Project: Urban infrastructure transformation from an STS perspective: Translating visions of Smart and Sustainable Cities.

Brief: Terms such as “Smart Cities”, “Smart Infrastructures” or “Eco-Cities” are increasingly employed to describe future visions of urban development and urban infrastructures and to design related policies or research programmes at national and European level. However, the question remains how such visions are actually translated into socio-material practices of infrastructural change. Do they give rise to new actor coalitions in cities? How are they used strategically by different actor groups? How do such ideas congeal into concrete projects of infrastructural change – at the level of technology, governance, institutions and practices? The aim of this PhD project is to explore these linkages and translation processes in a very small number of case studies of Swedish cities in a comparative perspective.

The PhD candidate should preferably have a background in sociology, political science, urban planning, or other social science disciplines. Existing expertise in science and technology studies would be of advantage. The candidate will be placed in the Technology and Social Change research unit, Department of Thematic Studies, Linköping University.

Application deadline: 08 April, 2013

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