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Fostering interdisciplinary and engaged scholarship in social studies of science, technology, and medicine across the globe.

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CfP | InterAcademy Partnership Competitive Grants

Published On: Oct 18, 2024

Deadline: Dec 2, 2024

The InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) invites proposals from IAP member academies and regional networks, for projects that would help advance IAP’s mission and strategic goals. Proposed projects should preferably be collaborative across member academies and regional networks. Priority will be given to project proposals that aim to establish or continue support for collaborations across disciplines (for example, collaborations across academies of science, medicine and engineering), especially ...

Chronicity and Its Social Lives: Reflections on Everyday Experiences of Osteoarthritis

Published On: Nov 7, 2025

Deadline: Sep 15, 2025

In this post, Perseverence Madhuku discusses the tensions between biomedical, social, and personal understandings of ageing, immobility, and care in Zimbabwe through the case study of Osteoarthritis.

Call for Assistant Editors for 4S Backchannels (Global South)

Published On: Nov 27, 2025

Deadline: Dec 15, 2025

The Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) is looking for STS graduate students, postdocs or early career scholars from/based in the Global South (especially Africa, Middle East, Asia) who can contribute as Assistant Editors for 4S Backchannels.
The candidate will be part of the team sharing and disseminating STS news, research from/about Global South in the form of short academic writings. Besides some editorial skills, they will encourage potential authors to contribute with their w...

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4S Publications

Science, Technology, and Human Values

For more than forty years, Science, Technology, & Human Values has provided the forum for cutting-edge research and debate in the field of science and technology studies.

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Consolidating the Strata: Geoscience and Underground Territory in South Korean Radioactive Waste Disposal

Sungeun KimDepartment II, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
In South Korea, the nation with the world's highest density of nuclear power plants, the disposal of high-level radioactive waste has become a pressing sociotechnical concern....

Between Code and Culture: The Evolving Role of Conversation Designers and UX in AI Development

Elizabeth Rodwell1Department of Information Science Technology, 14743University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
Artificial intelligence (AI)-related technologies available to consumers have been rapidly advancing but without parallel insight into the social process of their design....

Making the Global Local: The Case of Chinese Research and Innovation Evaluation Systems

Julia Kirch Kirkegaard, Alan Irwin, Xuan Li

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
Starting with China's increasingly prominent role in the global politics of science, this paper considers the case of Chinese policies for the evaluation of Research &...

“Bogeymen,” “Murderers,” and “Loonies”: Emotions in Dutch Debates on 5G and Health

Floortje Moes, Christian Bröer, Klasien Horstman

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
Scientific advice is often solicited in governance, yet it is increasingly challenged in the public domain. Public participation is often suggested to mediate opposing...

Rethinking Extractivism in a Changing Climate: Complementary Gold and Coffee Livelihoods in the Steep, Tropical Andes

Casey Gibson, Jessica Smith1Department of Engineering, Design, & Society, 3557Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO, USA

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
In the municipality of Andes, agriculture rules the steep surface ofla tierra, while informal miners pick and blast subterranean tunnels to make a living from gold. While...

Engaging Science, Technology and Society

Engaging Science, Technology, & Society is an online, open access publication of The Society for Social Studies of Science.

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ESTS Incoming Editorial – A New Editorial Collective for ESTS

Published On: Jul 9 2026

Erika Szymanski, Greg Hollin, Aparajita Bhandari, Clément Dréano, Georg Hoehne, Dasom Lee, Óscar Moreno-Martínez, Lucas Nishida, Andrea Quinlan, Kendall Roark, Pankaj Sekhsaria, Federico Vasen, Richa Venkatraman, Susann Wagenknecht

We write to introduce ourselves as the new Editorial Collective for Engaging Science, Technology, and Society. This editorial describes how we are taking up the journal's mission of openness, building on the work of ESTS’s prior...

How Moderation Makes Science: Precautionary Valuation and Boundary-Making in the Early Circulation of Research

Published On: Jul 10 2026

Natascha Chtena, Irene V. Pasquetto, Alice Fleerackers, Stephen Pinfield, Melanie Benson Marshall, Juan Pablo Alperin

As preprint servers proliferate across scientific fields, moderation has emerged as a lightly structured form of gatekeeping that precedes—or bypasses—peer review. This article examines moderation as a site of precautionary...

