Kean Birch is an interdisciplinary social scientist who is interested in the changing political economy of scientific research, technology, innovation, and the environment. He draws on a range of perspectives from economic geography, science and technology studies (STS), and economic sociology in order to understand how contemporary, technoscientific economies and societies are evolving and what this means for their citizens.
He is an associate professor in the Department of Social Science at York University, Toronto, where he teaches in the undergraduate Business and Society Program and the STS, Sociology, and Geography Graduate Programs. Before moving to Canada in 2011, he worked at the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde in the UK. He is currently an associate editor on the leading international STS journal Science as Culture, published by Taylor and Francis.
Birch’s most recent book, Innovation, Regional Development, and the Life Sciences (2016) published by Routledge, examines why life science innovation happens in certain places and what this means for policy-makers concerned with local and regional socio-economic development. The book focuses on Scotland, UK, and Europe, but is relevant for other countries and regions pursuing high-tech innovation strategies. Using an interdisciplinary theoretical approach, the book aims to provide answers to questions about where innovation happens, how value circulates through knowledge-based commodity chains, and who can and does capture the value produced by life science innovation. He is currently working on another book, under contract with Palgrave Macmillan, examining the co-construction of markets and natures in Canada’s emerging bio-economy.
Birch’s future research is mainly focused on four related areas: the financing of research and innovation, especially in the life sciences; the emergence of the bio-economy – which can be defined as an economy underpinned by biological resources rather than fossil fuels – as a potential socio-technical pathway towards a low-carbon future; environmental and sustainable innovation, such as advanced biofuels or climate change-ready infrastructure; and the ‘dark side’ of innovation represented by new forms of ‘rentiership’ (i.e. the capture or extraction of value, rather than its production).
Publications
Calvert, K., Kedron, P., Baka, J. and Birch, K. forthcoming. “Introduction: Socio-technical transitions in the emerging bio-economy – Geographical perspectives”, Technology Analysis & Strategic Management.
Birch, K. forthcoming. “Financing technoscience: Finance, assetization and rentiership”, in D. Tyfield, R. Lave, S. Randalls and C. Thorpe (eds), The Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of Science. London: Routledge.
Birch, K. online. “Rethinking value in the bio-economy: Finance, assetization and the management of value”, Science, Technology and Human Values.
Birch, K. 2016. Innovation, Regional Development and the Life Sciences: Beyond Clusters. London: Routledge.
Birch, K. 2016. “Emergent policy imaginaries and fragmented policy frameworks in the Canadian bio-economy”, Sustainability 8(10): 1-16.
Birch, K., Dove, E., Chiappetta, M. and Gursoy, U. 2016. “Biobanks in oral health: Promises and implications of ‘post-neoliberal’ patterns of science and innovation”, OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology 20(1): 36-41.
Birch, K. and Wudrich, D. 2015. “(Re)building sustainable infrastructure: The implications for engineers”, in C. Lipsig-Mumme and S. McBride (eds) Work in a Warming World. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, pp.125-141.
Birch, K. and Calvert, K. 2015. “Rethinking ‘drop-in’ biofuels: On the political materialities of bioenergy”, Science and Technology Studies 28 (1): 52-72.
Ponte, S. and Birch, K. 2014. “Introduction: Imaginaries and governance of ‘biofueled futures’”, Environment and Planning A 46(2): 271-279.
Birch, K. and Mykhnenko, V. 2014. “Lisbonizing vs. financializing Europe? The Lisbon Agenda and the (un-)making of the European knowledge-based economy”, Environment and Planning C 32(1): 108-128.
Birch, K. 2013. “The political economy of technoscience: An emerging research agenda”, Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science 7(1): 49-61.