University of Oxford

Steve Woolgar

Expertise

• Science and technology studies.
• Governance and accountability relations.
• Mundane objects and ordinary technologies.
• The use of neurosciences in business and management.
• Provocation and intervention.
• Visualisation and evidence.Social theory. 

Overview

Steve Woolgar is Professor of Marketing and Head of the the Science and Technology Studies research group with the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. He is also Head of the Science and Technology Studies Academic Area in the School.

Before moving to Oxford in 2000, he was Professor of Sociology, Head of the Department of Human Sciences and Director of CRICT (Centre for Research into Innovation, Culture and Technology) at Brunel University. He took his BA (First Class Honours), MA and PhD from Emmanuel College, Cambridge University. He has since held Visiting Appointments at McGill University (Sociology '79-81), MIT (Program in Science Technology and Society, '83-84), Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines, Paris (Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation, '88-89) and UC San Diego (Sociology, '95-96). He is the winner of a Fulbright Scholarship, a Fulbright Senior Scholarship, and an ESRC Senior Research Fellowship. From 1997-2002 he was Director of the ESRC Programme Virtual Society? - the social science of electronic technologies a £3½ m venture comprising 22 research projects throughout the UK. In 2008 he was named winner of the J. D. Bernal Prize.

Steve has published widely in science and technology studies, social problems and social theory. His work has been translated into Chinese, Dutch, French, Greek, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish.

He has served on various European and UK government advisory bodies, including Foresight Panels and Ministerial Advisory Groups; as an advisor to the Research Councils of Denmark, Netherlands and Norway; and as Fellow of the Sunningdale Institute, the UK Cabinet Office think tank on Public Service Management. He has also been an advisor to the Research Councils of Denmark, Netherlands and Norway. He was a member of the HEFCE RAE Sociology Panel (1996 and 2001). He is a member of Council of Which? (the Consumer’s Association), and a Trustee of Auditory Verbal UK, the charity which enables speech and language in hearing impaired children.