Science, Technology and Society

Technology Management and Economics

President

Chalmers University of Technology

palmas

My research interrogates four themes:- The relation between the things we build and the things we think: How do technological designs interrelate with social imaginaries?- The designification of economic life: How are economies and organizations reshaped by ideas and practices sourced from the world of design?- The challenges of co-design: What problems emerge in the participatory processes that are emblematic for contemporary design and technological development?- The political in the economy: How are the tensions between the political and the economic, between the personal and the professional, between "passions" and "interests", negotiated in contemporary economic life?I have published academic articles in design sociology and design theory (in journals such as CoDesign, Design and Culture, the Design Journal, She Ji, and the Swedish Design Research Journal), economic sociology and organisation theory (in journals such as Culture and Organization, Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Journal of Cultural Economy, Journal of Enterprising Communities, and Social Enterprise Journal), as well as the sociology of technology (in journals such as Engineering Studies, Futures, NanoEthics, Science as Culture, Surveillance &amp; Society, and Technological Forecasting and Social Change).My most recent English-language monograph is <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Corruption-of-Co-Design-Political-and-Social-Conflicts-in-Participatory/Busch-Palmas/p/book/9781032250014">The Corruption of Co-Design: Political and Social Conflicts in Participatory Design Thinking</a> (2023, co-authored with Otto von Busch). With photographer Kalle Sanner, I have produced two research-based essay films: Too Late for History to End (2021) and Vår tids konst ["Art of our Time"]&nbsp;(2023). I also write essays for cultural journals, some of which have been republished in English by <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.eurozine.com/authors/karl-palmas/">Eurozine</a>.

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I am the examiner for "Technology and Society" (TEK226), which trains the judgement of engineering students by studying classics in social thought.I have acted as main supervisor for three doctoral research projects:<ul><li> Nicholas Surber (2025) <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/546194">Too Enabling to Fail: Tracing Sub-politics Across Tensions Between Nanosafety and Innovation</a></li><li> Stefan Molnar (2024) <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/542753">Matters of Worth: Practices, Actors and Objects of Valuation in the Design of Urban Space</a></li><li> Kristina Henricson Briggs (2016) <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/237892">Travels of Business Incubators: Exploring Entrepreneurship Support from an Embeddedness Perspective in Uganda and Tanzania</a></li></ul>

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Karl Palmås

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