Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities, University of Bergen

UiB SVT
Partner type

The interfaculty Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities teaches theory of science and ethics at all levels at the University of Bergen. Its research is interdisciplinary, combining philosophy and history of science, STS, science ethics/bioethics, risk and complexity theory.

Today the Centre has a staff of about thirty-five people, with research fellows, post-docs, and permanent academic and administrative personnel (the latter are part of the joint administration with The Centre for Women and Gender Research).

Specific fields of research are emerging and converging technologies, precautionary risk governance, Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), food, energy, security and climate change, ethics and integrity, focusing on governance aspects on the intersections of science, technology and governance.

Central in the approach within SVT is the concept of double competence: all our scholars are able to understand from the inside what is going on in the field they study and are philosophically informed about, and be able to critically reflect on and cope with, the epistemic and normative presuppositions of their own approach and their field of research. Given the wide background and experience in double competence based interdisciplinary research, research ethics and integrity, end-user engagement, and knowledge quality assessment, SVT brings unique expertise to the RECIPES consortium.

SVT has a key-role in WP1 (taking stock), WP2, both in developing the analytical framework for the case-studies and leading the case study on neonicotinoids, WP3, especially tools for ethical assessment and development of guidelines and has smaller contributions to the other WPs.

Work Packages
WP1, WP2, WP3 and WP4
Team Members
Jeroen van der Sluijs, Laura Drivdal, Matthias Kaiser, Madeleine Midtgaard