• • Undergraduate
  • Masters
  • PhD
• • Departments
  • People
  • Research
• • Leadership
  • Executive
  • SMEs
• • Alumni
  • Recruiters
  • Careers
• • About Us
  • News
  • Events

Staff Profiles

Home > Staff Profiles > Dr David Tyfield

Dr David Tyfield

Lecturer

Department

Sociology

Contact

Tel: +44 1524 5 94187
Email:

Current Teaching

In 2011/12 I am teaching the following courses:

- SOCL332 'The Chinese Century?'

- SOCL930 'Policy, publics and expertise' for the Masters programme in Science Studies

- SOCL324 'Global Media': two lectures on international political economy of global media; and the Chinese internet

- SOCL101: two lectures on Karl Polanyi and David Harvey

Research Interests

Background

Before starting my PhD, I studied Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Biology at Oxford and the Philosophy of Social Sciences at LSE. I also qualified as a solicitor, working in London and Brussels in various areas of corporate and commercial law, including intellectual property law and EU competition law. Bringing together these interests, I began my PhD in the Philosophy and Sociology of Science at Exeter in 2003. My research was based across two institutions: the Centre for Philosophy of the Social Sciences and the ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society (Egenis), the sister-centre of Lancaster's CESAGen.

My thesis was a multidisciplinary examination of the dramatic changes to the funding of science, especially the biosciences, that have occurred since 1980 including the growth of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in scientific research. This has been accompanied by a global strengthening of IPRs under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation's TRIPs agreement. By examining how TRIPs came to be signed, a theory for the (critical) realist examination of the economics of science is elaborated. This includes concerted attention to the role and importance of philosophical/ontological reflection in the development of social scientific theory. The project thus engages with work in the philosophy of science, science & technology studies, innovation economics, international relations (particularly regarding IPRs), critical theory and cultural political economy.

Current Research Activities

My current research develops my interests in the normative dimensions of the processes of knowledge production and their interaction with issues of global cultural political economy, especially regarding critical analysis of the emergence of a globalised "knowledge-based" economy, climate change and the rise of China.  I am particularly interested currently in issues regarding innovation, inequality and advanced liberalism.  This has two threads:

1) The Cultural Political Economy of Research & Innovation - following the argument of my new book, 'The Economics of Science - A Critical Realist Overview': based on a Lancaster Univeristy Early Career Small Grant.

2) Low-Carbon Socio-Technical Systems Transition in China, especially regarding automobility and agri-food.

I have also been PI for a Lancaster University Early Career Small Grant on 'Geoengineering and Socio-Technical Imaginaries', with lead researcher Dr Maia Galarraga and Dr Rebecca Ellis, Dr Alison Stone and Dr Bron Szerszynski.

From 2007-2010, I was the lead research on a project, jointly funded by the ESRC and the Advanced Institute of Management (AIM), titled: "China-EU Networks towards a Low Carbon Society" Professor John Urry (PI), Professor Brian Wynne and Dr James Wilsdon (Royal Society). For further details please see the project's website (above).

Current Editoral Work

I am the Book Reviews Editor for Science as Culture. For information on books available for review, see: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/staff/tyfield/SaCbookreviews.doc

Additional Information

Recent Publications

Books

Tyfield, D. (2012) The Economics of Science: A Critical Realist Overview (Vol.1) - Illustrations and Philosophical Preliminaries, Abingdon & New York: Routledge.  (Available in hardback and paperback: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415688796/)

Tyfield, D. (2012) The Economics of Science: A Critical Realist Overview (Vol.2) - Towards a Synthesis of Political Economy and Science & Technology Studies, Abingdon & New York: Routledge.  (Available in hardback and e-book):  http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415688734/)

Journal Articles, Chapters etc..

