After studying Natural Sciences and Social and Political Science at Clare College, Cambridge,[2] Robin Williams took an MSc and PhD at Aston University and worked as research fellow in the Technology Policy Unit until 1986. He then joined the Research Centre for Social Sciences (RCSS) at the University of Edinburgh and coordinated the Edinburgh PICT Centre, one of the six university research centres established under the ESRC Programme on Information and Communications Technologies (1986 - 1995).[3] During this time Robin Williams and other researchers in Edinburgh PICT Centre published on issues regarding social, economic and political aspects of the design and implementation of technology.[4] Concluding the findings of a decade's research Robin Williams and David Edge published a notable paper on the ‘broad church’ of social shaping of technology.[5] He became director of RCSS in 1997.
In 2000 Robin Williams established the Institute for the Study of Science, Technology and Innovation (ISSTI) to bring together groups of academics and individual researchers across the University of Edinburgh who are involved in research, teaching and knowledge transfer on social and policy aspects of science, technology and innovation.[6] He was co-director of ESRC Innogen Centre from 2002-2012.[7] In 2008 he arranged the merger of RCSS and the Science Studies Unit to form the Science, Technology and Innovation Studies subject group in the University of Edinburgh School of Social and Political Science.[8]
Professor Williams established institutional links to and between research centres and institutions throughout the UK, Europe and Asia. His various involvements included co-chairing the UK Association for Studies in Innovation Science and Technology (AsSIST),[9] being representative of Britain on the COST A4 European Research Collaboration initiative on the Social Shaping of Technology and coordinator of the China-EU Information Technology Standards Research Project (2008-2010).[10]