Commitment Issues in Science & Technology Studies: On the Necessity of Compromising One’s Principles

Published On: Jul 10 2026

Bård Torvetjønn Haugland, Alexander Myklebust

There have been longstanding discussions regarding the place of normative commitments in Science and Technology Studies (STS) scholarship. Analysing STS critiques of Innovation Studies and accounts of the institutionalisation...

Sounding Uncertainties: An Embodied Strategy for Digital Ethnographic Archives

Published On: Jul 13 2026

Katja de Neergaard

STS scholars have discussed how the technologies we study are becoming part of our infrastructures for research, sparking new forms of collaboration and a growing interest in open research data and digital ethnographic archives....

4S Blog: Backchannels

Collaborative Micro-biotechnology: A Technological and Social-Environmental Intervention

Dylan Rees (University at Albany)
Jul 13, 2026
This essay discusses research at the intersection of electrical engineering and microbiology, and the cultivation of the bacterium Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 for nanomaterial synthesis and environmental biosensing. Reflecting on how engineering with microbes reshapes methods and assumptions, Dr. Rees (University of Albany) distinguishes between instrumental and collaborative paradigms, asking: Who counts as a stakeholder in microbial biotechnology, and what obligations do engineers hold toward t...

STS Peru: Science, Technology & Society Meeting III

Sebastian Zarate, Sidereus Nuncius, Comunidad Peruana de Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad
Jun 15, 2026
Abstract are new being accepted for the III Encuentro CTS Perú 2026, an international academic space dedicated to reflection and debate on the challenges of innovation and the complex relationships shaping science, technology, and society in Peru and Latin America. Participation is free for accepted panelists. Interested researchers, practitioners, and students are invited to submit a short abstract (up to 300 words) to one of the six thematic panels by August 1, 2026.

The Palestinian Archive as an Infrastructure of Decolonization

Tamara N. Rayan
Jun 19, 2026
In this reflection piece, Tam Rayan draws upon the epistemology of wahda as a framework for understanding Palestinian counter-archival practices. Practices that persevere despite the widespread destruction of their documentary and cultural heritage and the continuous denial of liberation and sovereignty.

Co-Shaping STS in India: First STS-India Network Conference

Mridul Surbhi, Tilak Bhardwaj, Bharti Varun
Jun 08, 2026
This report reflects on the first STS India Network Conference, held at O.P. Jindal Global University in December 2025. The event brought together scholars from across India and marked a significant moment in the ongoing effort to articulate, expand, and institutionalise STS from and within India.

Backchannels content is contributed by our members to highlight news relevant to their work.

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Making and Doing: STS Beyond the Four Corners of the Paper

STS News

Items submitted by the community and emailed to members monthly.

CfP | The 1967 Redefinition of the Second: Constructing Precision and Consensus in the Atomic Age

Jun 30, 2026
In 1967, after two decades of experimentation and diplomatic negotiations, the hyperfine transition of cesium-133 was adopted as the basis for redefining the second. This move from an astronomical to an atomic standard was both a scientific breakthrough and a political achievement. It required the construction of consensus among metrological bodies, observatories, national laboratories, and international organizations amid Cold War tensions. The workshop will bring together scholars from the his...

University of Sydney| School of History and Philosophy of Science (two positions) 

Jun 30, 2026
The School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney is seeking to fill two full-time academic positions, and is particularly interested in candidates working in the areas of early modern science, or science or medicine in Asia, or Indigenous knowledge systems.

New Book | 100% Utilization: Computation and Labor After Moore's Law

Jun 30, 2026
In 100% Utilization, Andrew Lison explores the consequences of pushing computing power to its limits for a culture seemingly reliant on automation as much as human labor. In accounting for this contradiction, Lison offers a corrective to theories of digital mediation emphasizing its symbolic and representational capabilities. He connects the looming end of Moore’s law to trends in semiconductor manufacturing, custom hardware, and parallelized software techniques, including AI. 

New Book | How Data Need People: The Social and Epistemic Practice of a Data-Rich Science

Jun 30, 2026
From genome sequencing to large sky surveys, digital technologies produce massive datasets that promise unprecedented scientific insights. But data, for being good to use and reuse, need people—scientists, technicians, and administrators—as embodied, evaluative, social humans. In this book, Götz Hoeppe draws on an ethnography of astronomical research to examine the media and practices that scientists and technicians use to instruct graduate students, make diagrams for data calib...
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