The first STSM was carried out in August 2002 when Leslie Haddon from the University of Essex visited Kari-Hans Kommonen and his staff at ARKI, part of the Helsinki University for Art and Design.
Based on a Short-Term Scientific Mission, a report was produced called Interdisciplinary Explorations: A Dialogue between a Sociologist and a Design Group, (Haddon and Kommonen, 2003). This compared the approaches, assumptions and context of ICT designers with those of social scientists researching ICTs. This is pertinent because of moves within industry and international collaborations to interdisciplinary ICT product and prototype development teams. The paper highlights the different approaches of experts from different disciplines and addresses communications problems between team members from different backgrounds.


The second STSM was carried out in March 2003 when Bartolomeo Sapio of the Fondazione Ugo Bordoni visited Tomaz Turk and staff at the University of Ljubljana.
The Adoption of Terrestrial Digital TV: Technology Push, Political Will or Users’ Choice?, (Turk, Palombini and Sapio, 2003). The main purpose of this work was to find out the relevant factors of Digital Terrestrial Television (DVB-T) diffusion in Italy through a micro simulation approach based on data collected among a pattern of potential users. The subsequent aim was to stress different policy implications for technology diffusion, which can be well estimated at the micro level. First, the main characteristics of society were estimated, down to the level of households. Second, the decision-making process about DVB-T adoption within a household was examined, including personal habits, tradition and culture, economic welfare, education, social network, etc. These findings formed the input for the micro simulation model, where different policy measures (such as subsidising or including different services) were tested from different perspectives, for instance their cost, time and relevance. Such micro simulation enables social scientists to carry out new forms of experiment that are currently missing from their analytical toolset.


The third STSM was carried out in June 2003 when Rosemarie Gilligan from University College Dublin visited Leslie Haddon and staff from the University of Essex.