Lisa Sigl
Biographic Data
| ID | 2817678 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lisa Sigl |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lisa |
| FAMILY NAME | Sigl |
| SIGNATURE | SIGL L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Vienna |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9255-8420 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 27 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 11 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Towards a “Hinterland” for Doing Relevance. A Typology of Practices and Competencies to Guide the Development of more Relevant Research and Career Paths
Troubling diagnoses have been made about academic research cultures regarding their capacity to address social and environmental problems, challenging scholars in science and technology studies (STS) and related fields to consider the meanings of relevance, respective practices, and enabling conditions. This paper asks about practices by which research is aligned with reflections on the relevance of knowledge production, resulting in re-orientati…
Modes of Relevance in Research
In response to growing social, ecological and health-related challenges, scientists are increasingly expected to demonstrate the societal relevance of their work. This special issue critically examines the concept of “relevance” in scientific research, exploring how it is defined, enacted and contested across disciplines, institutions and collaborations. We propose a practice-oriented conceptualization of “doing relevance”, understanding it not a…
Orientation work
Relevant research in a longer-term perspective is not result of a one-point intervention and re-direction of research to address social-environmental problems. Rather, for a research field to stay relevant to social-environmental issues, researchers and their communities need to continually engage in what we conceptualise as orientation work. Contrary to the notion of an invisible hand governing science in self-organised ways, the notion of orien…
From ‘making lists’ to conducting ‘well-rounded’ studies
Soil microbial ecology is a relatively young research field that became established around the middle of the 20th century and has grown considerably since then. We analyze two epistemic re-orientations in the field, asking how possibilities for creating do-able problems within current conditions of research governance and researchers' collective sense-making about new, more desirable modes of research were intertwined in these developments. We sh…
Changing articulations of relevance in soil science
This paper traces how the self-understanding of soil science has changed in relation to ideas of societal relevance and academic legitimacy. While soil science was established as an academic discipline with strong links to agriculture, this link was largely lost around 1980. This led to a perceived crisis of the discipline, which has been followed by a long process of redefining its self-understanding. Building on document analysis and qualitativ…
“I am Primarily Paid for Publishing…”
Building on group discussions and interviews with life science researchers in Austria, this paper analyses the narratives that researchers use in describing what they feel responsible for, with a particular focus on how they perceive the societal responsibilities of their research. Our analysis shows that the core narratives used by the life scientists participating in this study continue to be informed by the linear model of innovation. This mak…
Subjectivity, governance, and changing conditions of knowledge production in the life sciences
Knowledge producers are ascribed a key role for societal development today, as they produce a key resource for knowledge-based societies. Even as the institutional, social, and cultural environments of research change (c.f. “evaluation society,” “academic capitalism”), we know surprisingly little about how this results in different research practices and knowledge. Building on experiences of studying research cultures in the life sciences, I argu…
Imagine RRI. A card-based method for reflecting on responsibility in life science research
Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has become a new buzzword in science policy, pointing to a shift in the role of research in contemporary societies. While on a discursive level responsibility is easily welcomed, implementing RRI in research practice appears challenging. RRI as an agent for change must compete with other forces shaping the current research system and its institutions, such as innovation orientation, competition and indica…
Anticipatory Uncertainty
The institutional contexts of research increasingly require researchers to anticipate their productivity and the uncertainties inherent in their research. This applies to both academic researchers and to researchers in start-up companies. This creates a specific kind of uncertainty, anticipatory uncertainty, that we define as the state of being uncertain as to whether research processes will be productive in a specific time frame and along situat…
Imaginaries of Invention Management
The ways in which societies and institutions institutionalize and practice invention management reflects not only how new ideas are valued, but also imaginaries about the role of science and technology for societal development. Often taking the US Bayh-Dole-Act as a model, many European states have recently implemented changes in how inventions at academic institutions are to be handled to optimize their societal impact. We analyze how these chan…
On the Tacit Governance of Research by Uncertainty
The experience of uncertainties in exploring the unknown-and dealing with them-is a key characteristic of what it means to be a life science researcher, but we have only started to understand how this characteristic shapes cultures of knowledge production, particularly in times when other-more social-uncertainties enter the field. Although the lab studies tradition has explored the workings of epistemic uncertainties, the range of potent uncertai…
On the Tacit Governance of Research by Uncertainty
The experience of uncertainties in exploring the unknown-and dealing with them-is a key characteristic of what it means to be a life science researcher, but we have only started to understand how this characteristic shapes cultures of knowledge production, particularly in times when other-more social-uncertainties enter the field. Although the lab studies tradition has explored the workings of epistemic uncertainties, the range of potent uncertai…
Anticipatory Uncertainty
The institutional contexts of research increasingly require researchers to anticipate their productivity and the uncertainties inherent in their research. This applies to both academic researchers and to researchers in start-up companies. This creates a specific kind of uncertainty, anticipatory uncertainty, that we define as the state of being uncertain as to whether research processes will be productive in a specific time frame and along situat…
Modes of Relevance in Research
In response to growing social, ecological and health-related challenges, scientists are increasingly expected to demonstrate the societal relevance of their work. This special issue critically examines the concept of “relevance” in scientific research, exploring how it is defined, enacted and contested across disciplines, institutions and collaborations. We propose a practice-oriented conceptualization of “doing relevance”, understanding it not a…
