Speaker
Description
This presentation explores questions, opportunities, and challenges connected to the development of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project from a social science perspective. It draws on interviews conducted in South Africa, Italy, and the United Kingdom with SKA scientists, engineers, project managers and other relevant stakeholders, and aims at building an interdisciplinary dialogue between social and natural sciences on shared research themes. The presentation will focus on three main SKA-related themes. First, it contextualises the SKA project within Europe-Africa relationships, with a specific focus on the history of international cooperation in science and technology between Italy and South Africa. Second, it addresses questions about human capacity development between South Africa and Europe, and examines the transformative impact, including potential spill-overs to other sectors, of big data infrastructures in astronomy from a social science perspective. Third, it raises questions about the developmental mission of the SKA project in South Africa and the rest of the African continent.
