Societies worldwide are undergoing rapid transformations, and technology plays a crucial yet ambivalent role in these transformations – as seen in recent debates about artificial intelligence, neurotechnologies, and autonomous systems. Despite its centrality, technology often remains peripheral in the portfolio of social science disciplines, with many theories neglecting technology as an explicit or essential factor. Theories of justice and democracy, for instance, often treat their core concerns as if they were separable from technology and innovation. Simultaneously, major technology development efforts often regard social science as an afterthought. This disconnect leaves us ill-equipped to address interconnected global challenges, growing distrust in technologies and experts, and the transformative impact of technologies on our lives. 

TransforM is a Cluster of Excellence financed by the German Research Foundation (DFG) that tackles the dual challenge of advancing fundamental social science for technologised societies and rethinking technology development through a social science lens head on. As an interdisciplinary social science cluster with a principal focus on technology, our goal is to augment current theories and methods to comprehensively understand and help shape transformative technology to better serve diverse societal needs. Better knowledge about why, when, and how technologies become socially transformative will enhance our ability to assess and inform transformation pathways ‘all the way through’ – from the early stages of their emergence to their wider socio-economic impact. 

TransforM presents three unique opportunities for groundbreaking fundamental research.

• First, we gather an unprecedented concentration and diversity of social science expertise explicitly focused on technology. This critical mass allows for novel conceptual questions across fields, for example by connecting theories of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition with theories of justice and the design of new governance instruments.
• Second, we advance intellectual co-creation between the social and technical sciences through a unique tandem approach. This approach generates fundamental social science research questions, theories, and methods from ongoing technology developments, and feeds social science back into development processes.
• Third, TransforM is a laboratory for embedded and real-time social science research methods, developing innovative anticipatory public engagement and response formats that continuously connect the cluster’s research strengths to current debates in science, policy, business, and society.

Based in Munich, TransforM can develop its research programme as part of Europe’s leading innovation ecosystem with a global reach. With the vision of becoming Europe's eminent research hub on transformative technologies and societal change, our work aims to empower individuals, organisations, and societies in responsible and inclusive research and innovation, grounded in a clear commitment to sustainability and social justice.