MINUTES OF MEETING OF 4S COUNCIL
June 23rd/4th 2025
Agenda June 23rd/4th 2025 @ 13:02 UTC
Anne Pollock called the meeting to order at 13:00 AM BST
ITEM 1 Greetings
In attendance: Amanda Windle (ex-officio), Noela Invernizzi (Secretary), Wen-Hua Kuo (President-Elect), Zhaopeng Li, 3 Pouya Sepehr, Anne Pollock (president), Marko Monteiro, Monamie Bhadra Haines, Thao Phan, Amit Prasad, Rohit Negi, Yelena Gluzman with Upali Bhattacharya (non-voting) arrived for item 4.
Apologies
Shiv Issar, Melissa McCreary, Cathy Hebrand, Monamie Haines, Vincent Li, Michal Nahman, and Yichen Rao (sent in advance).
ITEM 2 Approval of March Minutes
Pollock presented the minutes and there were no amends noted.
VOTE: The motion to approve the November minutes was moved by Noela and seconded by Amit, and approved by (7) votes, with zero (0) against, and (4) abstention. The motion was carried.
ITEM 3 Finance and Operational Updates
Windle and Prasad presented the budget with year-to-date tracking, updates on the CDs (3-month renewals), and NSF grants in process. As of June 19, 2025, there are 1,263 completed registrations, 1330 attendees on the system (77 attendees have registrations in-progress). 828 attendees have said that they are attending in-person, 156 online, and 279 undecided. As of June 19, 2025, there are 304 booked banquet tickets (193 are precariously employed, and 111 are professors and fully employed) which means we have flipped the banquet into a more accessible social event.
Marko Monteiro was concerned that the budget showed a big loss at this point? Windle discussed that budgeting aims were to increase income by 100k between now and the conference, and decrease 100k off the contract costs on catering, hybridity, and AV, etc. but ultimately, we may need to dip into reserves. This is in light of less income generated from the Amsterdam budget on elements like the banquet. Pollock noted a need to diversify 4S funding, on year-on-year conference in upcoming years, and the 50th anniversary in Toronto. Windle noted that we have a list of 100 people who have been with the society for the past 15 years as a starting point. Noela noted that given this very complicated context fundraising needs to start with something small contributions and more modest campaign. Monamie Haines considered ideas to involve senior scholars in our business meetings. Pollock concluded that the aim was to socialise the ideas of planned-giving, and smaller amounts, with Wen-Hua Kuo taking the lead next year.
VOTE: The motion to vote on the budget for proposed Seattle 2025 conference was moved by Marko and seconded by Monamie, and approved by (10) votes, with zero (0) against, and (1) abstention. The motion was carried.
*Welcome to Upali to the meeting.
ITEM 4 Committee Updates
Pollock led on the prize committee updates for the Bernal and Fleck prizes. For the Bernal, we didn’t get that many new nominations, and we have the author-meet critics event (respondents are Vivian Choi, and Pouya Sepehr, and Kim de Wolff (also a winner) will also be presenting in this panel. Haines noted that the Carson prize 2025, had 58 submissions, we ended up with Emily Yates-Doerr is the awardee. There are two author-meet critic with Monteiro chairing 2024 and Haines chairing for 2025 (Bustos and Wanderer as part of that panel). Haines is hoping for more council representation for the prize award in 2026. Submissions by country were noted (US 33, Canada 6, Uk 5, Australia 4, Germany 3, Norway 3, Ireland 1, Spain 1). Rohit Negi gave an update on the Edge prize, with 30 articles submitted and the winner is: De Wolff, Kim. (2024), ‘Floating things’ and methodological drift: Accounting for haunted materialities in the North Pacific Ocean. Social Studies of Science, 54(4), 536-556. Honorable Mention goes to Nafus, D. (2024). Unclearing the air: Data’s unexpected limitations for environmental advocacy. Social Studies of Science, 54(2), 163-183. Draft of the report will come in next. (US 14, UK 3, Australia 3, Singapore 3, Colombia 1, Chile 1, Mexico 1, Switzerland 1, Israel 1, Canada 1). Thao Phan gave updates for the Mullins Prize with only 5 eligible admissions but all really excellent. This year’s winner is Anin Luo for “Animal Scientism: Making Biology Experimental in Republican China” in East Asian Science, Technology and Society (EASTS) (2024). It’s less than half of what it was last year. Pollock noted that she had not written to all the editors of the journals and said please look through your issues and nominate people. So, I think that needs to happen in 2026.
