Anna Verena Eireiner is a research affiliate at the University of Cambridge. She holds a B.A. in Political Science and Public Administration and an M.A. in Science and Technology Studies, and a PhD in Sociology. In her research, she explores the governance of emerging technologies, DIY practices, and open science.
Verena’s PhD focused on the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) biology movement. DIY biology is a controversial grassroots movement around the pursuit of life sciences outside of a traditional academic, military or corporate laboratory setting. The qualitative, ethnographic project explores the social processes involved in the co-production of imaginaries and policy around DIY biology in the UK, Germany, and Canada. The goal of this project is to understand how each of these states envisions the DIY biology movement differently, bridging the tension between a controversial, globally networked DIY science movement, and political cultures, identities and socio-economic objectives. The project’s comparative perspective will provide important insights into the lack of generalizability of ideas about what constitutes innovation and the configuration between publics, DIY communities, and policymakers.
