LISIS
image description
image description

Philippe Brunet

Academic Researcher at the UGE

Research areas:

Keywords: Scientific work (organizations, institutions, productions) and innovation; science-industry relations (biotechnology, STIC); ethics in science; the production, circulation, and challenging of knowledge; the environment and nuclear risks (expertise, knowledge, collective citizen involvement).

This research analyses contemporary society and how it evolves in relation to industry, particularly the biotechnology industry. The approach involves developing an understanding of the actual scientific work process, within more global relations of social production.

Ethics as a part of and applicable to scientific work takes the form of constraints that require a large amount of research. Understanding how ethics – seen as a new regime of normativity – imposes itself on science requires us to observe how science embraces these constraints as well as looking at the ethicization of science as a bureaucratic process.

Environmental issues trigger social confrontation, which is often intermediated by scientific expertise. Forms of mobilization in which a multitude of actors face off against one another, and the outcomes of this in terms of knowledge and public decision-making, can be understood only at the interface of high-risk situations. In this case, the specific field of sociological observation is former uranium mines in France.

Selected bibliography:

  • 2015, “Enjeux et approche de la rationalisation du travail dans la science contemporaine : Le cas de la ‘preuve de concept’ dans le domaine biomédical”, Les mondes du travail, No. 15.
  • 2013, with Guespin, J. and Jacq, A. (eds), La science pour qui ?, Paris, Éditions Le Croquant.
  • 2012, with Dubois, M., “Émergence et régulation sociale de la recherche sur les cellules souches embryonnaires humaines en France”, Revue Française de Sociologie.
  • 2008, “De l’usage raisonné de la notion de ‘concernement’ : mobilisations locales à propos de l’industrie nucléaire”, Natures Sciences et Sociétés, 16, pp. 317-325.
  • 2004, La nature dans tous ses états : Uranium, nucléaire et radioactivité en Limousin, Limoges, Presses Universitaires de Limoges, 353 pages.

Teaching activities:

  •  “Approche de la sociologie” course for Bachelor’s degree in sociology (L1)
  • “Mémoire” course for Bachelor’s degree in Sociology (L3)
  • “Enjeux des sciences et des technologies” course for Bachelor’s degree in sociology (L3)

Responsibilities:

  • Deputy Director of LISIS
  • Member of the RT 29 office of the Association Française de Sociologie
  • Member of the Conseil Scientifique des Programmes of the Centre d’Alembert, Université de Paris XI-Orsay
  • Member of the review committee of the journal Nouvelle Revue du Travail
  • ANRT expert appointed to CIFRE thesis projects
  • Provider of expertise services to the AERES
  • Provider of expertise services to the ANR (CESA programme 2011)
  • Reviewer for the journals Temporalités and Revue d’Études en Agriculture et Environnement.