Visiting Professor

Mail: ina.wagner(at)tuwien.ac.at

Ina Wagner has made a rather exceptional transition from physics (she holds a PhD in nuclear physics) to anchoring her research in CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work) and PD (Participatory Design). At the University of Technology in Vienna she has built up a unique interdisciplinary research unit, bringing together expertise in sociology, ethnography, and computer science for the study of work practices and organisations, as well as the design of supporting technologies. She acted as Head of the Institute for Technology Assessment and Design until September 2011 when she retired. Until recently she held an Adjunct Professor (20%) position at the University of Oslo and she has an Associate Professor position at Sydney University of Technology.She is a leading European academic in the field of work and technology having made important contributions to understanding work practices in different domains. She has edited and written numerous books and authored over 160 papers on a variety of technology-related issues, amongst them computer-support of hospital work and of architectural design and planning, participatory design, a feminist perspective in science and technology, and ethical and political issues in systems design. She engaged early on in analysing ethical and political aspects of ICT, with a focus on medical technologies, as member of the ‘Forum Information Society’, European Commission (1996-1998), as member of the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies, European Commission (1998-2001), and as member of the National Austrian Bioethics Committee (since 2001). Gender has been another focus of her research. She has studied the work of women in nursing, architecture, the financial services, management, and the computing professions using ethnographic observation and biographical interviews as methods. She also demonstrated her engagement for the promotion of women in academia as Chair of the Equal Opportunity Commission, Austrian Ministry of Science, Research, and Culture (1995-97).

Much of Ina Wagner’s research within the last 15 years has been embedded in the context of EU-funded technology development projects. This allowed her to immerse herself in experimental, creative, and participatory practices, directed at bridging the social worlds of practitioners and those of engineers, with a focus on understanding use situations of technologies and their appropriation by practitioners.
In 2011 Ina Wagner was awarded the Woman’s Prize of the City of Vienna and in 2012 the ‘Gabriele Possanner Staatspreis 2011′.

• Bratteteig, Tone & Wagner, Ina (2014) Disentangling Participation: Power and Decision-Making in Participatory Design. Springer International.
• Bratteteig, Tone & Wagner, Ina (2013) Moving healthcare to the home: the work to make homecare work. Proceedings of ECSCW 2013, Paphos, Cyprus, Sep 20-25, Springer London, 141-160.
• Wagner, Ina (2011) Building urban narratives: collaborative site-seeing and envisioning in the MR Tent. Computer Supported Cooperative Work vol. 21, no. 1, 1-42.
• Balka, Ellen, Bjorn, Pernille & Wagner, Ina (2008) Steps Toward a Typology for Health Informatics. Proceedings of CSCW 2008, Nov 8-12, San Diego, USA, 515-524.
• Wagner, Ina & Birbaumer, Andrea (2007) Les Femmes cadres dans les entreprises. Travail, genre et sociétés vol. 17, 49-78.
• Schmidt, Kjeld & Wagner, Ina (2004) Ordering systems, Coordinative practices and artifacts in architectural design and planning. Computer Supported Cooperative Work vol. 13, no. 5-6, 349-408.