Established in 1981 EASST is the organization which represents academics and researchers in the broad field of science, technology and innovation studies. It brings together a variety of disciplines and many of its members have qualifications in both natural science/engineering and social sciences. Read more about EASST.
Nominations now open for EASST Council
2024 EASST Council Representatives Election: seven Council members and President. From January 2025, seven positions of the EASST Council will be vacant due to expiring terms for current representatives and the two additional positions. Of the seven vacancies, one seat is reserved for a PhD student (needs to be a PhD candidate at the time of election), and one for an ECR (defined as someone who has no more than seven years of experience since completion of PhD at the time of the election).
In addition, the position of the President is up for election for the 2026-2029 term, serving as President-elect in 2025.
The 2024 quadrennial joint meeting of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) was hosted by the Athena – Research and Education Institute at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam), and took place in mid-July. You can read more about the event here.
EASST Review: Volume 43(1) July 2024
For this issue – the first of 2024 – the editorial team decided to be led by your concerns: earlier this year, we put out an open call inviting you to share your ideas with us. This has brought us pieces on topics that turned out to connect in surprising ways: among others we have a thoughtful contribution arguing for “liveable futures” instead of the often-heard talk of sustainability, by Anne Beaulieu and her team, a discussion of nuclear waste governance and how it points at a “democratic deficit” by Lee Towers, a dizzying (in a good sense) event report by Britta Acksel and colleagues, a piece by Tanja Bogusz et al. showing us why marine worlds matter to STS, and a reflection by Willemine Willems and colleagues on the possibility of science communication as theatrical dialogue.
EASST’s international, peer reviewed, online journal Science & Technology Studies has four issues a year. It is fully open access with EASST members being emailed when a new issue is published. To view the latest issue view the journal site.
EASST Awards
Since our 2012 conference in Copenhagen, EASST has been celebrating collaboration and cooperation in our field through a set of awards. The 2024 awards were presented at the EASST-4S conference in Amsterdam and the winners are announced below.
2024 Ziman Award: CreaTures (Creative Practice for Transformational Futures) project
The Award is given to the core team of the CreaTures (Creative Practice for Transformational Futures) project: from Aalto University, Tuuli Mattelmäki (Principal Investigator/coordinator), Andrea
2024 Freeman Award: Democratic Situations
2024 Freeman Award: Democratic Situations The Award was given to Andreas Birkbak (Roskilde University) and Irina Papazu (IT University of Copenhagen) for the edited book Democratic Situations,
2024 Amsterdamska Award winner: Making Sense of Medicine: Material Culture and the Reproduction of Medical Knowledge
2024 Amsterdamska Award winner: Making Sense of Medicine: Material Culture and the Reproduction of Medical Knowledge The Award was given to John Nott (The University of
EASST Fund
EASST Fund aims to promote national and cross-national community building within EASST, advance new questions, topics and perspectives in science and technology studies, as well as enable collaboration with non-academic actors publicly engaged in science and technology.
Call for applications
Deadline for this round: 6th May The EASST Fund supports a range of activities such as the organisation of conferences, network meetings, seminars, workshops, etc.
EASST Fund supports: Ethnographies of Outer Space: Unveiling the hidden social worlds of space exploration, seminar, 2024, Poland
As humanity’s gaze stretches beyond Earth, popular imaginations paint vivid pictures of interstellar travel, cosmic civilizations and extraterrestrial encounters. Yet, have we considered the very concrete social worlds which make such musings about celestial landscapes possible in the first place? This groundbreaking seminar, “Ethnographies of Outer Space: Unveiling the Hidden Social Worlds of Space Exploration,” ventures beyond the realms of rockets and telescopes into the rich territory of the social studies of outer space. This workshop is hosted by the ARIES project at the Jagiellonian University, with additional funding from EASST.
EASST Fund supports: RUMOS 2024 | “Building bridges in times of crises” – Autumn School & Workshop of the Thematic Section on Knowledge, Science and Technology of the APS, Portugal
With the support of the EASST Fund, RUMOS 2024 entitled “Building bridges in times of crises” takes place between the 18th and 22nd of November 2024 at NOVA FCSH, in Lisbon, Portugal. The event is composed of an autumn school targeting early career scholars and a conference with an open call for papers. RUMOS is a biannual event organized by the Thematic Section on Knowledge, Science and Technology of the Portuguese Sociological Association.
EASST Fund supports: Creating an Irish Science, Technology, and Society (STS) Community, hybrid unconference 2024, Ireland
With the support of the EASST Fund and the University College Dublin Centre for Digital Policy, we will be holding a day-long hybrid unconference in early summer 2024: Creating an Irish Science, Technology, and Society (STS) Community. This event, the first of its kind to take place in Ireland, will bring together STS researchers while also welcoming scholars from other countries who are interested in the Irish STS context.