Towards a “Hinterland” for Doing Relevance. A Typology of Practices and Competencies to Guide the Development of more Relevant Research and Career Paths
Troubling diagnoses have been made about academic research cultures regarding their capacity to address social and environmental problems, challenging scholars in science and technology studies (STS) and related fields to consider the meanings of relevance, respective practices, and enabling conditions. This paper asks about practices by which research is aligned with reflections on the relevance of knowledge production, resulting in re-orientati…
Imaginaries of Invention Management
The ways in which societies and institutions institutionalize and practice invention management reflects not only how new ideas are valued, but also imaginaries about the role of science and technology for societal development. Often taking the US Bayh-Dole-Act as a model, many European states have recently implemented changes in how inventions at academic institutions are to be handled to optimize their societal impact. We analyze how these chan…
From ‘making lists’ to conducting ‘well-rounded’ studies
Soil microbial ecology is a relatively young research field that became established around the middle of the 20th century and has grown considerably since then. We analyze two epistemic re-orientations in the field, asking how possibilities for creating do-able problems within current conditions of research governance and researchers' collective sense-making about new, more desirable modes of research were intertwined in these developments. We sh…
On the Tacit Governance of Research by Uncertainty
The experience of uncertainties in exploring the unknown-and dealing with them-is a key characteristic of what it means to be a life science researcher, but we have only started to understand how this characteristic shapes cultures of knowledge production, particularly in times when other-more social-uncertainties enter the field. Although the lab studies tradition has explored the workings of epistemic uncertainties, the range of potent uncertai…
Imagine RRI. A card-based method for reflecting on responsibility in life science research
Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has become a new buzzword in science policy, pointing to a shift in the role of research in contemporary societies. While on a discursive level responsibility is easily welcomed, implementing RRI in research practice appears challenging. RRI as an agent for change must compete with other forces shaping the current research system and its institutions, such as innovation orientation, competition and indica…
Anticipatory Uncertainty
The institutional contexts of research increasingly require researchers to anticipate their productivity and the uncertainties inherent in their research. This applies to both academic researchers and to researchers in start-up companies. This creates a specific kind of uncertainty, anticipatory uncertainty, that we define as the state of being uncertain as to whether research processes will be productive in a specific time frame and along situat…
Imaginaries of Invention Management
The ways in which societies and institutions institutionalize and practice invention management reflects not only how new ideas are valued, but also imaginaries about the role of science and technology for societal development. Often taking the US Bayh-Dole-Act as a model, many European states have recently implemented changes in how inventions at academic institutions are to be handled to optimize their societal impact. We analyze how these chan…
Subjectivity, governance, and changing conditions of knowledge production in the life sciences
Knowledge producers are ascribed a key role for societal development today, as they produce a key resource for knowledge-based societies. Even as the institutional, social, and cultural environments of research change (c.f. “evaluation society,” “academic capitalism”), we know surprisingly little about how this results in different research practices and knowledge. Building on experiences of studying research cultures in the life sciences, I argu…
“I am Primarily Paid for Publishing…”
Building on group discussions and interviews with life science researchers in Austria, this paper analyses the narratives that researchers use in describing what they feel responsible for, with a particular focus on how they perceive the societal responsibilities of their research. Our analysis shows that the core narratives used by the life scientists participating in this study continue to be informed by the linear model of innovation. This mak…
From ‘making lists’ to conducting ‘well-rounded’ studies
Soil microbial ecology is a relatively young research field that became established around the middle of the 20th century and has grown considerably since then. We analyze two epistemic re-orientations in the field, asking how possibilities for creating do-able problems within current conditions of research governance and researchers' collective sense-making about new, more desirable modes of research were intertwined in these developments. We sh…
Changing articulations of relevance in soil science
This paper traces how the self-understanding of soil science has changed in relation to ideas of societal relevance and academic legitimacy. While soil science was established as an academic discipline with strong links to agriculture, this link was largely lost around 1980. This led to a perceived crisis of the discipline, which has been followed by a long process of redefining its self-understanding. Building on document analysis and qualitativ…
Towards a “Hinterland” for Doing Relevance. A Typology of Practices and Competencies to Guide the Development of more Relevant Research and Career Paths
Troubling diagnoses have been made about academic research cultures regarding their capacity to address social and environmental problems, challenging scholars in science and technology studies (STS) and related fields to consider the meanings of relevance, respective practices, and enabling conditions. This paper asks about practices by which research is aligned with reflections on the relevance of knowledge production, resulting in re-orientati…
Modes of Relevance in Research
In response to growing social, ecological and health-related challenges, scientists are increasingly expected to demonstrate the societal relevance of their work. This special issue critically examines the concept of “relevance” in scientific research, exploring how it is defined, enacted and contested across disciplines, institutions and collaborations. We propose a practice-oriented conceptualization of “doing relevance”, understanding it not a…
Orientation work
Relevant research in a longer-term perspective is not result of a one-point intervention and re-direction of research to address social-environmental problems. Rather, for a research field to stay relevant to social-environmental issues, researchers and their communities need to continually engage in what we conceptualise as orientation work. Contrary to the notion of an invisible hand governing science in self-organised ways, the notion of orien…
Sociology (11 works) · Political science (9 works) · Engineering (7 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Interdisciplinary Research and Collaboration (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Engineering ethics (5 works) · Public relations (5 works) · Psychology (4 works) · Relevance (law (4 works)