Birch, K and D. Tyfield (2012) 'Theorizing the bioeconomy: Biovalue, biocapital, bioeconomics or ... what?', Science, Technology & Human Values, http://sth.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/04/10/0162243912442398)

Tyfield. D. (2011) 'Food Systems Transition and Disruptive Low Carbon Innovation: Implications for a Food Security Research Agenda', Journal of Experimental Botany 62(11): 3701-6.

Tyfield, D. & J. Jin (eds)(2010) Journal of Knowledge-based Innovation in China 2(3), Special Issue on Low-Carbon Innovation in China.

Tyfield, D. & J. Jin (2010) 'Low-carbon disruptive innovation in China', Journal of Knowledge-based Innovation in China 2(3): 269-282.

Tyfield, D., J. Jin & T. Rooker (2010) Game-Changing China: Lessons from China about Disruptive Low Carbon Innovation, London: NESTA, available (in English and Chinese at): http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/reports/assets/features/game-changing_china

Tyfield, D. & J. Wilsdon (2010) 'Low Carbon China: the Role of International Collaboration' in S. Yao, B. Wu, D. Sutherland and S. Morgan, Sustainable Reform and Development in Post-Olympic China, London: Routledge. (Previous version available as Tyfield, D. & J. Wilsdon (2009) 'Low Carbon China: Disruptive Innovation and the Role of International Collaboration', China Policy Institute Discussion Paper 41, Nottingham University, available at: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/shared/shared_cpi/documents/discussion_papers/Discussion_41_Tyfield_Low_Carbon_China.pdf)

(2010) ' Neoliberalism, Intellectual Property and the Global Knowledge Economy' in K. Birch and V. Mykhenko (eds) The Rise and Fall of Neoliberalism, London: Zed.

Tyfield, D. & J. Urry (2009) 'Cosmopolitan China? Lessons from International Collaboration in Low-Carbon Innovation', British Journal of Sociology, 60(4): 793-812, reprinted and revised as (2010) 'Cosmopolitan China?' Sozial Welt, Special Issue on Second Modernity, Ulrich Beck (ed.).

Tyfield, D., Y.G. Zhu & J.H. Cao (2009) 'The Importance of the "International Collaboration Dividend" - the Case of China', Science & Public Policy, 36(9): 723-735.

(2009) 'A Surplus of 'Surplus'?' Science as Culture 18(4): 497-500.

(2009) "Raging at Imaginary Don Quixotes: Reply to Girard and Weintraub" Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, 2(1)

(2008) "Four Fallacies regarding the Current Crisis", Mimeo: available at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/staff/tyfield/4fallacies

(November 2008) "Collaboration not Confrontation: low carbon China and the role of international collaboration" China Britain Business Review: available at http://www.cbbc.org/the_review/features/3.html

(2008)"The Impossibility of Finitism: from SSK to ESK?" Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, 1(1)

(2008) "Enabling TRIPs: The Pharma-Biotech-University Patent Coalition" Review of International Political Economy, 15(4): 535-566. Text available at: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/staff/tyfield/TyfieldRIPE08 (and figures: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/staff/tyfield/tyfieldRIPE08figures)

Report on Presentation by David Tyfield to the Beijing Energy & Environment Roundtable, 29 October 2008, in Beijing Science & Technology Report (in Chinese): [link forthcoming] For a full report in English of this presentation, see: http://greenleapforward.com/2008/11/03/david-tyfield-on-international-collaboration-for-low-carbon-innovation-part-1-of-2/

Report on Presentation by David Tyfield to the Department of Science, Technology & Society, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 23 April 2008, in Science Times (in Chinese): http://www.sciencenet.cn/dz/dznews_photo.aspx?id=3653

(2007) "The Debate about Transcendental Arguments in Critial Realism", presentation to the seminar launch of Dictionary of Critical Realism, Institute of Education, London, 17 March 2007: available at http://criticalrealism.wikispaces.com/Critical+Realism+Media

(2006) "Philosophy and Green Economics: An Introduction", Green Economist.

• View All Profiles
• Browse Profiles by Department