociology, Innovation Studies, Public Communication of Science and Technology. Present position: Senior Lecturer in Sociology.
Research interests: Social and cultural studies of science and technology, the politics of innovation, public science and media representations of science, science and citizenship, stakeholder involvement in nuclear waste management.

Current Teaching
I co-ordinate two courses on the Masters Programme in Sociology and am responsible for the development of courses taught in English. I am also jointly responsible for programmes of international student and teacher exchange in the department.
I currently supervise two doctoral students engaged in thesis projects on open source software and hardware development and popular science heroes and movements.

Research Interests
In general, the sociology of science and technology; environmental sociology; the political sociology of risk and uncertainty; sociology of the biosciences; popular and public science.
Currently, I am concerned with the rise of new patterns environmental and biological citizenship connected with contemporary programmes for the government of nuclear waste, residential radon and nicotine addiction.
I am also an affiliated researcher, and member of the governing board, at the Learning and Media Technology Studio (LET Studio), Gothenburg University established at the beginning of 2010.

Current Research Projects
2010-2012 – Alternative States: The Swedish and British Affiliations with Second Wave
Tobacco Harm Reduction Compared and Contrasted (Funded by Swedish Research Council)
2009-2013 – Monitoring Developments for Safe Repository Operation and Staged Closure (Funded by European Commission/Euratom)

Recently Completed Research Projects
2009-2010 – Radon as an Object of Public Inquiry: Risk Communication as Public Learning and Understanding of Science (Funded by Swedish Radiation Safety Authority)
2006-2009 – Mediating Environmental Hazards, Inventing Environmental Politics (Funded by Formas)
2006-2009 – Arenas of Risk Governance in Nuclear Waste Management (Funded by European Commission/Euratom).

Recent Publications
Elam, Mark and Göran Sundqvist (2009) ’The Swedish KBS Project: A Last Word in
Nuclear Fuel Safety Prepares to Conquer the World?’, Journal of Risk Research 12(7-89): 969-988.
Sundqvist, Göran and Mark Elam (2009) ’Sociologin, hybriderna och den sociala
verkligheten’, Sociologisk forskning 46(2): 4-25.
Elam, Mark, Marie Lidberg, Linda Soneryd and Göran Sundqvist (2009) Demonstration and
Dialogue: Mediation in Swedish Nuclear Waste Management. SCORE Report Series. Stockholm: Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research.
Elam, Mark and Göran Sundqvist (2007) Stakeholder Involvement in Swedish Nuclear
Waste Management. SKI Report 2007: 02. Stockholm: Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate.
Elam, Mark (2005) ’When Scientists Meet Film-Makers: Inventing a Swedish
Approach to Public Engagement with Biotechnology’, Acta Sociologica 48(3): 237-251.
Elam, Mark (2004) ’Forskningskommunikation i kunskapssamhället - ett fält för
politiskt experimenterande’ in Anders Ekström (red.) Den Mediala Vetenskapen. Nora: Nya Doxa.
Elam, Mark and Margareta Bertilsson (2003) ’Consuming, Engaging and Confronting
Science: The Emerging Dimensions of Scientific Citizenship’, European Journal of Social Theory 6(2): 233-251.