Regulations

The Regulations team comprises researchers belonging to various social-science disciplines.

Research carried out by this team focuses on the social processes of producing and assimilating the knowledge, rules and representations that prevail in various social worlds, on the work of actors involved in these worlds, the social properties and careers of such actors, their practices or customs, and lastly on the instruments and technical devices by which their activity is regulated and coordinated.

The members of our team work on a large variety of empirical objects and social worlds including formal (hospitals, companies, courts, administrative bodies, research labs) and less formal organizations (such as professional federations), markets, social networks or groups of users and experts (in healthcare, for instance).

Director: Thierry Delpeuch
Contact: regulations@umrpacte.fr

Research by the Regulations team covers five main topics:

  • Public action (sectoral approaches to public policy; norms and deviance; relations between administrators and administrated).
  • Markets and productive organizations (sociology of markets; cooperative economy; organizations; work).
  • Media and cultural ecologies (sociology of the arts, of audiences and the media).
  • Learning, knowledge and society (study of science and technology; epistemology and methodology of social sciences).

Research projects of the team

The members of the Regulations team meet for a weekly seminar on Fridays, from 12.00 to 14.00.

The seminar presents ongoing research projects and discusses papers during the drafting and submission process.

Other thematic seminar cycles are held, either during the same time slot or at other times:

  • Grenoble journalism-studies seminar. Jointly organized by Pacte, the Communication Issues Research Group (Gresec) and the Grenoble School of Journalism (EJDG), this seminar brings together researchers working on social aspects and discourse in journalistic practice. Contacts: or
  • Tempo – temporalities and policies. The point of departure for this seminar is the determination to uphold the Grenoble tradition of social history, but also to renew it. Methodology and epistemology feature largely in this process. Otherwise its key topics hinge, among others, on public policy and action in all its forms, socialization (particularly political) and the origins of social science. Contact: or
  • Health Pathways. A seminar for sociologists interested in studying the social determinants of individual pathways through illness and healthcare bodies. Contact: or

Team news