Research areas

Information Society and Changes in Work

The experience of the Work & Technology Research Centre concerns the diffusion process of information and communication technology (ICT) and the related changes in employment, work organisation, professional skills and industrial relations, at the national and European level. Nowadays, together with recent innovations in communication technology, new research topics are emerging: networking, flexible working, new work forms. Changes related to ICT nowadays concern the whole society and highlight the issue of social inclusion in the information society.

Current research topics are:

• Changes in work: flexible working, articulation between working time and other social times, organisational changes, atypical work forms, industrial relations, evolution of the social link at work.
• ICT professions: issues of quality of work, employment and training in ICT professions and gender disparities in ICT professions (European project WWW-ICT)
• Digital divide: inequalities in access and use of the Internet, exclusion and inclusion in the information society.
• Evolution of telework, for more than fifteen years through various publications.

In a transversal way, particular attention is paid to gender issues: in atypical work forms, in the articulation between working time and other social times, in ICT professions and in man/women relationships in ICT environments in general.

Among the research projects terminated during the last years, it is worthwhile to mention flexible work forms linked to ICT (European FLEXCOT projectand STOA study); new flexible work forms in printing and publishing; quality of work and gender issues in the information society. Other projects concerned the changes in workers' skills and competencies linked to advanced communication technology: telemediation in services, implementation of ERP systems; structuring trends in the evolution of clerical work.

Technology and Society - Innovation policies

Since 1992, the research centre publishes a quarterly newsletter on Technology and Society, entitled La Lettre EMERIT (in French only). This newsletter was launched though a programme of technology assessment activities, named EMERIT (Experiments of Mediation and Evaluation in Research, Innovation and Technology), supported by the Regional Ministry for Research and Technological Development from 1992 to 2004. These activities contribute to a more general objective of development of technology assessment in Europe. The relations between Technology and Society are a transversal issue in several research projects.

Several specific studies were carried out on innovation policies, notably:

• Technological innovation fostering sustainable development
• Innovation in services and the role of public authorities

The SPIRE project, concerning the implementation of the precautionary principle, particularly focuses on the process of expertise building in science and technology, and its consequences on decision making in the area of technological risks.

The Work & Technology Research Centre has taken part in European initiatives enhancing the co-operation between academic institutions and social organisations. Comparative studies were carried out on the interfaces between research and society, among others within the European VALUE programme (Interfaces for Innovation). This topic is also dealt with in the European project OPUS.

Environment and Sustainable Development

Research topics concern social and economic aspects of environmental policies and innovation strategies in this area. Recent research concerns Science and precaution in an interactive management of technological risks and Scientific support to a network of environmental advising for trade-unions (RISE). In the past, studies of impact assessment of environmental policies on employment were carried out, for instance in the water sector. Other studies concerned the methods of environmental assessment, among them ecobalances (see publications).