Research Infrastructures – sustainability dimensions and critical perspectives
ASG 2025
Large research infrastructures – for example ESS and MaxIV right here in Lund – are crucial for advanced research and thereby solving sustainability challenges facing humankind. But they also affect society in other ways.
Large research facilities are important in the search for solutions to questions critical to our future in medicine, environment, and energy provision. In parallel, however, facilities impact their enfolding environment and societies: They contribute to direct and indirect consequences for the environment, society and the economy. These can arise at local, national and/or global levels.
While it is broadly recognised that research infrastructures demand or lock-up significant land, energy and financial resources, they also have other side-effects.
This ASG aims to cast light on impacts in broader perspectives: How do research infrastructures change our view of research? Do they displace other research? How does society transform? Do large research infrastructures change perceptions of science inside and outside academia? How are the facilities used politically? Do they lock-in research directions (for too long time)? What is their role in science diplomacy and in spreading knowledge and democracy as defined by the Global North?