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Techno-Anthropology

Master degree

Techno-Anthropology

The programme offers you a unique opportunity to develop your knowledge, skills and competences in working with technology across a wide range of activities such as technology assessment, technology innovation, technology-driven change, technology use and technology ethics.

Reasons you should choose this programme

You create responsible technological innovation
You work interdisciplinary
You build bridge between humans and technology

Aalborg

2-year educationEnglish

Master degree

Techno-Anthropology

The programme offers you a unique opportunity to develop your knowledge, skills and competences in working with technology across a wide range of activities such as technology assessment, technology innovation, technology-driven change, technology use and technology ethics.

Reasons you should choose this programme

You create responsible technological innovation
You work interdisciplinary
You build bridge between humans and technology

Aalborg

2-year educationEnglish

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Techno-Anthropology: Master's programme

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Techno-Anthropology: Master's programme

Free e-course: is this programme your match?

Do you want to take part in creating a responsible future with technology?

There is a lot of knowledge about human beings and how we interact with each other. But we are lacking knowledge of our interaction with technology - and how humans and technology mutually affect each other. As a Techno-Anthropologist, you will take part in creating this knowledge - thereby ensuring a future with responsible use of technology.

This study programme is for students with a bachelor degree in Techno-Antropology, in engineering or social sciences or a professional bachelor's degree within health science, e.g. nurses, midwives etc.

Learn to navigate complex socio-technical problems

The M.Sc. in Techno-Anthropology offers you a unique opportunity to develop your knowledge, skills and competences in working with technology across a wide range of activities such as technology assessment, technology innovation, technology-driven change, technology use and technology ethics.  

During this Master’s programme, you will learn to:  

  • apply Techno-Anthropological methods to gain insights into digitalization's key processes
  • identify drivers and barriers for responsible and sustainable digital innovation
  • apply socio-technical theories to analyse emergent and controversial digital problems
  • plan, facilitate and organise digital innovation and change processes
  • facilitate multi-stakeholders’ participation in digital innovation
  • perform ethical assessments in socio-technical configurations
  • develop digital method skills to map and visualise online debates 

During the studies in Techno-Anthropology, you combine in-depth studies of technological innovation and change with anthropological approaches. This provides you with competencies in analysing, facilitating, and assessing innovation of emerging technology at various levels from human-technological interaction, to institutional levels, societal- and global understandings of how technology shapes and is shaped in our world. 

Why Techno-Anthropology?

Modern organisations are focused on solving problems and producing new interdisciplinary knowledge. Technology plays an essential role in the challenges they face, e.g. robust institutional digitalisation efforts which require a synthesis of knowledge from different disciplines (i.e., user experience, information technology, ethics, management). 

Such complex problems should not be examined from neither a purely technical nor a social scientific point of view, but from a balanced approach taking into account different perspectives. Techno-Anthropology is a programme that offers different perspectives and approaches towards responsible technological innovation and change.  

As a Techno-Anthropologist, you can be a mediator, a facilitator, an evaluator, or a change agent in organizations lacking this expertise. 

Techno-Anthropologists are focused on managing and solving complex socio-technical problems with multiple stakeholders from private, public and civil organisations in different professional areas, such as: 

  • information technology
  • e-health and welfare 
  • user participation
  • sustainability 

As you work in groups during the programme, you learn and experience:   

  • cutting-edge technologies
  • interdisciplinary knowledge production
  • participatory technological innovation
  • technical expert cultures
  • responsible research and technological innovation
  • collaboration, facilitation and project management skills
  • digital ethnographic methods 

Academic content and semester descriptions

Traineeship - Study abroad

The entire programme is organised in close collaboration with external public, and private, and community organisations, in the form of project work, cases, fieldwork, guest lecturers from abroad, and visits at and from companies and institutions. 

During your 3rd semester, you can choose between:  

  • An internship in a company in Denmark or abroad
  • A semester abroad with one of our partner universities

Internship / Project oriented study in an external organisation

Choosing an internship will allow you to try out your competences in practice. You gain hands-on experience during your studies, and you get a head start of building your resume. We recommend a 30 hour work week in the internship company allowing you time to write your semester report as well. 

Semester abroad

During the 3rd semester of the programme, you can enroll in complementary courses with our partner universities abroad. These partnerships are created with a focus on professional development and are meant to enrich your academic and professional knowledge, skills and competences. For your semester project, you will be able for instance, to travel abroad and join a transdisciplinary team focused on a topic of your interest. Your contribution will be mainly in applying your knowledge acquired in the first year. 

