MINUTES OF 4S BUSINESS MEETING OF 4S COUNCIL
19th July 2024
Agenda July 19th 2024 @ 12:30-16:00 CEST
Anne Pollock (President called the in-person meeting to order at 12:38 AM CEST at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. Around 20–40 members were present.
ITEM 1 Welcome and Greetings
Pollock introduced and welcomed all present to the meeting, noting that the minutes for this meeting will be published on the website in due course.
ITEM 2 President’s Report
Pollock began by summarising this year’s election outcomes, thanking all the leaving Council members— Vivian Choi, Barkha Kagliwal, and welcoming new Council members—Thao Phan, Shiv Issar, Cathy Herbrand, Noela Invernizzi, and Yichen Rao. Following that, Pollock recapped the celebrations of the prizes for this year reiterating that monthly progress is published in the members’ newsletter, Technoscience.
Pollock urged all present to respond to the 4S Society’s open call for committees (prize committees, and other committees such as the ethics committee, and the forthcoming internationalisation committee (with engagement with the ISC, International Science Council), by contacting Pollock or the Managing Director (Amanda Windle). We’re actively working on international affiliations via the affiliations committee. 4S can partner with people in countries where we have members. And, we have created a War and Genocide Working Group which welcomes contributions. The materials are published on the website.
In 2025 is the 50th anniversary of 4S, and we should celebrate that! This year, Council approved changes and continuities. The book prizes have had some changes to the length of the eligibility of book prizes which has been shortened to one calendar year, with a transition period in 2025.
There has been an extension of roles. Windle will have her role as Managing Director extended, and a committee will be formed to revise that contract; the Digital Projects Coordinator role — had been done by Steve Coffee, and Shiv Issar more recently. This role will be ideal for a research scientist, PhD student, and the 12-month term can be negotiable but will be expected to be in role for 2024–5 for Seattle’25. During this time, we will be getting our IT infrastructure up to scratch for when we run the conference ourselves again (rather than jointly with EASST and NomadIT). We are also continuing to invest (CDs) through 2024.
To accommodate Teun Zuiderent-Jerak’s arrival and urgent conference messaging, agenda item 5 was taken ahead of schedule.
ITEM 5 Amsterdam Conference 2024
Teun Zuiderent-Jerak gave an announcement on flights due to a global IT outage that was affecting all flights on the last day of the conference (July 19). Messages had already gone out to 4S attendees via social media, and had been followed up by the conference organising team via email. Zuiderent-Jerak then gave a discussion of the organisation of the Amsterdam conference which involved a local organising team, VU events, 4S and EASST, and NomadIT. Preparations for the Amsterdam conference were in progress before 4S Honolulu’23 which was not ideal for 4S. Zuiderent-Jerak noted that being between the demands of two societies was a challenge. But, the hardest part of the local organising was moving to rejections of papers without rerouting. Zuiderent-Jerak showed a breakdown of all the places where people came from with Germany being the largest country for attendance; and reflected that there needed to be more work done around locations if future joint conferences wanted to be more global.
Pollock opened the discussion up for attendees’ questions. Michael Barany asked: what are the lessons learned on open panels? Zuiderent-Jerak apologised for the issue that good papers were rejected. He had hoped that some of the applications would be spam, but Teun found only a handful of such possible rejections, so the size of the STS community (of legitimate/high quality papers) meant a rethink of the space (i.e. capacity). Martin Pérez Comisso thanked the local organising and EASST for their work on the conference and noted that he had attended the future conferencing meeting with the Managing Director of 4S. From these meetings he was curious of the rotation of joint conferences between 4S and EASST. He wondered if the next joint meeting could afford a double effort from more globally spaced people on local organising committees. Pérez Comisso could observe that the Amsterdam meeting was centralised in Europe, but in other 4S conference meetings I see more a bigger spread across the globe. Pollock noted that the next conference would be in early September 2025, in Seattle where 4S will be thinking about future meetings, given that thereafter the conference will be in Toronto (due to Covid-19 contractual agreements required 4S to delay but honor an in-person meeting), and in 2027 we will have an organising conference around Taiwan, but we want to look in an intentional way at this venue. Pollock made a note of the need for a diversity of perspectives and distributed labor from Pérez Comisso’s comments. Misria Shaik-Ali asked about fee waivers and how do they map across the globe? While there are only 8–10 people at Amsterdam from Africa, Pollock noted that we want to support new members going forward. Noela Invernizzi (Chair of the Travel Grants Committee and incoming 4S Secretary) presented the highlights of the travel grants processes and pre-funding workshops. Pollock and Zuiderent-Jerak finished up presented on calibrating the registration to the fee waiver balance.
ITEM 3 Finance Updates
Amanda Windle presented this year’s budget with clarification given by Amit Prasad in relation to investments. Warwick Anderson asked further questions about cost of the conference versus the budget presented? Pollock noted that this year, we are subsidising because the profit margins for the Amsterdam meeting do not allow us to garner all costs from the conference. Usually most of the operating costs come from the meetings (as is the case in recent years). We do not know the future of conferencing and the Society does need to have more diverse income sources, noting that when there is another pandemic, we should be resilient and think more around our open access offers in terms of investment.
ITEM 4 Publications Update
Pollock noted that submission rates are way up for ST&HV, and the editorial collective are working on increasing internationalisation. There was also a summer school in Singapore, which was hugely important. ESTS does get a small income, with university libraries paying into diamond open access— do please contribute to ESTS with their ongoing Lyrasis campaign. Pollock noted the efforts of all the affiliated 4S journals too before leading onto the discuss plans involving a renewed publication of the STS Handbook: involving David Ribes, Nicole Nelson, Vivette Garcia-Deister, and Chris Kelty in conversations with MIT press. Pollock iterated that 4S has a significant reserve, so we can make investments when we want to, but we can run down quickly if we run at a loss each year. So, the 50th anniversary will be important to strategize on fundraising. Warwick Anderson and Emma Kowal thought that this was a good idea, but detailed that it might be the right time to have named requests (i.e. limits on giving).
Pollock opened up fundraising for publications and the society more generally to all present. Pollock noted the extended scope of celebrating a 50th anniversary, as the society (2025), or 50th anniversary of the conference in Toronto (2026), meaning that there is a two-year window for giving. Gary Downey felt that 2026 was a good idea, and Amit Prasad (Treasurer) considered opening up the giving now! Pollock noted the aim to endow the writing workshop, ESTS and 4S into the future. Gary Downey noted that in his presidency he wanted a budget that was sustainable and he wanted a steady state budget because 4S was at risk of failing when we had a budget of $300k (USD).
While Michael Barany extended ideas around endowments, and the need for a credible plan beyond CDs. He wondered if endowments would be right for 4S, but some other form of donation?
I donate to SHOT a bigger amount, and it happens automatically at SHOT. So it could happen automatically in what I pay in, but also it could be a dinner, but a dinner not just about money.
Warwick Anderson considered 4S starting a 1975 club (an annual president-hosted dinner and lunch for those founders of the Society). Emma Kowal, Wiebe Biker and Gary Downey confirmed this as a good idea! Wiebje Biker concurred bringing together the ‘dinosaurs’ but not only for the money. Downey noted that he had acutely missed his generation at this 2024 conference, but also noted liking the young energy at Amsterdam too. Pollock underlined the need to attend to intergenerational politics and for conversations to go both ways, with Biker noting that this was a very enjoyable meeting in Amsterdam, and the core idea is to strengthen the community in some way, going forward. Pollock wondered if the event/dinner could be for founders, prize winners, council officers. Action: Anne Pollock urged Martin Pérez Comisso, Michael Barany, and Warwick Anderson to join the fundraising committee.
Warwick Anderson did suggest that the journal editors should be present at the annual meeting, like given they gain so much money from the Society. Action: Request for ST&HV and ESTS journal editors to be present at the annual business meetings. Pollock also noted that Chris Kelty, Chair of the Publications Committee, will be stepping down from this role from this meeting.
There was a short interruption by Teun Zuiderent-Jerak to announce a peaceful protest on campus and that such protests are encouraged as peaceful protests. [There was a protest ongoing during Friday around the university campus on the ongoing War on Palestine].
ITEM 6 Seattle Conference Update 2025
Anna Lauren Hoffmann was thrilled to speak on behalf of Daniela Rosner, as the other half of the co-chairs for the local organising committee in Seattle next year. Hoffmann noted the progress they had been making from about May 2024, when they all got together about conference roles. Hoffmann had been convening the first phase of outreach here and on campus in Amsterdam, and also across three campuses in Washington! Hoffmann requested attendees to consider their hopes, dreams, non-negotiables and so on, and returning suggestions via the Managing Director (via: info@4sonline.org/ and managingdirector@4sonline.org). Hoffmann set out that the US is in a contentious election season this fall, so we will keeping this in mind while organising around travel in particular. David Ribes and Annisa Tanweer will be the program co-chairs. Warwick Anderson asked if there were plans to work with local and indigenous people in Seattle? Hoffmann agreed that this would be the case. A discussion around visa applications and timelines ensued between Pérez Comisso, Hoffmann and Pollock, noting that the timings would be a month earlier than usual to accommodate visa requests with the aim of set-up before the summer break of 2025.
ITEM 7 Future Meetings
This item was previously discussed within agenda items 5 and 6.
ITEM 8 Questions
There was no further business items proposed ahead of the meeting. Shaik-Ali asked for further discussions around mentoring activities, and there were thanks given to Lucy van de Wiel for organising the Queer STS Meet-up which was a success, and congratulations were noted. Action: to add 6S as an agenda item for the next business meeting.
Anne Pollock closed the first meeting 16:03 AM CEST.