Co-leader of ISSP social software focus group writes on: World class universities

A couple of days ago Vincent F. Hendricks - who's co-leading the ISSP focus group on social software together with me - wrote an op ed piece in Dagbladet Information about the ways the politicians request for competition between Danish universities has had some bad effects.

As you read the piece is being translated into English so it can be part of the next ISSP newsletter which is coming out next week.

You may read Vincent F. Hendrick's piece in Danish here: http://www.information.dk/279790

ISSP News hits the 750 mark!

These are happy days!

The number of people receiving the ISSP news has just hit the 750 mark. This is a big achievement. But most importanly, it has happened while keeping an extremely low sign-off rate: 3% to date! Compared to other newsletter I know of this is an extremely low rate. Congratulations to all of us.

Richard Thaler's ISSP Lecture passes the 100 mark

With a bit more than one month to go until this year's ISSP Lecture presenting economist Richard Thaler we have now passed the first milestone: 100 people have signed up for the event which will take place at Metropol in Copenhagen October 21.

If that wasn't an achievement in itself, it turns out that those signed up fall equally in all the groups targeted by ISSP: academia, businesses, citizens organizations, policy-makers, journalists, and so on. I perceive this balance to be one of the most important ideals to aspire to as it is our declared aim to try to create the best conditions for a balanced and sound debate about developments in the ISSP focus areas.

But needless to say, 100 people is not where we stop. The coming week we'll be working hard to reach the 200 people mark by spreading the word primarily in academic circles.

If you want to help out, please write peha@sam.sdu.dk to get an electronic invitation targeted to your particular network.

N.Y. Food application has been handed in

Finally, after 9 months of hard work and coordination it happened! The N.Y. Food application for a Research Alliance financed by the strategic research council has been handed in. The Social Software ISSP focus group has played a key role in giving birth to the application, but especially The Danish Cancer Society and Aalborg University have been main actors in working the application through the final phase and getting it done. The other hardworking partners in the alliance are Metropolitan City University, Glostrup Hospital, Roskilde University, University of Southern Denmark, and MAPP-AU. Below you may read the summary of the research alliance applied for and then cross your fingers and wish us luck - we'll know in December.     

Summary:

The increasing prevalence of diet-related diseases and its subsequent health inequality in the population pose major societal challenges for the 21^st century. Evidence shows that current strategies for changing food behaviour are insufficient to counteract these challenges. It is crucial to develop and explore new strategies that make healthy choices easy choices. Nudging seems to be the most promising among such strategies. Nudging is an interdisciplinary public policy paradigm which aims to influence human decision making by changing psychological, social, and structural context cues, without forbidding any options or making alternatives more costly in terms of time, trouble, and social sanctions. This makes nudging an often inexpensive approach that potentially reaches everybody without requiring elaborate decision-making effort. A typical example of a health-promoting nudge intervention in foodscapes is making healthy foods the default option, and priming dietary norms and values, where foodscapes include both physical and social settings and their interactions in between. N.Y.FOOD aims to understand the potential and limitations of nudging in promoting healthy food choices among young people (15-25 yrs). N.Y.FOOD will establish and test which types of nudges are effective, ethically and publicly acceptable in the Danish foodscapes and society. This will be achieved through an interdisciplinary research alliance which develops methods for systematic construction and efficacy assessment of nudges, in cooperation with external partners who will help implement and embed nudges in society. N.Y.FOOD seeks to promote the health of youth and at the same time reduce social inequality in health. N.Y.FOOD will also contribute to an ethics and policy discussion of the use of nudging in public health nutrition promotion.


You can read much more about nudging at http://inudgeyou.blogspot.com/. If you want to know more about the application you are welcome to contact Pelle Guldborg Hansen at peha@sam.sdu.dk

Støy's piece has two prominent Danish researchers discuss the notion of Living Technology

Following Kasper Støy's piece on Living Technology two prominent Danish researchers took up the opportunity to discuss the notion of Living Technology.

Claus Emmeche, theoretical biologist, associate professor, and director of the center for the Philosophy of Nature and Science Studies at the Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen, opened up by playfully suggesting that one might consider dropping the notion of Living Technology all together.    

This soon had Steen Rasmussen, Head of the Center for Fundamental Living Technology (FLinT) which is located at the University of Southern Denmark, recall past discussions about how to name various movements and ideas in science. While Steen agrees that it is important to discuss a term like "Living Technology", he also concludes that to him the notion works well as a way of referring to technologies, which in different ways share features with living organisms.

To me, what is almost as interesting as the content of Claus and Steen's online discussion, is

• how it significantly raises the standard of the usual comments found on online sites, 
• gives the public a peek into the way researchers may disagree and tease each other, while still being gentlemen, and 
• how it tests a new way for scientists to engage with their field, other researchers and the public.

I hope to see more people adding to their discussion.

Kasper Støy's ISSP piece "Living Technology in Practice" now online at Videnskab.dk

The new collaboration with Videnskab.dk is going really well. With its wide audience Videnskab.dk is a great way to put focus on the ISSP focus areas.

This week Kasper Støy's piece on Living Technology in Practice published online at ISSP earlier this year went online at Videnskab.dk. You can see it here: http://videnskab.dk/teknologi/levende-teknologi-i-praksis.