New professor of sociology to focus on financial markets and new technologies

It began with a postdoc position at the Department of Sociology at the University of Copenhagen back in the noughties. But since 2008, most of Christian Borch's working life has been based at the Copenhagen Business School, where in 2013 he became professor of political sociology followed by a professorship in economic sociology.

Now his path is going back to the University of Copenhagen, where Borch will become a professor at the Department of Sociology on 1 August.

He brings with him a broad academic portfolio: Master of Political Science from Aarhus in 2001 followed by a PhD degree taken at the Faculty of Law at the UCPH three years later. The PhD degree was awarded in 2013 with the higher doctoral degree in sociology (dr.scient.soc.) - also from the University of Copenhagen.

Christian Borch’s current work lies at the intersection of the sociology of financial markets and the sociology of technology. He has led large research projects on how fully automated trading algorithms are transforming the ways in which financial markets operate.

In his most recent project, he examines the role of and risks posed by machine learning systems in financial markets, using these markets as a laboratory for understanding the sociological impact of machine-learning systems more broadly. In the years to come, he will expand this research field by collaborating with colleagues from the Department of Computer Science on a project that examines how social media affect the financial markets.

In addition to his work with new technologies and financial markets, which included fieldwork among US trading firms, Borch’s work has included research into crowd phenomena and collective behaviour, as also seen from a theoretical point of view. Moreover, he has a long-lasting interest in architecture and urban planning, which earlier in his career resulted in several sociological analyses in collaboration with Danish and international architectural offices.