Profile

Created almost thirty years ago in 1967, the CSI has shifted its research interests several times. Beginning with the organisation of high-tech industries, and then moving on to the sociology of science, law and the media, it has redefined its own topics as a result of its earlier studies and also because of its unique assets: the training of its staff in both social and natural sciences, the close link with industry and, thirdly, the large weight given to contract research with specific clients, a powerful incentive often lacking in a purely academic environment. The shifts in research interests have resulted in four relatively autonomous areas:

But these four areas are in fact criss-crossed by questions of method and theory that are shared by all members of the Centre and that constitute most of its original contribution to the social sciences. Without abandoning its traditional areas of excellence, the Centre has explored new fields at the border-line between disciplines where the organisation of the market is clearly being redefined: environment, service industries, laws and standards, health, food and tastes.

These new topics are studied according to new questions common to the Centre as a whole:

In recent years, the Centre has been moving to new themes. It tries to capitalise on the earlier work by writing textbooks, setting up training courses and producing readers of topical material; this will be done in socio-economics of innovation, science policy and the anthropology of science. On the more theoretical front, the effort will be to redefine the ``actor-network theory'' which played an important role in science studies, and is now used also to differentiate modes of co-ordination, or regimes of mediations.

As regards internal organisation, the CSI is redefining the role of its junior staff to give it more responsibility and leeway.

More generally, the shift toward the analysis of service activities, intermediaries and associations will be expanded and deepened. These areas are excellent focal points for visualising the unfolding of the new forms of organisation of markets that seemed to be moving away from the supply of products and technical networks into a different regime where usage and services are supplied as global and integrated packages. The emphasis will be put on how economic agents codify and standardise the description of their services, the work done on defining the demand, the ways through which the future user is represented and how the many adjustments between supply and demand are carried over.