Public Trust, Deliberative Engagement and Health Data Projects: Beyond Legal Provisions

Categories: journal article

Title: Public Trust, Deliberative Engagement and Health Data Projects: Beyond Legal Provisions Authors: Nishtha Bharti, Cian O’Donovan, Melanie Smallman, James Wilson Journal: Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Abstract In England, a new scheme for collating and sharing General Practice data has faced resistance from various quarters and has been deferred repeatedly. While insufficient communication and … Read More

The politics of robotics research

Categories: journal article

Title: What is robotics made of? The interdisciplinary politics of robotics research Authors: Ola Michalec, Cian O’Donovan and Mehdi Sobhani Journal: Humanities & Social Sciences Communications Download full paper: nature.com/articles/s41599-021-00737-6 Abstract: Under framings of grand challenges, robotics has been proposed as a solution to a wide range of societal issues such as road safety, ageing … Read More

Technology and Human Capabilities in UK Makerspaces

Categories: journal article

Title: Technology and Human Capabilities in UK Makerspaces Authors: Cian O’Donovan and Adrian Smith Download full paper: 10.1080/19452829.2019.1704706 Abstract: The relationship between technology and human capabilities is an ambivalent one. The same technology can expand capabilities for some users under certain circumstances, whilst diminishing capabilities for others situated differently. In this paper we analyse human … Read More

Call for Papers: Colonial Relations in Modern Techno-Securitisation

Categories: special issue

Saurabh Arora, Les Levidow, Andy Stirling and myself have just released the following call for papers for a special issue we’re editing in Science as Culture. Full papers due April 30th 2025. Get in touch if you want to submit something and have questions. Colonial Relations in Modern Techno-Securitisation Summary ‘Security’ has become an increasingly … Read More

Shaping Human-Robot-Public Interaction in a Smart City Robot Competition

Categories: book chapter

Carlos Cuevas-Garcia and myself have a chapter in Florian Muhle and Indra Bock’s book: Communicative AI in (Inter-)Action. It’s about what happened when Carlos and myself spent a week watching a ‘smart city robot comptition’ take place in Milton Keynes’ biggest mall. Abstract This chapter presents a situational analysis of SciRoc, the first ever “Smart … Read More

Critical fitting: pedagogy for confronting colonial dynamics in fashion

Categories: working paper

Authors Olivia Hegarty, Cian O’Donovan, Sara Chong Kwan, Luke Stevens Abstract Critical Fitting is a new method devised to decolonise design teaching in fashion schools. With participants at London College of Fashion we workshopped a core concept in clothing design: fit. The standardisation and simplification of fit is critical to fashion’s ability to sell, ship … Read More

Keynote: Cyber-physical summer school 2024

Categories: presentation slides

First Summer School in Cyber Physical Health and Assistive Robotics Theme: Connecting Assistive Solutions to AspirationsDate: Wednesday 4th September 2024 – Friday 6th September 2024Location: School of Computer Science, Jubilee Campus, University of NottinghamEvent website: https://www.emergencerobotics.net/events-and-network-activities/summer-school-2024 Click to download PDF.

EASST 4S 2024: Unmaking / undoing colonial modernities

Categories: workshop

A workshop session run at the EASST / 4S conference 2024 With Saurabh Arora and Olivia Hegarty This combined-format open-panel focuses on hegemonic formations of colonial modernity in relation to transformations. Going beyond Eurocentric concepts like capitalism and economic growth, we situate scientism and innovation, climate and migration crises, food insecurities and health inequities as … Read More

Book: Governance, democracy and ethics in crisis-decision-making

Categories: book chapter

I have two chapters in Governance, democracy and ethics in crisis-decision-making, the 2024 Manchester University Press book edited by the amazing Caroline Redhead and Melanie Smallman. The work comes from our collaborative pandemic project, The UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator. Chapter 3: Evaluating post-pandemic plans for social care data infrastructuresBy: Cian O’Donovan Chapter 4: Data ethics … Read More

Teaching: The Sociology and Politics of the Digital Age

Categories: teaching

This is a module I created and taught for the first time in the 2023-24 academic year at UCL’s Science and Technology Studies department. It was available as a year three undergraduate modle on the STS Sociology and Politics of Science BSc and as an elective module on the UCL STS Science, Technology and Society … Read More