ResIST

About ResIST

ResIST is a €1.3m 11 partner Specific Targeted Research Project, funded under Priority 7, (Citizens and Governance in a Knowledge-Based Society), European Commission Sixth Framework Programme. It runs from April 2006 until March 2009. You can download the ResIST mission statement here.

The ResIST partnership consists of Germany (ISI FhG, Karlsruhe), Malta (University of Malta), Mozambique (Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo) , the Netherlands (University of Amsterdam), Norway (NIFU-STEP, Oslo), Portugal (CES, University of Coimbra), South Africa (CREST, Stellenbosch University), Turkey (Ankara Branch of the Middle East Technical University), the United Kingdom (Universities of Oxford and Leeds) and the United States (Georgia Institute of Technology). The James Martin Institute at Oxford is the coordinating institution.

The starting point for ResIST is recent research which has established that S&T do not merely cause or alleviate inequality, but are more profoundly implicated in social relations of distribution and access.  The most pervasive and obdurate sources of social distribution are enshrined and entrenched in S&T systems.  ResIST’s stance is that whilst not all forms of inequality are bad, major inequalities are a significant cause of personal unhappiness, social injustice and political instability.  Because of this there is an obligation to examine the scope for more socially inclusive policies.

ResIST’s objective

ResIST’s objective is to understand processes that contribute to the increase in inequalities through the role of S&T, but also to understand processes that contribute to mitigate inequalities through S&T. The enhanced role of S&T in the global knowledge economy gives such understanding urgency since it raises the prospect of inequalities within and between countries being increased through the introduction of new technologies.  

Through its research ResIST will:

  • Analyze how global policy contexts for key S&T processes affect the distribution and redistribution of knowledge resources, and the scope for alternative framings (Work Package  1 – led by Susan Cozzens of Georgia Tech and Egil Kallerud of NIFU-STEP)
  • Identify the features of effective policies and programmes to build S&T human capital and institutional capacity in disadvantaged populations and places (Work Package 2 – led by Louise Ackers of Leeds and Johann Mouton of Stellenbosch )
  • Critically assess new initiatives to construct S&T priorities reflecting the needs of the disadvantaged, and review current constraints and future opportunities for their full realization (Work Package 3A – led by João Nunes of Coimbra)
  • Map structures of accountability in the distribution of technological risks, and propose effective accountability channels to protect the disadvantaged from such risks (Work Package 3B – led by Steve Woolgar of Oxford)
  • Model the impact of new research-based technologies on the poor through dynamics such as employment, lowering costs, and impact on public services (Work Package 4 – led by Susan Cozzens of Georgia Tech and Mark Knell of NIFU-STEP)
  • In a horizontal activity, involve policymaker and practitioner stakeholders in three representative world regions – in Europe, in Southern Africa and in the Caribbean and Latin America - in the process of developing and implementing options identified in the Project. In particular we will use the  insights developed in Work Packages 1-4 to test with stakeholders the opportunity to develop and apply tools to assess

  • S&T policy options to achieve wider social inclusiveness for developed and developing countries and

  • the possible distributional impacts of research programmes  (Work Package 0 led by Peter Healey of Oxford and Lídia Brito of Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo)