Volkmar Pipek studied Computer Science and Economics at the University of Kaiserslautern and got a PhD at the University of Oulu. Since 2007, he was faculty member in “Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Media” at the University of Siegen. He passed away in early 2024.

Volkmar Pipek was a pioneer in the field of Socio-Informatics. With brilliancy and creativity, he pursued his intellectual vision: the application of computing in the service of societal emancipation and democratization. Together with Mark Ackerman and Volker Wulf, he developed already early on in his career an understanding of knowledge management that placed the practical skills of employees and their exchanges for learning at the center of computer support. The book “Expertise Sharing: Beyond Knowledge Management” published by MIT Press shaped the respective academic discourses.

Starting with his PhD thesis, he investigated how people collectively make use of IT artefacts and how these activities could be supported technically. Taking a practice perspective, Pipek termed the concepts of “appropriation” and “appropriation support” which became central to the Siegen School of Socio-Informatics. Later on, he generalized these concepts from the world of software artefacts towards the one of physical artefacts. A 3D printer equipped with an interface containing context-specifically projected information and integrated communication channels towards a user community and a hotline is an example of a ‘sociable technology’. Pipek also embedded the concept of appropriation in a broader understanding of theory formation. “Infrastructuring” describes the interrelated development of social practices and IT artefacts equipped with technical and interpretative flexibility. The moment of appropriation, the point of infrastructuring, becomes a creative event that enriches the actors’ repertoire of actions.

Volkmar Pipek’s concept formation was always nourished by a pool of design case studies. He was interested in a broad variety of different areas of life and work – always with the perspective of exploring the emancipatory effects of suitably designed IT artifacts. He made a major contribution to the field of civil security research where he investigated how social media can help people in emergency situations to organize themselves.

Pipek’s work has impacted many scholars worldwide. His publications are used extensively by academic teachers to educate the next generation.

Carla Simone holds a degree in Mathematics from the University of Torino, Italy. She has been a Full Professor of Computer Science at the University of Milano-Bicocca until 2015. Her main research interests is on computer support for cooperative work and knowledge sharing. She has developped innovative IT artefacts within application domains such as Design, Healthcare, Ageing, Cultural Heritage and Communities. She pays specific attention to the technical flexibility, in her words malleability, of these applications and on the active role of the end-users in their construction.

Her work with Kjeld Schmidt on “coordination mechanisms” contributes importantly to the conceptual foundations of CSCW. Coordination mechanism are specific organizational constructs, consisting of a coordinative protocol imprinted into a distinct artifact, which, in the context of a certain cooperative work arrangement, stipulates and mediates the articulation of cooperative work so as to reduce the complexity of the work arrangement.

Her research activities have been carried on in several research projects at the European and Italian level. She has published numerous journal papers, book chapters, and conference papers in renowned venues. She has been acting as Chair and Associated Chair of several Conferences such as ACM-CSCW, ECSCW, and Group. She is a long-standing member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the CSCW Journal.

The start of Kari Kuutti’s research career was not promising: he enlisted in the University of Oulu in Autumn 1969 – just when the echoes of the 1968 student unrest in Europe finally arrived in Finland, where they were transformed into a radical student movement to reform the universities. Kuutti joined a student theatre and immersed himself in the activities of the student movement for the next few years. When his funds ran out, he dropped out from the university, and drifted from one temporary, part-time job to another. In the end of 1970s, however, he returned back to university to finish his bachelor studies, and was spotted by professor Pentti Kerola, who was looking for potential candidates to help in his user-centered system design program. Kerola persuaded Kuutti to continue his studies to a MSci, and helped him to get a part-time job at university IT support to fund the studies. Kuutti graduated 1982, and was hired in the Information Processing Science department as a PhD student.

Kuutti’s intial interest was in computers and learning in the context of programming. His work with activity psychology led him into contact with Yrjö Engeström and his group who at University of Helsinki worked to use activity theory in understanding changes in the work practices. Kuutti developed a close relationship with Engeström’s group, and eventually worked long as an adjunct professor in the group. His own interest also shifted towards computers and work practices, and he found the intellectual home in the then emerging community of computer-supported cooperative work, CSCW. Important step was his acceptance into EU Basic Research Action COMIC in early 1990s, where he met and worked together with many central persons of the European CSCW community. Kuutti finished his PhD in 1994, and was hired into a new associate professorship in HCI. The purpose of the new professorship was to strenghten the education related to needs of Nokia Mobile Phones, which used to have an important R&D facility in Oulu. Nokia became also an important partner in a number of cooperative projects. In this cooperation Kuutti worked with industrial designers, and developed an interest in design research and good relations with University of Arts and Design in Helsinki (currently part of Aalto), where he later also worked as an adjunct professor. In 1999 Kuutti was appointed as a full professor in HCI at Helsinki University of Technology (currently part of Aalto), but he returned a year later back into a full professorship in Oulu, and worked there until his retirement in the end of 2016. The three last years of his career he served as the head of the department. A reform in 2015 transformed the research group around him into one of the faculty’s formal organizational units, led today by one of his former students, professor Netta Iivari. Kuutti continues working in the unit as a professor emeritus.

Kuutti has been active in doctoral education: he has supervised fifteen doctoral students, and this far six of these students have themselves become professors in three European countries; five of these six are active members of the HCI/CSCW community. Kuutti has also served as an external examiner or opponent for 40 doctoral thesis in seven countries, served in the boards of several doctoral schools, and participated in the organization of numerous doctoral consortiums in conferences.

Kuutti has been publishing actively in the forums of five different research communities: information systems, CSCW, HCI, design research, and activity theory. He is best known for his work discussing the relationship between technology and work practice from the perspective of Engeström’s version of activity theory (CHAT).

Bonnie Nardi is a professor emerita at the University of California Irvine. She has this far had productive career of about 40 years. Her work has also been already recognized: in 2013 she was nominated to the CHI Academy and she received 2014 a honorary doctorate in the University of Umeå, Sweden. Bonnie has always been interested of everyday life, but has been ready both venturing to broader vistas and societal issues, and also conceptualizing the experiences. During the four decades her topics can be broadly categorized into four interweaving themes: interaction, activity theory, computer-mediated communication, and society and technology.

The initial starting point was interaction design, and interest in both professional and everyday users of technology. Perhaps the most visible result of that thread, based on the work at HP is the book “Small matter of programming. Perspectives on End-User Computing” in 1993. In the book she developed, based on the empirical studies of spreadsheet and CAD users, her own original approach that end-user computing should be topical, formal and visual. Bonnie has an uncanny capability to spot research topics early: it took more than a decade before the end-user development really took off as a research field. The book was well received, but the ideas presented in the book would still deserve more attention.

Chronologically the next thread is Activity Theory, which Bonnie found interesting in early 1990s because it seemed to offer useful concepts for working with everyday practices and for connecting individual and social levels. The three books she has either edited or written together with Viktor Kaptelinin — Context and concsiousness 1996, Acting with Technology 2006 and Activity Theory & HCI 2012 — have been the major resource and gateway through which the CSCW, HCI and Design communities have made contact with AT during the last two decades.

The third thread is what Bonnie herself calls as “computer-mediated communication”. This has been the mainstay of her research over the years, and her curiosity has taken her to many different corners of the field — from video to instant messaging to blogging to gaming.

The fourth thread is Society and Technology, a topic that had a lesser role early in her career, but which has grown in importance during the time and may at the moment be her central field of activity. This work has brought us books like Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart (1999) ¬– again years before the ecology concept became popular in HCI, Materiality and Organizing: Social Interaction in a Material World (2012), and the recent Heteromation and Other Stories of Computing and Capitalism (2017). There seems to be a certain development in Bonnie’s interests: while she is still interested in the details of everyday life, she has more and more wanting to look these details in larger contexts: historically, materially and organizationally, and politically. Perhaps it can be said that she has turned more critical and radical. In this vein, Bonnie is also one of the founding members of the series of Limits workshops which try to explore apporaches to post-growth economics.

Bonnie Nardi has already educated and inspired at least three, perhaps four successive generations of researchers, and she is actively continuing her work. A lifetime award suits her well.

Dave Randall was born in the West Country in the UK in 1950 in a working-class family – his father was a welder – and he was one of 6 children. He graduated from the University of Kent at Canterbury with a degree in sociology in 1971 and got a postgraduate certificate of education from Keele in 1973. After this he spent many years working as a schoolteacher. However, being more than ready for a change, he pounced on an opportunity to do a masters course at Lancaster University in 1988, which he passed with distinction. It was at this time that he made the acquaintance of John Hughes, who readily spotted his talents, and he went on to become one of the key members of the Lancaster School of CSCW. During his time at Lancaster he was involved in some of the great formative studies in CSCW, producing papers that have become cornerstones of the literature. He worked on the original Air Traffic Control studies and was also one of the researchers involved in a range of influential studies of retail banking. Through his involvement in the work at Lancaster, he became one of the key figures involved in working out how ethnography might contribute to the design community, something he has been building upon ever since. In 1992 he was offered the chance to take a full-time position as a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, where he stayed until 2011. When Dave retired from this position he remained extremely active in the community, taking on a Senior Professor position at the University of Siegen almost immediately, as well as a Visiting Professorship at Linnaeus University in Sweden, and a range of consultancy contracts across Europe, in Brazil and in Japan.

