E-mail: lambros.roumbanis@score.su.se
My research focuses on the organization of expert judgments, evaluation technologies, selection mechanisms, and complex decision-making processes. More specifically, I study how organizations deal with the challenging task of distributing scarce resources and opportunities (money, employment) using the support from group deliberations and collectivized assessments, lotteries, or artificial intelligence. I am currently studying i) the social dynamics of academic peer review and the evaluation of new research projects, and ii) the use of algorithm-based recruitment systems and the human-algorithm interaction effects in the screening and selection of candidates. In addition to this, I am also interested in the sociological conceptualization of chance; the moral and organizational nature of queues; and the theoretical-methodological notion of relationality and coupling processes.
I received my PhD in 2010 from the Department of Sociology at Stockholm University. In my dissertation, I used Kierkegaard’s existential philosophy as a radical point of departure to challenge some of the most ingrained social constructivist ideas about the single individual in classical and contemporary sociological thinking. By establishing a Kierkegaardian micro-fundament, my ambition was to argue against the tendency in sociological theory to over-socialize the conception of human existence. Instead, I presented what I claimed to be a sociological “incompleteness theorem,” mainly inspired by Simmel’s social philosophy. In this regard, I defended a view that takes the paradoxical, antithetical and non-relational aspects into direct account to shed new light on the internal boundaries of sociality and the social construction of meaning.
Selected publications:
Roumbanis, L. (forthcoming) “Status hierarchies, gender bias and disrespect in review panel groups: ethnographic observations from the Swedish Research Council.” In: Acker S., Ylijoki O-H., and McGinn M. The Social Production of Research: Perspectives on funding and gender. London: Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE)/Routledge.
Roumbanis L (2022) “Disagreement and agonistic chance in peer review.” Science, Technology, & Human Values. Online first: https://doi.org/10.1177/01622439211026016.
Roumbanis L (2021) “The oracles of science: On grant peer review and competitive funding.” Social Science Information 60(3): 356-362.
Roumbanis L (2020) “Two dogmas of peer-reviewism.” Journal of Responsible Innovation, 7(2): 129-133.
Roumbanis L (2019) “Peer review or lottery? A critical analysis of two different forms of decision-making mechanisms for allocation of research grants.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 44(6): 994-1019.
Roumbanis L (2019) “Symbolic violence in academic life: A study on how junior scholars are educated in the art of getting funded.” Minerva 57: 197-218.
Roumbanis L (2017) “Academic judgments under uncertainty: A study of collective anchoring effects in Swedish Research Council panel groups.” Social Studies of Science 47(1): 95–116.
