The Research Center for Interdisciplinary Risk and Innovation Studies (ZIRIUS) is a cross-departmental research centre at the University of Stuttgart. ZIRIUS investigates the requirements and chances of socio-technical change and democratic innovation on the way towards a democratic and sustainable society. Research focuses on the course of and social resonances to socio-ecological transformation processes. Core areas of research are, for example, technology assessment, socio-technical transformation, the social perception of innovation and participatory technology reflection.
ZIRIUS provides a platform for academic and public debates on how to shape sociotechnical futures. With its interdisciplinary composition (sociology, political science, economics as well as individual engineering sciences), ZIRIUS gathers expertise for innovative cooperation between social, natural and engineering science. ZIRIUS is organized in four research areas: "Energy", "Method Development", "Sustainability and Transformation" and "Participation, Governance and Technology Assessment".
For ValBio, ZIRIUS offers various connection possibilities. On the one hand, this concerns the analysis of social perception and evaluation schemes (e.g. new products, production methods or socio-technical innovations). On the other hand, the ZIRIUS CIB-Lab is concerned with innovative methods for the systematic creation of qualitative scenarios, as they are widely used in science, business and administration, e.g. in strategic planning, policy development or in the assessment of new business fields.