Not A Space Race is a 2-year project in the School of Engineering, Trinity College Dublin funded by the Science Foundation Ireland CONNECT Centre platform. The principal investigator of the project is Dr Harun Šiljak, and the collaborators on the project are Dr Fiona McDermott (TCD), Dr Tom O’Dea (NCAD) and Prof David Malone (Maynooth University). We are currently in the process of hiring a postdoctoral research fellow for the project (24 month contract).
Required Qualifications: 1) PhD degree in engineering, STS, policy, media studies, physics, philosophy, or other relevant field, and 2) transdisciplinary/interdisciplinary research experience. Preferred Qualifications: 1) Solid publication track, and 2) experience with novel methodologies in science, technology, and society.
The successful candidate will be a part of CONNECT Centre’s group on Network Ecologies and Trinity’s School of Engineering. The candidate will join the Trinity Quantum Alliance network, as well as the CoQREATE collaboration. Starting date: between November 2024 and January 2025.
For interested candidates, please send Harun (harun dot siljak at tcd dot ie) a CV, motivation letter, and contact details of 2 referees (including email addresses). Please use “Postdoc Application + Name” in the email’s subject line. Please read the project description below for more details, and feel free to send in any informal enquiries to the same email address.
Deadline for applications: end of September 2024.
PhD students close to completion are welcome to apply as long as they defend before the end of 2024.
About the project. Quantum technology is rapidly entering the policy and strategy space around the world: few months ago, we saw the publication of Quantum 2030 – A national quantum technologies strategy for Ireland. Other developed countries have published their national strategies as well, and while creating a vision for a novel technology theoretically allows for not repeating the same policy mistakes, does a paradigm change actually happen? In this project, we study the perception of quantum technologies (the “quantum language”) in Ireland and abroad among the important stakeholders: the quantum language of policy and strategy, the quantum language of the popular media, and the quantum language of the industry and research. This will be used to shape interventions into the emerging quantum policy and strategy in Ireland, with the potential to influence similar processes around the world. In particular, we plan to engage critically with quantum technology (namely communications and computing) infrastructure and policy in Ireland and abroad through the lens of Jacques Rancière’s concept of disagreement.
Not A Space Race 