Childhood, youth and technology, biosocial relationships and imaginations; climate change and sustainability; life processes, learning and innovation

Dr. Nick Lee has more than 30 publications across the fields of Science Studies, Education and the Sociology of Childhood including articles in The Lancet: Infectious Disease, Science, Technology and Human Values and Sociology. In his most recent book Childhood and Bio-politics: Climate change, life processes and human futures(Palgrave Macmillan 2013) he examines relationships of power, youth and generation in the contexts of biotechnological innovation and climate change.

He has attracted research funding from ESRC, BBSRC, MRC, European Neuroscience and Society Network, Department for Children, Schools and Families and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. He is ELSA lead for Warwick's Institute for Synthetic Biology. He has recently reported on social responses to antibiotic resistance for a global hygiene corporation and on the prospects of today's 5-15 year olds to 2050 for the UK Cabinet Office.

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• Current projects

Doctor Lee has recently been involved in the following projects:

• Global Gardens: Co-Learning in Synthetic Biology

Can the use of art and creative writing alter the dynamics of communication amongst publics, researchers and policy makers?

Since July 2017, a series of workshops focus participants on creating art in response to life science techniques, policy debates and public opinion. Next sessions 25th and 26th October 2018, Norwich Science Festival.

Collaboration with Professor Anne Osbourn, John Innes Centre
Funded by BBSRC/EPSRC and Science, Art and Writing Trust

• Children, Sexting and Co-Learning

Can children, media regulators and digital business work together to respond to the challenges presented by 'sexting'?

This project is a collaboration with colleagues from the University of Birmingham and Birmingham City University.

Nick Lee, Angela Hewett, Clara Helene Rübner Jorgensen, Jerome Turner, Alex Wade, and Annalise Weckesser(2018) Children and sexting: The case for intergenerational co-learning. Childhood. First Published May 18, 2018

• Residual Childhoods

Children are often seen as a resource to grow the economy and to contribute to technological development. But many children now live with and amongst the residues of economic growth and technological development - waste plastics and antibiotics, greenhouse gases and urban air pollution. Further, large-scale migration creates human residues alongside human flows. What new forms of vulnerability are being generated? How can and should societies respond?

This project commenced in 2017 with a series of conference keynotes and seminars.

Conference Keynotes:

Lee, N.M. 'Residual Childhoods'. Childhood and Materiality. Finnish Society for Childhood Studies and Bin Norden (Nordic Child Culture Research). University of Jyväskylä, Finland 7-9 May 2018

Lee, N.M. 'Why Materialities? An agenda for childhood research'. Materialitäten der Kindheit : Körper, Räume, Dinge. Deutsche Gesellshaft für Soziologie. Annual conference Sociology of Childhood and Sociology of Body secions. University of Trier, Germany 21-23 September 2017.

Seminars:

Lee, N.M. 'Residual Childhoods', Department of Child and Youth Studies, Stockholm University, Sweden. 7th May 2018.

Lee, N.M. 'Childhood Materialities: Life, Voice, Resource' Forschungszentrum 'Kindheit. Gesellshaften'. University of Wuppertal, Germany. 7th December 2017

Lee, N.M. 'Childhood, resources and selection: Preserving a 'way of life'? Education and Social Research Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. 12 October 2017.