Matthias Wienroth 
Matthias is exploring the disciplinarity of academia and its research via the example of nanoscale science and technologies. He has recently presented his work to academic staff and postgraduates, both within PEALS and Newcastle University and also externally at conferences such as the British Sociological Association Conference, the Newcastle Symposium Belonging: Citizenship, Difference and Inequality and the symposium on Nanobiotechnology and Nano-Medicine – Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects, at the Centrum für Bioethik, Münster, Germany.
Overview Abstract - year 3 – analysis/writing-up
Many analysts of science and technology postulate that the conduct of institutional knowledge
production, in academia and elsewhere, has undergone changes from relative liberty of research to
more focus on its legitimation and social sustainability since the middle of the twentieth century.
The relationships between science and society – between academia, industry, the public sector and
the wider publics – it appears, have experienced modifications with great impacts on what and why
certain research is pursued, how this is done and by whom. In a nutshell: how the nature of
knowledge production has changed. Nowotny et al describe this change as a transgression of
institutional boundaries in the context of “Mode 2 society” (2001), whilst Rip calls it the “coevolution”
of science and society (2002). Both analyses imply institutional changes in the way
knowledge is produced, a certain permeability or negligibility of institutional boundaries in research
practice. The aim of this Ph.D. project is to understand how these changes might have influenced
the disciplinarity of academia and its research. It is looking at the construction of both individual
research identities and the experiences with collaboration across disciplines in research. On the
example of nanoscale science and technologies (NST), the project explores the way scientists
perceive disciplinarity in the context of research in this field of new and emergent science and
technologies. Semi-structured qualitative interviews provide the data for the analysis, which rests on
an interpretative approach.