IISI-EUSSET Lifetime Achievement Award 2024 to Ina Wagner.
Ina Wagner has made a rather exceptional transition from physics (she holds a PhD in nuclear physics) to anchoring her research in the area of CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work) and PD (Participatory Design) with a focus on the study of work practices and the design of supporting technologies. She was Professor and Head of the Institute for Technology Assessment and Design at Vienna University of Technology, where she has built up a unique interdisciplinary research group, until September 2011. She for many years had an Adjunct Professor (20%) position at the University of Oslo. She currently holds a visiting position at the Department of Business Informatics at the University of Siegen.
Ina was among the first to bring health care to the attention of CSCW research, with a monograph ‘Das computerisierte Krankenhaus’ (1991), followed by a series of projects and peer reviewed journal papers on nursing and computer technologies; on time planning in a surgical clinic; on the introduction of PACS in radiology, and on the variations of work practices and artifacts in several oncology clinics. She has made salient contributions to the understanding of architectural practice, based on many years of fieldwork. She also carried out ethnographic studies of software development and of product development in the car industry. Much of her research has been embedded in the context of EU-funded technology development projects. This allowed her to immerse herself in experimental, creative, and participatory design practices.
In collaboration with Kjeld Schmidt, Ina has contributed to an understanding of coordinative practices and artifacts in modern work setting, based on findings from ethnographic and similar in-depth workplace studies. She also brings a focus of gender to CSCW research. Based on observational studies of women’s work it adopts a feminist/intersectional perspective on design. Moreover, Ina engaged early on in analyzing ethical and political aspects of ICT, 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).
Ina has published and co-authored numerous papers and a number of excellent books, most recently Future-proofing: Making Practice-Based IT Design Sustainable (2022) (with Carla Simone, Claudia Müller, Anne Weiber, and Volker Wulf) and Gender and Technology at Work. From workplace studies to social justice in design (2024) (with Ellen Balke, Anne Weiber, and Volker Wulf).
In 2011 Ina was awarded the Woman’s Prize of the City of Vienna and in 2012 the ‘Gabriele Possanner Staatspreis′. In 2019 she received the title ‘Ehrenbürgerin’ from Vienna University of Technology.
Read an interview with Ina, conducted on the occasion of her receiving the award.