Dave has published and co-authored a number of excellent books including Retail Finance and Organisational Change, Fieldwork and Design, and a recent book critiquing rational choice theory entitled Choice. He also played a key role in bringing together the series of essays contained in another recently published book entitled Socio-informatics – on the use and design of IT artefacts. He has written and published an impressively large number of journal and conference papers, reports, and book chapters, putting most of his colleagues to shame. Nor are these incidental and low-level papers. Many of them have been profoundly influential and have served to shape research agendas, including his work on organizational memory and, most particularly, his extensive oeuvre that examines the role of ethnography in design. He has also served on numerous conference programme committees as an AC, an SC or a chair. And all of this is aside from the huge volume of work he’s done as a reviewer and an editor along the way. Together with Mark Rouncefield and Richard Bentley he systematically ran tutorials on the use of ethnography at CSCW and ECSCW from 1992 to 1999 and has continued to provide such tutorials and masterclasses to the community ever since. And none of this begins to touch the role he has played as a lecturer over the years. Dave has a lively intellect and he’s interested in virtually everything. He has a phenomenal capacity to listen to anyone and send them away feeling better about what they are doing and he exhibits a tireless attention to bringing people on. He is a natural pedagogue with a remarkable ability to engage students, but his particular gift is to engage people in seemingly incidental, but profoundly inspirational conversations. Numerous people have benefited from his advice over the years and long may they continue to do so.

Mark Ackerman‘s influence in the CSCW community can be traced back to his work in the Answer Garden projects and the seminal papers related to it. This work opened the research field of knowledge sharing from a CSCW/practice perspective, with a distinct socio-technical approach which was not only sensitive to but also able to overcome many problems of the mainstream positivist approach to Knowledge Management. Already the Answer Garden work show features that have characterized  his whole career: development of novel concepts to describe and understand a new phenomenon; construction of innovative computer systems based on those concepts and experimenting with them; and high-quality ethnographies of real-life complex settings both to inform the concept formation and to see what happens in real life when new systems are actually used. Such a “complete” approach is not for reaping rapid benefits; it needs long-term committment and resources. Correspondingly, the development of such an approach needs both a vision and skills, capability and dedication to realize the vision, and such a combination is scarce.

Mark has been publishing actively, and a significant number of his papers are been well received and cited around the world, making him one of the most cited researchers within the CSCW community. His influence is not limited to CSCW, but he can be seen in general as one of the best known academics pursuing a practice-based approach to human-centered computing.

Mark has also been working tirelessly for the research community both in editorial and chairing roles in a number of central journals and conferences, and as a permanent reviewer and PC member for all central publication forums. In particular he has served as an important bridge between European and US research communities.

Susanne Bødker and Christian Heath have been and are two central figures in shaping a research agenda for the design of socially embedded technologies over a number of years. They represent two lines of research which each had a tremendous influence on the European CSCW tradition. Susanne represents the Participatory Design tradition and Christian the interaction analytic approach in ethnomethodology.

Laudatio:
Susanne Bødker’s influence in the CSCW community can be traced back to her work in the Utopia project – the seminal approach to worker-oriented design of collaborative technologies in the printing industries. Strongly influenced by Kristen Nygaard’s approach to critical computing, Susanne and her colleagues set an agenda for participatory design within the CSCW community, an agenda that continues to have a powerful influence. Her work within the Scandinavian School of participatory design offered a radically new approach to design practices in the field of computing by recognizing the political nature of design and the importance of ‘taking sides’ in that politics. Equally importantly, Susanne was one of the first researchers to recognize the need for a new theoretical and conceptual base in relation to a new computing paradigm. Along with others, she applied the theoretical lens of activity theory to the analysis of and designing for cooperative work. Her widely cited PhD thesis: “Through the interface” represents a major theoretical contribution to the field of human centered computing.

