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Alan Ir­win

Professor

Emner
Offentlig forvaltning Organisation Innovation Teknologi Akademisk integritet Vidensarbejde Sociologi

Primary research areas

Sci­ence & Tech­no­logy Stud­ies (STS)
I work on many areas with­in STS, in­clud­ing cit­izen sci­ence, pub­lic en­gage­ment with sci­ence and sci­entif­ic gov­ernance.
Re­search and in­nov­a­tion policy
My re­search in­cludes com­par­at­ive stud­ies in sci­ence policy-mak­ing, es­pe­cially in a European and Chinese con­text. Na­tion­al in­nov­a­tion policy has also been a fo­cus of my work.
Re­search im­pact and rel­ev­ance
I study the re­la­tion­ship between re­search and so­ci­et­al im­pact: in­clud­ing the pub­lic value of so­cial sci­ence and busi­ness school re­search.

I ex­plore the re­la­tion­ship between techno-sci­ence and so­ci­et­al change

My main field is Science & Technology Studies (STS). My research covers research and innovation policy, scientific governance, citizen science and science-public relations. I chair the Royal Danish Academy of Science and Letters committee on science in society. Having served as dean in three universities in two countries, I have extensive experience of university management and leadership.  

I am a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, a Member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, an Honorary Fellow of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and a Distinguished Affiliated Professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). I have an honorary doctorate from the University of Gothenburg.  

From 2015 to 2018, I was the Vice-President of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Copenhagen Business School. Between 2007 and 2014, I  served as Dean of Research. I was the CBS Acting President during 2011.  

Publications

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24. november 2025

Post-Normal Science Communication?

Evidence of Third-Order Thinking Among Sustainability Scientists

Marianne Achiam

Alan Irwin, Professor

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28. september 2025

Videnskaben har brug for en ny samfundskontrakt

Alan Irwin, Professor

Susanne Ditlevsen

Thomas Sinkjær
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Recent research projects

Re-think­ing the im­pact of busi­ness school re­search

I am cur­rently writ­ing a book on the im­pact (or so­ci­et­al value) of re­search with­in the busi­ness school.

Stand­ard­iz­a­tion and dif­fer­ence with­in re­search sys­tems

I ex­plore stand­ard­isa­tion and flex­ible prac­tices in policy and or­gan­isa­tions, fol­low­ing a grant from In­de­pend­ent Re­search Fund Den­mark on ‘iso­morph­ic dif­fer­ence’."

Outside activities

CFA, Aar­hus Uni­ver­sity , 2024 - 2025