Robin ran the Edinburgh PICT Centre under the ESRC Programme on Information and Communications Technologies (1987-95). 20 years of interdisciplinary research into 'the social shaping of technology' has focused upon the interplay between 'social' and 'technical' factors in the development and implementation of a range of technologies including EFTPoS, EDI, CAPM/CIM, Banking systems and Multimedia.

He led a review of the integration of socio-economic research into the first round of the EC FP5 Information Society Technologies programme, and currently leads the social science component of the IST ParcelCall project developing an integrated logistics management system.

His books published in this field include

• The Social Shaping of Information Superhighways: European and American Roads to the Information Society, Campus Verlag, 1997(co-edited with Kubicek and Dutton)
• Expertise and Innovation: Information Technology
• Strategies in the Financial Services Sector, Oxford University Press, 1995 (with Fleck et al.).