Helga Nowotny is Professor emerita of Science and Technology Studies, ETH Zurich, and a founding member of the European Research Council. In 2007 she was elected ERC Vice President. From March 2010 until December 2013, she served as President of the ERC. Currently she is Chair of the ERA Council Forum Austria, member of the Austrian Council and Vice-President of the Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings. She is Nanyang Technological University Singapore Visiting Professor.
She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Columbia University, NY. and a doctorate in jurisprudence from the University of Vienna. She has held teaching and research positions at the Institute for Advanced Study, Vienna; King’s College, Cambridge; University of Bielefeld; Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin; Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris; Science Center for Social Sciences, Berlin; Collegium Budapest; Budapest. Before joining ETH Zurich, Professor Nowotny was Professor for Science and Technology Studies at the University of Vienna.
Helga Nowotny is Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and continues to serve on many international advisory boards in Austria and throughout Europe. Among her various honors and memberships, she is Member of the Steering Board of the Falling Walls Foundation, Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Complexity Science Hub Vienna, Chair of Advisory Board of The Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity Paris, Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the L’Institut d’études avancées de Paris and Member of the Strategic Research Advisory Board of the Austrian Institute of Technology.
Helga Nowotny has published widely in Science and Technology Studies, STS, and on social time. Throughout her professional career, Helga Nowotny has been engaged in science and innovation policy matters and continues to serve as advisor at national and EU level. From 2001 till 2005 she was Chair of the European Research Advisory Board, EURAB, advising the European Commission.
Helga Nowotny holds honorary doctorates from Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, the University of Lancaster, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, the University of Leuven, the University of Twente, the University of Bergen, and the University of Edinburgh.
Among other honors and awards: She was a recipient of the Dorothea-Schölzer-Medaille from the University of Göttingen. She was made a distinguished Affiliated Professor by the Technische Universität München. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; a Foreign Member of The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; is a Foreign Member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei; Foreign Member of the Accademia delle Scienze di Torino; a Foreign Member of the Royal Society of Science at Uppsala; a Member of the Academia Europaea; a Member of Acatech; and a Member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts. She is was the recipient of the Arthur Burkhardt Preis; winner of the Preis der Stadt Wien für Geisteswissenschaften; and recipient of the John Desmond Bernal Prize for Distinguished Contribution to the Field, International Society for the Study of Science.
Helga Nowotny has published more than 300 articles in scientific journals. Her latest book (in German) is Eigenzeit Revisited in Zeit der Algorithmen. Her previous books include The Cunning of Uncertainty (featured by the Financial Times on the list of the best books 2015); Naked Genes: Reinventing the Human in the Molecular Age (with Giuseppe Testa) (MIT Press, 2011); Insatiable Curiosity: Innovation in a Fragile Future (MIT Press, 2008); and Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation (ed.), (Berghahn, New York and London, 2006).
