Knowledge Society: Science, Education, and Innovations

The Department incorporates the intellectual potential and scholarly traditions of the following departments: Knowledge Society at the former Institute of Sociology – BAS, Science and Innovation Policy Research and Scientific Potential and Scientometrics at the former Centre for Science Studies and History of Science – BAS. Included in the new Department is a Group working specifically in the field of Sociology of Technologies. The members of the Department conduct theoretical and empirical sociological and scientometric studies.

The main research areas covered by the Department and the Group are:

Transformation of scientific rationality in a globalizing society; paradigm changes in the sociological study of science and education; the epistemological shift in the period of ‘late modernity’ and the evolution of social order; the building of a ‘knowledge society’ and the changing relations between science and the public under the new conditions;
Sociology of education; Bulgarian science and Bulgarian educational institutions in the process of social modernization and the country’s affiliation to the European Union; the growing social pressure for lifelong education; the processes of integration of universal ethical standards into science policy;
Evolving models of scientific creativity, self-identity and specialization of science in the process of globalization;
Disciplinary construction of sociology, sociology of science; sociology and economics of technological innovation in the socialist and post-socialist societies; science and technology policy and management of technological change; ethnographic study of heterogeneous communities in science and technology;
The varying profile of social conflicts in the present day and the new strategies of overcoming the incompatibility of cognitive interpretations on the part of opposed social actors;
Educational inequalities, effectiveness of public policies in guaranteeing people of different social background an equal access to high-quality education; the interdependence between a person’s social background and gender and his/her opportunities of getting an education, attaining a high living standards and receiving high income;
Processes of production, dissemination and transfer of scientific and technological results and the transformation of the organizations in a knowledge-based society;
Organization and management of science;
Research and modeling of the development of science;
Rating scientific research and organizations, including scientometric methods;
Evolution of the scientific, educational and innovatory systems, and of the policies relating to them;
Influence of contemporary trends of internationalization and globalization on scientific research, educational systems and innovatory processes, and their effect on the quality of work and life;
Human, material and informational resources of science and education.