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TransforM hosts Roundtable with Martha Minow on Justice and Transformative Technologies

On the 28th of April, TransforM, alongside the TUM Think Tank and Hochschule für Politik, hosted a special roundtable with distinguished guest Martha Minow. Prof. Minow holds the 300th Anniversary University Professorship at Harvard University and is the 2025 recipient of the TUM Friedrich Schiedel Prize for Social Sciences and Technology for her exceptional and field-defining contributions at the intersection of law, social sciences, and technology. Known as a leading human rights scholar, as well as figure bringing scholarship to issues of identity, race and equality, the TransforM Cluster was delighted to get a chance to discuss the impacts of transformative technologies with her.

TransforM PI’s Silke Beck, Sabina Leonelli and Sebastian Pfotenhauer, along with Sandra Cortesi (TUM) and Christian Fieseler (BI Norwegian Business School) joined Prof. Minow on the roundtable to explore questions around technology, justice, and governance. Several rounds of discussion centered on:

Defining the current ecosystem in which technological transformation is taking place. The responses characterized this environment as a place where there are worrisome questions around legitimacy of social constructs, trust in research and academia, and increasing amount of (mis)information. The discussion considered where certain groups, such as youth or those in rural areas, may experience these transformations differently or disproportionately.
Considering what participation means in highly technologized societies. This brought up questions of how can we create a “mindset” for real participation in communities? How can we experiment with what mechanisms that work well for inciting engagement? And how do we deal with the “fracturing of the enlightenment” that is underway as it relates to the role of transformative technologies and deliberative democracy?
Exploring how we can respond to these changes in a way that promotes inclusion and participation. What might we learn from history, or are we truly seeing a new phenomenon? How do we wrestle with the power inequities that exist between industrial actors and marginalized groups? And how do we responsibly and innovatively experiment with what governance mechanisms may work best (and under what conditions)?

Supported by an engaged audience, the roundtable discussion touched on various examples of approaches that have been implemented to answer some of these question, as well as the research underway at TransforM and beyond to advance social science for highly technologized societies to better understand and shape the transformative power of technology.

We thank the roundtable members for their insights, TransforM Managing Director, Caitlin Corrigan, for moderating, and the TUM Think Tank and TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology for co-hosting the event.