Society, Technology and Culture

The Society, Technology and Culture doctoral programme from Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) provides tools for analysing the complex relationships between technology and society, understanding and contributing to improving the key challenges that define contemporary societies.

Key Features

The Society, Technology and Culture doctoral programme from Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) is a multidisciplinary doctoral programme halfway between Social Sciences and Humanities. Among other areas, but not exclusively, it focuses on growing inequalities, various forms of discrimination, sustainability, social and economic innovation, civic mobilization and centre-periphery tensions in increasingly digitized cultural contexts. Technology is considered a mediator in social and cultural processes, assuming that it plays a predominant role in the (re)distribution of power.

The focus is on digital technologies and infrastructures, and the non-digital technologies that make up the key infrastructures of contemporary societies are also examined. Technologies (digital and otherwise) are undergoing constant transformation, and it is necessary to continue to study their effects on society and culture in greater depth.

The analysis of different social, political, economic, and cultural systems from the perspective of the intermediation of technology goes beyond the traditional disciplinary fields. The STC doctoral programme is consequently based around integrating various theoretical, epistemological and methodological approaches to create relevant knowledge.

The doctoral programme is linked to the research that takes place in the IN3 research institute and in the Arts and Humanities, Health Sciences, Information and Communication Sciences, Law and Political Sciences, Economics and Business Studies, and Psychology and Education Sciences faculties.

Curriculum includes

• At the start of the doctoral programme research period, the UOC will provide a personalized learning pathway for each student, taking into account their research skills and knowledge (particularly in terms of research methodologies) and their research interests. This pathway may involve courses, seminars and other research training activities. If those activities are included on a student’s personal learning pathway, they must be taken and passed.

• When entering the research period of the doctoral programme, the UOC provides each student with a personalised training itinerary, the preparation of which has taken into account the student’s knowledge and research skills (particularly in terms of research methodologies), as well as their research interests.