In Techno-Anthropology, we are collaborating with the following Master’s programmes, where we have student exchanges:

University of Twente, the Netherlands

If you want to specialise in philosophy of science, you can study:

Istanbul Technological University, Turkey

If you want to specialise in science and technology, you can study:

  • Master in Science, Technology, and Society

Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands

If you want to specialise in responsible innovation, you can study:

At 3. semester you have the possibility to do projects abroad in countries where we have partners, such as Bolivia, China, Colombia and México and take exams at AAU in Denmark the end of the semester.

Career as a Techno-Anthropologist

Waste water and cloudbursts

I work at Hofor in the project department "Wastewater and cloudburst" as a project manager. I am responsible for planning and carrying out major wastewater and cloudburst projects. Seeing the world through the eyes of the anthropologist makes me a strong project manager, because the success of a project often depends on the various and important contributions of the project participants.

Marlene, techno-anthropologist

Clinical IT consultant in the health sector

I work as a clinical IT consultant in the Danish Capital Region. During the Corona crisis, I worked with the test centers. They use a different IT system, which we had to assist in getting ready. I helped the test tents getting started with their IT systems and optimizing their work flow so that they can actually get a citizen through every 3-5. minute.
In that way, there is no queue. It has been very exciting as well as challenging, but I have succeeded in investigating who the users are, and what their needs entail.

Jeannette, techno-anthropology

Digitalisering og IT

Jeg arbejder hos Digitalisering og IT i Region Nordjylland. Jeg sidder i afdelingen for IT-Forvaltning, Drift og Support, hvor jeg, som navnet antyder, forvalter regionens IT-systemer. Region Nordjylland benytter sig af over 700 IT-systemer eller services, som spænder alt fra kliniske IT-systemer med tusindvis af brugere (såsom vores EPJ), til interne systemer, som kun bruges af en håndfuld brugere.

Søren, teknoantropolog

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a hot topic in our modern society. However, there is still a rising need to acknowledge that technological development does not happen in an isolated vacuum, and that AI systems cannot be considered passive or neutral tools. They are complicated social interventions that require exactly the type of interdisciplinary, socio-technical, and participatory approaches, as well as engagements with moral discourses that are at the heart of Techno-Anthropology.

Helena, PhD student, Techno-Anthropologist

Job and career

I work at Copenhagen airport. I observe and analyse human behaviour in the airport every day and use my knowledge in order to improve passenger experiences.

Sana, Techno-Anthropology graduate

Techno-Anthropologists can find work in any organisation in need of user involvement, technology assessment or implementation, sustainability etc. However, the typical domains, where graduates find work are within health and welfare, IT or environment and sustainability. 

Your future job title might be: 

  • Innovation consultant
  • Digitalisation consultant
  • Tech-specialist
  • UX designer/ researcher
  • Business analyst
  • Project worker or project leader 

 

In practice, your job could involve:

We deal with a lot of different professions speaking each their own language. The wish to help and understand is essential in ensuring a good implementation of our projects. I can only recommend to hire a Techno-Anthropologist.

Lene Kjær Holst, Leadership and Digitalisation, Thisted Kommune

Get help at AAU to start your career in Denmark

AAU Career helps you on your way from student life to job life in Denmark by giving you the tools to examine your options and find out what to do.

While studying at AAU, you can participate in career and job-related events, find help on our website, and book a personal career counselling session to talk about e.g.:

  • Finding your way in your career
  • Danish working culture
  • Application and CV the Danish way
  • What you can offer an employer
  • How to go about job search in Denmark – both student job, internship and full-time job

Read more about AAU Career here

Contact

We are here to help
Are you curious about this programme? Please contact our student guidance counsellors. We are here to help.
Student counsellor, Aalborg
Kristina Contaio Nielsen
Where
Aalborg University
Rendsburggade 14
9000 Aalborg - DK
Hours
Please send an email to arrange a meeting.
Expected response time 3-4 working days. During holiday periods, the response time may be slightly longer.
E-mail
info-aal@teknoantropologi.aau.dk
Student counsellor, Copenhagen
Nicco Olaybal Graulund-Jørgensen
Where
Aalborg University Copenhagen
A. C. Meyers Vænge 15
2450 København SV - DK
Hours
Please send an email to arrange a meeting.
Expected response time 3-4 working days. During holiday periods, the response time may be slightly longer.
E-mail
info-cph@teknoantropologi.aau.dk

Admission and requirements

As a student at AAU you will meet …