Susanne has also played a major role in the institutional setting of our field. She represents a research environment that has been very active in disseminating the empirical and conceptual contributions made by the fields of CSCW, PD and HCI by energetic support for conferences and meetings which are vital to the building of a research community that combines computer science with the social sciences. Through a large number of conferences (the decennial Ã…rhus conferences, ECSCW and PD conferences), and a generous use of visiting positions, she has contributed to the large international network of CSCW/HCI/PD researchers around the world.

Laudatio:
Christian Heath’s influence in the CSCW community can be traced back at least to the seminal papers written with Paul Luff on collaborative work in the London Underground. These papers set an agenda for CSCW research in more than one way. Firstly, they had a profound methodological importance in that they were probably the first examples of the use of video for investigation. It is easy to forget what a revolutionary step this was at the time. Nevertheless, largely due to that path-breaking work, video analysis is now routinely embedded in areas like interaction analysis; user experience design; ethnographic work, and so on.

Secondly, and no less importantly, these papers had huge analytic consequences. For the first time, we had a clear statement of the importance of timeliness and elegance in cooperative and coordinative work and a demonstration of how that interactional elegance can, with careful study, be recognised in the most subtle of glances, gestures and gazes. The point here is that economy, ecology and elegance are visible features of the local rationality that members exhibit. Sophisticated video analytic, conversation analytic and ethnographic techniques are used here to reveal something to us of the ‘resources, practices and reasoning’ that are brought to bear on the emerging situation. Such matters turn out to be hugely consequential in the effective design of cooperative technologies. Following the London Underground study, Heath’s group at King College has, inter alia, studied museums and art galleries; medical work; optometry; architectural practice; command and control centers, and public science. The group has also published a number of important books outlining approaches to workplace studies, including Video in Qualitative Research(2010), Technology in Action (2000) and Workplace Studies (2000).

Christian’s overall contribution to research is by no means limited to technological matters. His book, Dynamics of Auction (2013), is a study of auction rooms which deals in fine arts and antiques. It is a brilliant example of how descriptions of work practices can challenge the orthodoxies of economic theory.

Kjeld Schmidt und Liam Bannon waren maßgeblich an der Gründung und Entwicklung eines eigenständigen, europäischen CSCW-Forschungsraums  beteiligt, in dem sich der Praxisbegriff als Basis für die Gestaltung sozio-technischer Systeme etablieren hat. Beide haben einen grundlegenden Beitrag dazu geleistet, dass diese kritische und  herausfordernde europäische Gestaltungsperspektive, zur Entwicklung des Design Thinking beigetragen hat. Nicht zuletzt haben sie ein hohes Maß an Wissenschaftlichkeit etabliert und aufrechterhalten, was in einem solchen interdisziplinären Umfeld nur selten vorkommt. Beide haben sowohl gemeinsam als auch einzeln maßgeblich die Etablierung des renommierten und einflussreichen CSCW-Journals, dessen langjähriger Herausgeber Professor Schmidt war, und der zweijährig erscheinenden ECSCW Konferenzreihen beeinflusst. Von ihrem anhaltenden Einfluss auf die Wissenschaftsgemeinde zeugt die  beneidenswert hohe Anzahl an Zitaten von ihren zahlreichen und thematisch breitgefächerten wissenschaftlichen Publikationen, die sie sowohl gemeinsam als auch einzeln im Bereich CSCW und HCI veröffentlicht haben. Ihre Arbeit hat eine ganze Generation von Wissenschaftler und Praktiker inspiriert und beeinflusst.

Laudatio:
Liam Bannon, geboren 1953 in Dublin, Irland, studierte Psychologie und Informatik an der University College, Dublin und am Trinity College, Dublin, gefolgt 1981 von einer Promotion in Experimenteller Psychologie an der Western Ontario Universität, Kanada. Sein frühes Interesse in den 1970er Jahren für die künstliche Intelligenz weichte in den 1980er Jahren der Untersuchung von Human-Faktoren in der Informatik. In den Anfangsjahren der HCI arbeitete er zusammen mit der Gruppe von Don Norman am UCSD, wo er die Bedeutung des Computers als Kommunikations- und Kollaborationswerkzeug bzw. -medium betonte. In den späten 1980er Jahren zog er nach Skandinavien, wo er den skandinavischen Ansatz des Participatory Design kennenlernte und überwiegend an der Universität Aarhus arbeitete. Bannon war auch lange Zeit für zahlreiche US-amerikanische und europäische Forschungsinstitute und Universitäten tätig. 1993-2009 arbeitete Bannon an der Universität Limerick in Irland als Professor und Gründungsdirektor des Interaction Design Centre (Zentrum für Interaktive Gestaltung). Er hat einen Ansatz der mensch-zentrierten Gestaltung geprägt, der als Alternative zum dominierenden Paradigma der „Ambient Intelligence“ auf Verstärkung statt auf Substitution setzt.

