Massimiano Bucchi


Massimiano Bucchi is an Italian sociologist, writer and a scholar of the relationships among science, technology and society.

Biography

After graduating in sociology at the University of Trento, Italy, he pursued his studies in the United Kingdom at Sussex University and in the United States at University of Wisconsin and University of California Berkeley, receiving a doctorate in Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute. Since 2005 he has been associate professor of Science, Technology and Society at the Faculty of Sociology, University of Trento, where since 2007 he also coordinated an interdisciplinary programme of seminars and research on the same topic.
His research interests concern the communication of science and the interaction between scientific experts and the public; the perception and attitudes of citizens toward science and technology; historical-social changes in the relationships among science, technology and society; the challenges and dilemmas that characterize science and technology in contemporary democracies.
He is a member of the international scientific committee on Public Communication of Science and Technology and he curated the program of the XII World Conference. He has been a member of the Italian Council for the Social Sciences, of consultation and evaluation committees for international institutions, among them the National Science Foundation, the Royal Society and the European Commission, DG Research.
He has conducted research and held seminars at numerous universities and research institutions. He sits on the scientific committee of the non-profit research centre "Observa Science in Society", for which he has conceived and edited from 2005 the Science in Society Yearbook, published since 2009 by Il Mulino. He has published in numerous international scientific journals, among them Nature, Science, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, New Genetics and Society, and Public Understanding of Science. He regularly contributes to the TuttoScienzeTecnologia and Nòva24 supplements to La Stampa and Sole 24 Ore respectively. His articles and interviews have been published and broadcast by the media of various countries, among them China, South Korea, Croatia, Belgium, Japan, Poland, Spain, Sweden, United States.
From 2016 he is the editor of the international peer reviewed journal Public Understanding of Science, published by Sage.

Awards

Massimiano Bucchi has received numerous awards for his research: among them the Rai "G.Mencucci" Prize for research on mass communications, the "N. Mullins" international prize of the Society for Social Studies of Science for the best essay in sociology of science and the Lelli Prize for the best doctorate thesis in sociology. His book Scegliere il mondo che vogliamo. Cittadini, politica, tecnoscienza received special mention from the jury for the Merck-Serono prize. The book Scientisti e antiscientisti: perché scienza e società non si capiscono received the Premio Calabria 2011 in the section of books about science. His book Il Pollo di Newton received the international award "Biblioteca la Vigna" 2014.

Works