Integrating Aspects of Working Environment into a National Research and Development Programme on Food Technology

In a Danish national research and development program on food technology, it was made a condition that funded projects consider potential working environment impacts. The present study evaluated these projects and concluded that this condition failed to have any significant effect on outcomes. The reasons for this failure are explained by the social construction of the program and the fact that it neglected to consider the sociocultural dynamics within scientific and technological work.

The program neither constructed useful boundary objects nor included actors that could link the social worlds of working environment and food science and technology.