Laudatio:Kjeld Schmidt wurde 1945 in Esbjerg, Dänemark, geboren. Ursprünglich Software-Programmierer (1965-72), absolvierte er 1974 einen M.Sc. in Soziologie an der Universität Lund, Schweden. Nach einem Jahrzehnt der Erforschung von sozio-ökonomischen Transformationsprozessen, entschied er sich 1985 seine ganze Aufmerksamkeit dem damals neu entstehenden Bereich des Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) zu widmen – zunächst als Forscher in der Privatwirtschaft und ab 1989 auch beim Risø National Laboratory. Seit 1998 war er als Fakultätsmitarbeiter an mehreren Universitäten in Kopenhagen tätig. Derzeit ist er Professor für Arbeit, Organisation und Technologie an der Copenhagen Business School. Schmidt ist seit 1992 Chefredakteur des CSCW Journals. Seine wichtigsten wissenschaftlichen Beiträge im Bereich CSCW konzentrieren sich auf das, was man sein konzeptionelles Fundament bezeichnen kann.  In diesem Zusammenhang hat er beispielsweise im Wesentlichen zur Klärung der Schlüsselbegriffe „Arbeit“, „kooperative Arbeit“, „Bewußtsein“, „Wissen“ und „Praxis“ beigetragen. Im Rahmen seiner technologie-orientierten Forschung, hat er an der Entwicklung von Computertechnologien stark mitgewirkt, die es Arbeitern ermöglichen wird, die Protokolle ihrer koordinativen Praxen, wie z.B. Arbeitsfluss und Klassifizierungsschemen, in einer gänzlich verteilten und flexiblen Weise zu formulieren und auszuführen.

Laudatio:
Frau Floyd hat die EUSSET-IISI Auszeichnung für das Lebenswerk für folgende Verdienste erhalten:

• Entwicklung eines alternativen Forschungsparadigma im Bereich der Softwaretechnik, das den Diskurs, der sich bis dahin überwiegend auf technologische Fragen beschränkte,  für sozio-informatische Fragen eröffnet hat.
• Einbeziehung der Kybernetik als Theorie II. Ordnung (Theorie der Selbstorganisation) in die Theoretisierung der Informatik.
• Starkes Engagement bei der Entwicklung von internationalen Kursangebote und Promotionsprogrammen für Sozio-Informatik, insbesondere bei der Entwicklung der internationalen Frauenuniversität und des Promotionsprogramms an der Universität Addis Abeba
• Lebenslanges politisches Engagement für eine nutzerfreundliche Gestaltung der Informationsgesellschaft, insbesondere im Rahmen des Forums „Computer Scientists for Peace and Social Responsibility“ (FIfF).

Christiane Floyd, 1943 in Wien geboren, studierte ab 1961 Mathematik an der Universität Wien und promovierte 1966. Neben der Entwicklung eines Algol-60-Compilers für das Siemens Central Labor in München, arbeitete sie 1968 als wissenschaftliche Assistentin an der Universität Stanford. Später leitete sie den Bereich „method development“ bei Softlab in München. 1975 präsentierte sie auf der Siemens Handelsmesse die erste weltweite Entwicklungsumgebung namens Maestro I. Als erste Frau im deutschsprachigen Raum, begann sie 1978 ihre Karriere als Professorin an der Fakultät für Informatik der TU Berlin. 1991 erhielt sie einen Ruf an die Universität Hamburg, wo sie begann den Bereich Softwaretechnologie (SWT) zu leiten. Eine ihrer wichtigsten Entwicklungsleistungen war die Realisierung des Prozessmodells STEPS, in dem Softwareentwicklung als eine evolutionäre Aktivität verstanden wird, welche die Nutzer in den Gestaltungsprozess miteinbezieht. Bei der konzeptionellen Fundierung dieses sozial eingebetteten Verständnisses von Softwaretechnik, griff Floyd auf die Theorie der selbstorganisierten Systeme zurück.