UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies

It's been a great week for STSers on the BBC!

Starting us off we have STS PhD student Mat Paskins spoke at Somerset House for BBC Radio 4's Four Thought series.

Simon Werrett spoke at UCL's new Institute of Making on Friday 19 April about "Material Histories of Science". Werrett asked what a new history of material qualities might look like, and explored the history of that essential academic material - red ink!

UCL's Department of Science and Technology Studies seeks to appoint a full time Senior Lecturer in Science Communication.

On April 4^th 2013, Dr Brian Balmer gave a talk entitled “The Social Dimension of Technology” at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Education and Language, University of La Laguna, Tenerife. The talk was given to staff and students as part of their two day annual research conference and Faculty celebration.

Brian Balmer is to be the co-investigator on an eighteen month project funded by the ESRC and AHRC as a part of their Science and Security Progamme. The project is entitled The Formulation and Non-formulation of Security Concerns:Preventing the Destructive Application of the Life Sciences. The project involves a number of researchers compiling case studies on how security issues become "non-issues" in policy debate about biological weapons control. Brian will contribute a case study on the history of concerns over genetic engineering. The principal investigator on the project is Professor Brian Rappert at the University of Exeter. Ten projects were funded overall, of which two received AHRC support.

The STS Department wishes the UCL Team the very best of luck in their University Challenge semi-final. The team, which includes STS undergraduate Simon Dennis as captain, have battled their way through numerous tricky questions to get to the penultimate round. Get ready to cheer them on!

Every year, we run a course called Action for Global Citizenship HPSC2017A/B. The objective is to get our second-year students to engage with the real world in a different way. Rather than coming to lectures and writing essays, this module asks them to plan and carry out an 'action'. This might be an event, a performance, a thing that they make or build. In the spring term term, our class split into two groups.

Jack Stilgoe was recently a member of an expert group advising the European Commission on approaches to responsible research and innovation. The report looks at options for how science policy can encourage greater responsibility for the direction and broad implications of scientific research and innovation. This report has been covered in this week's Research Europe http://www.researchprofessional.com/news/article/1313166/. In the story, Jack is quoted as saying that “RRI is a new term to describe a set of old concepts… RRI is about getting more from science and innovation, not just stopping certain things that we find troubling.”

STS Lecturer Simon Werrett spoke in Rome on March 15 on the relations of technology and religion in the early modern period, beginning (appropriately in light of recent events at the Vatican) with an exploration of fireworks staged for the election of a new Pope in Rome in the sixteenth century. The talk was part of a conference examining the role of stage machinery, spectacle and theatre in religious festivals and practices in early modern Europe.

Congratulations to STS BSc student Simon Dennis and the rest of the UCL University Challenge Team. Yesterday the team beat the University of Manchester in their second quarter final round draw to go through to semi finals.

STS Research Fellow, Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock (MBE) has been mentioned by UCL Provost in his 04 March 2013 newsletter:

Above average teaching

UCL Natural Sciences programme has released data from Term 1 teaching in modules taken by first year students. STS scores above average, largely due to the efforts of Dr Simon Lock and Dr Brendan Clarke. Well done. 

A team of UCL graduate students including STS PhD Student Steph Ratcliffe have been selected to organise 11th annual masterclass for the British Postgraduate Philosophy Association. The team, which also includes Akosua Bonsu, Emily Crampton from the UCL Philosophy Department will host the event at UCL on 14 and 15th of April 2013. The masterclass will explore issues around Philosophy and Mental Health. More details on the event website.

Final year students - it's time to have your say about your degree. The National Student Survey (NSS) is now open. This is an opportunity to speak up confidentially in a nationwide poll about universities. The data from the NSS feeds into government statistics about courses and affects how your degree is represented to potential employers and future students.

Last term recently arrived STS lecturer Jack Stilgoe launched a new course ‘Governing emerging technologies’ for UCL 3rd year undergraduates (HPSC3036). As well as the usual essay, the 24 students from STS and across UCL taking the cousre were asked to put together a course blog, in which they would explore issues to do with emerging technologies. Case studies and literatures were discussed in class, but the idea with the blog was that the students would dig into their own examples. Jack asked the creators of the best ones if they would agree to have theirs aired publicly and you can find the results on his blog.

Episode 6 of Thinking about Science is now available on soundcloud:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/engage_academics/thinkingaboutscience

STS History and Philosophy of Science gradaute Charlotte Connelly - who now works for London's Science Museum will be appearing in Episode 3 of the BBC's Genius of Invention Series on Thursday 7th February.

On 25/26 January 2013 Simon Werrett presented a paper at the conference “Oceanic Enterpise: Location, Longitude and Maritime Cultures, 1770-1830” held at the Huntington Library in California. Werrett’s contribution explored the history of navigation techniques in the Russian navy during this period, and the interactions of Russian and British circumnavigators and men of science.

On Monday, UCL Science & Technology Studies held a panel discussion on the question of "Will the geek inherit the earth?" This was prompted by a recent book by Mark Henderson, former Science Editor of the Times and now Head of Communications at the Wellcome Trust.

Congratulations to UCL's University Challenge Team, captained by STS student Simon Dennis for another magnificent win on BBC's University Challenge! The UCL Team are now through to the quarter finals. Woohoo!

On Wednesday January 16, Simon Werrett of UCL STS participated in a symposium held at Merton College in the University of Oxford on the occasion of Professor Lorraine Daston’s election to the Humanitas Visiting Professionship in the History of ideas. The symposium explored the history of the scientific experience in early modern Europe, and included contributions from Prof. Daston (MPI, Berlin), Dr Sachiko Kusukawa (Cambridge) on drawing practices in early modern science and Prof. Martin Mulsow (Erfurt) on the history of numismatics. Dr. Werrett spoke about his current research on the care of material culture in experimental science during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 

STS hosted a large number of UCL medical students at the recruitment fair for the intercalated BSc programme. STS offers one of the dozen-plus degrees in the programme: 

Dr Brian Balmer is part of a research team awarded an AHRC grant, "Understanding Biological Disarmament: The Historical Context of the Origins of the Biological Weapons Convention". 

Image: Jack Stilgoe (3rd from left) at the House of Lords Seminar

On 15th January, Jack Stilgoe chaired a panel discussion at the House of Lords on 'Experts, publics and open policy'. The speakers were Dr Gemma Harper, Chief Social Researcher at DEFRA, Sir Roland Jackson, CEO of the British Science Association, and Lord Krebs, Chair of the House of Lords Science & Technology Committee. The event was standing-room only and the discussion ranged widely over questions of how we make sure that government policy is evidence-based while not pretending that the experts have all the answers, how public deliberation can and should feed into policy and how the civil service will reconfigure its approach to these issues given planned cuts and reforms. The many Tweets from the discussion can be seen here: http://sfy.co/iDQp

STS's Bill MacLehose has been involved in organising a new lecture series, hosted by the Wellcome Library.