Infrastructures

The Transform Cluster provides special research infrastructures under the Focus Area Nexus FA-X. These are experimental platforms designed to boost empirical reach and methodological capabilities with regard to the study of transformational technologies.

At the heart of FA-X sits the Socio-technical Co-expertise Platform of Excellence (SCOPE) – a unique tandem approach between social science and STEMM expertise that enables us to identify challenges posed by emerging transformational technologies, generate impulses for fundamental social science research, and provide input into the development of these.

FA-X activities are structured to follow TransforM’s central research question of what it would take to understand technology-related societal transformations and their economic, political, and cultural underpinnings ‘all the way through.’

The individual FA-X components reflect a temporal logic that interrogates transformational technologies pathways from early moments of technology development, through the stages when societies first experience transformational technologies, to wide-scale deployment and societal impact. To that end, the components are designed around three modes of interaction that we consider relevant for understanding, tracking and monitoring transformational technologies and their transformative pathways: (1) scouting and anticipating; (2) experimenting and embedding; and (3) responding and catalysing.

Can the emergence, diffusion, and decline of transformative technology be predicted and traced?

Monitoring and forecasting technology development remains a challenge despite great(er) data availability and recent advances in large-scale data analysis. Due to the complex and ever-changing environments in which technology emerges, predicting its development likely requires a multi-method, multi-stage approach. In light of this, questions remain about whether and how the emergence and decline of transformative technology can be traced using publicly available information sources and text-mining techniques, and what can be learned from the trends and paths observed across different and combined data sources.

To better understand the next up-and-coming technologies that will shape how we work and live in the future, the TTOY develops an approach to transformative technology monitoring. The infrastructure integrates the use of data from four angles that reflect different stages of technology emergence: (1) conference proceedings; (2) patents and journal publications; (3) company websites; and (4) organizational scouting practices. The idea behind this final angle is to examine how different organisations scan and screen technology trends, and how the outcomes of these practices compare with those of the three preceding quantitative angles.

Point of Contact:
Hanna Hottenrott, Dietmar Harhoff

Partners:
EPO, ISTARI.AI, UnternehmerTUM

How can we improve and build upon interfaces between society, policy, and the Munich innovation ecosystem?

The exchange between businesses and universities is crucial for social sciences working on transformation technologies, often developed and refined within corporate settings. By collaborating directly with startups and industrial partners, universities can ensure their research is grounded in practical, contemporary issues, enhancing the relevance and applicability of their findings. Such partnerships enable the co-creation of knowledge. In this context, TransforM researchers contribute to the ethical, social, and policy aspects of technological innovations, while gaining access to unique data and case studies that inform their research, facilitating the rapid translation of academic insights into actionable strategies for businesses and promoting more socially responsible and inclusive innovation.

SIX is a bi-directional interface between TransforM and real-life innovation ecosystems. It supports TransforM research by serving as a sensor for transformational technology developments within companies and their real-world problems, and by building on existing individual and institutional ties to leading tech companies such as Allianz, BMW, Google, MVG, SAP, or Siemens. SIX also provides research insights into a range of problems that help both researchers and companies address the social, political, ethical, and economic challenges posed by transformational technologies.

Ultimately, an active exchange interface helps bridge the gap between theoretical research and practical implementation, driving forward the development of transformation technologies in ways that are socially beneficial and ethically sound.  In this way, the work of SIX informs TransforM’s main research focus areas at the level of research questions and (company-related) data.

Point of Contact:
Holger Patzelt

Partners:
TUM Venture Labs; UnternehmerTUM; The Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt); Bayern Innovativ, DEEP Ecosystems, The Entrepreneurship Research Institute (ERI); The BMBF Future Cluster MCube, TUM Think Tank

How can researchers quickly and effectively respond to breakthroughs and shocks related to transformation technologies than enable better innovation?

Unforeseen breakthroughs or shocks in TT can occur on relatively short timescales, significantly altering societal, ethical, political, and legal landscapes. They are also often followed by ample controversy about ethical, social, political, and legal implications. While academic expertise would be highly useful in these contexts, it often arrives at too slow a pace, leaving an information void that lacks scientific rigor or expert perspectives.

RT2 is an innovative instrument for real-time societal impact analysis and swift policy responses that can help shape transformational technology development. The infrastructure provides an experimental research and translation unit that aims to respond to potentially transformative events quickly.  The goal of RT2 is to test and cultivate conditions under which the entire spectrum of the social science repertoire can be deployed in a quasi-real environment, while maintaining scientific rigour, to deliver actionable insights much faster than usual. RT2 complements the continued need for detailed, retrospective forensic analysis with experimental formats that develop real-time responses to unfolding developments.

Through innovative research formats that involve the other TransforM infrastructures, RT2 directs the combined research power and expertise of this cluster towards a selection of pressing issues, seeking to develop evidence and actionable insights within a highly condensed time frame (e.g., weeks) and empower relevant stakeholders with the means to respond to such events. It also feeds these insights into relevant communication and public engagement strategies.

Point of Contact:
Sebastian Pfotenhauer

How can we bring diverse societal matters of concern into the heart of technological development and governance? 

As three decades’ worth of public engagement research have shown, the development and governance of transformational technologies should systematically involve the people and organisations concerned by those transformational technologies, and often much earlier than is currently the case. Most of the formats and methods currently used in this space suffer from starting too late or ending too early as well as a lack of public and stakeholder diversity.

The PT-L is a research, engagement, and dissemination platform that will provide a continuous interface with citizens and policy-makers. PT-L pursues a co-creation approach that mobilises a decentralised network of diverse engagement places and formats that together make up the “public technology lab”. These spaces include interventions at different thematic sections of the Deutsches Museum (Europe’s largest museum of science), cooperation with existing TUM living labs across Munich on testing technologies in diverse socio-economic settings, and the TUM Think Tank as a policy interface – all of which are geared towards real-time responsiveness and research on emerging issues.

PT-L is also a site for research on, and testing of, new participatory and co-creative innovation methods, which will be embedded and implemented across TransforM’s social science and socio-technical tandem projects. In this way, it forms an integral part of the TransforM public engagement and communication strategy and is a platform for public events and targeted workshops that lead to strategic inputs for specific stakeholders.

Point of Contact:
Jörg Niewöhner

Partners:
Deutsches Museum; TUM Think Tank

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