Yichen Rao was absent, for presenting on the Infrastructure Award, but the winner is the Digital STS Initiative. Action: Council to promote the prizes for 2026 across networks.
The fundraising committee update was included in the finance section as there were no further updates with Pollock pressing pause on the activities for 2025.
Noela Invernizzi chaired the NSF travel grants committee with Panita Chatikavanij, and Santosh Kumar and Amanda Domingues. The committee granted 48 travel awards, and 24 different nationalities and total investment $24,100. We had 12 grants declined and reallocated because even the largest grants weren’t enough to cover from the furthest locations and reallocated those grants. So, 48 grants in total. We needed to change the language of the criteria, and we always try to represent more people that are at the end to the middle of their PhD, and some ECRs and post docs. The travel amounts were 400, 500, and 800 USD.
Invernizzi also chaired the ethics committee which is composed of Haines, Prasad, Windle, and myself and we met in early May of this year. The policy was reviewed for 2025 but not additions were needed to this document at this time, however time given to attending to travel, travel conditions and informing through the webpage, and the technoscience newsletter etc. We will offer some moderation from the ethics committee for those panels that deal with very contentious issues, and maybe others that have complicated matters. In August there will be a meeting with the ombuds. And Invernizzi, Haines and Kuo will take a course in ethics for 2025.
There were no new Memorandums of understanding from the affiliations Committee.
ITEM 5 Council elections – Nominations Committee
The elections roster was presented to Council and endorsed by Council. The election will run from for two weeks, from June 24 until July 8, 2025.
VOTE: The motion to endorse the elections roster was moved by [Amit] and seconded by [Pouya], and approved by (10) votes, with zero (0) against, and (0) abstention. The motion was carried.
Windle presented on behalf of the Melissa Creary (in her absence), with Anne Pollock, Thao Phan and Pouya Sepehr (6S) contextualizing the new elections criteria. Phan contextualized governance and fiduciary experience of council members. Sepehr contextualized the criteria related to 6S reps to encourage more experienced people to be eligible for this role. A PhD student would study much longer in the US than other parts of the world. Invernizzi asked if the 6S candidates would be PhD students by the time they start their role on Council? The aim is for 6S reps to be students when applying for the role, but not necessarily at the time of starting Council. Prasad asked if this was democratic enough to represent those who are junior, weighing up that this could be a very useful addition. Negi considered that as long as the candidates are a student at the time of starting their term it should be fine. Monteiro added that it is important to include the willingness to serve on committees. Pollock summarized that the wording would be finalized in the September meeting for the 2026 criteria adding the importance to include the willingness to serve in committees. The vote would then be made and presented to 4S members at the business meeting.
ITEM 6 Publications Committee Updates*
* Nicole Nelson, Aalok Khandekar, Courtney Addison and Kari Lancaster attended for this item.
Introductions to Nicole Nelson, Aalok Khandekar, Courtney Addison and Kari Lancaster from the publications committee. Thanks were given to the search committee for ESTS new editorial team, and the research committee too. Nelson opened up for questions. This editorial team has been helped by sessions and to provide support through the transition, and Nelson will offer that too. The current team is in for the end of the calendar year, and there is a solid six months to do transition activities. The aim is for a smoother transition this time around. The strength of this proposal is to cycle through roles as the collective changes in its bandwidth and have some cycling between to give continuity.
VOTE: The motion to accept the proposed Editorial Collective for ESTS was moved by Prasad and seconded by Monteiro, and approved by (9) votes, with zero (0) against, and (2) abstention. The motion was carried.
Aalok Khandekar (ESTS EiC), noted that we’re looking forward to transition and great to see the team come in and have a new team in place and have some kind of transition that we did not have at all. It is ESTS the first issue of the new volume is expected over the next month, and all content is almost here, so the team will be working with content for the final issue within their editorial tenure. Pollock noted we were light on Mullins nominations, and encouraged ESTS to nominate in future for both the Edge and the Mullins awards.
From ST&HV there was not a lot to update at this stage. A few things to note from Courtney Addison and Kari Lancaster is that we’ve refreshed our editorial board in line with the first 3-year term coming to an end, and the 2nd term of 3-year terms so that changeover will be in time for the July issue. Lancaster noted that we have some continuity and some new enthusiasm for working with the board. Impact factor—ST&HV has gone up from 3.3 from 3.1 on the last two years output and citation. We have an annual call for special issues which has closed. Addison noted that there were 257 submissions for this year and counting (that’s double the submission rate we took on the editorship). Pollock, how much of that is junk versus real submissions? Coutney noted that junk has increased a bit, but we’re also getting more quality submissions. The desk rejection rate has increased.
Nelson noted that the STS Handbook will be the next step for the Publications Committee’s work.
ITEM 7* Seattle Conference Organiser Updates and ITEM 8 Supporting Travelers and International Students were taken as a joint item.
Daniela Rosner presented that the local team are an exciting place, with an indigenous plenary kicking-off the conference, and exciting exhibitions—an art tour in the Summit convention center as a last minute (as a second location, thanks to Windle) and the art tour will engage these different themes, and smaller attendant exhibitions like the main lobby area outside of the conference rooms at the Summit, going throughout the week, and also the zine festival ongoing too. If people want to contribute they can engage via the zine festival (with ongoing and open submission on this too).
There will also be various parties and gatherings, UW will be hosting on Friday with a bit of sponsorship on this. Pollock, noted that there are additional notes with folks on the ground about support for people travelling. Jenna Grant (conference co-chair) has been curating an archive of resources locally when grappling with political change and the buddy system to support (which is alongside the additional volunteering support). Rosner wanted to recognise the work of Althea Rao and Sadaf Sadri on many requests on changes to location and time, and budgetary constraint.
*Haines left at the start of this agenda item. Daniela Rosner joined for this item.
Kean Birch attended for item 9 at this point.
ITEM 9 Future Meetings Planning
Kean Birch introduced the theme of technopower for the Toronto 2026 conference, and has been following up an open call of 5–6 people and reaching out to them, and also reaching out to those in the Canadian context, with around 9 people interested in one role or another. Pollock loved the theme both concrete and open enough to interpretation, so the description is great but scope to think about other engagements of power that could be worked in, but firmly small amendments with a single-worded title both evocative and intriguing.
VOTE: The motion to increase the Toronto conference contract by 55 general session rooms was moved by Prasad and seconded by Invernizzi, and approved by (10) votes, with zero (0) against, and (0) abstention. The motion was carried.
Windle presented a written update on behalf of Wen-hua Kuo for the Taipei 2027 conference meeting—The Taipei meeting may need to be in August (date to be confirmed). New site visit underway at University.
ITEM 10 Future Meetings Planning
Pollock discussed the nomination criteria for next conference, and that the timelines on that are in process. Monteiro noted that it might be too early for people to be thinking about 2028. Windle noted that the only people to reach out are tourist boards for Ireland and Italy. Both Ireland and Italy are popular, and Pollock welcomed thoughts on putting out a call in September. Yelena Gluzman considered that it would be great to have a call by the Seattle meeting so that people are can meet and confer. Phan offered to write to formal networks we’re affiliated with and pools of people with insight. Negi noted that the India network is vital right now, and there is the first India STS conference around Delhi. Pollock noted that while an international conference is tricky right now, perhaps Sri Lanka and Nepal would be good locations for visas around the world, but the question is the capacity to host, and the STS India team could do ground visits in Nepal. There is a plenary session in Nepal right now. Pollock also noted that Singapore would also be another location, but not just after Taipei.
Action: Council agreed to send out a call to be more aware of the future meetings policy and to consider sessions during the Seattle 2025 meeting.
ITEM 11 6S Update 3.
Sepehr will not be able to attend the 4S Seattle 2025 conference due to travel restrictions. Pollock expressed a thank you about the careful arrangements of 6S events going forward and agreed to meet to discuss further.
ITEM Any Other Business
4S has joined a joint US NSF doctoral dissertation improvement grants (500k) with 13 other societies. The outcome is to be decided. Invernizzi asked if this is joint PhD students or individual? Pollock, noted that it will be individual.
Meeting was drawn to a close at 15:10.