News and Events: Conferences

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23 - 29 July 2017, Symposium "The interface between the study of cultural diversity in science and decision-making in science policy", Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Date: 23 - 29 July 2017
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Deadline: Thursday 10 November 2016

The International Association for Science and Cultural Diversity (IASCUD) is hosting a symposium titled "The interface between the study of cultural diversity in science and decision-making in science policy" at the 25th International Congress of History of Science and Technology to be held in Rio de Janeiro, 23-29 July 2017. The organisers of the symposium are Nina Atanasova (Toledo OH, U.S.A.) and Benedikt Loewe (Amsterdam, The Netherlands & Hamburg, Germany).

The following speakers have tentatively accepted to present at the symposium:

Annamaria Carusi, University of Sheffield, England Matthew Inglis, Loughborough University, England Arun Sharma, Next Einstein Forum, Rwanda

A description of the aims and scope of the symposium can be found at the bottom of the call for abstracts.

We have 3 to 5 open slots for 30 minute presentations plus 15 min Q&A. Interested historians, philosophers, anthropologists, sociologists and other scholars of science and technology are invited to submit abstracts of no more than 2500 characters, including spaces, and short biographical notes to the organizers of the symposium at by November 10, 2016.

Please use "Abstract for ICHST symposium" as the subject of your email.

Aims and Scope of the Symposium. Scientific practices show a great deal of diversity that is reflected in different values, aims, goals, criteria for success, and measures of quality. Diachronic diversity means that what were the values and the practice of a field in the past, may not be its values and practice anymore now, nor will they be its values and practice in the future; synchronic diversity separates scientific cultures along lines of disciplines, sectors, geographical regions, and other criteria. Issues involving geographical cultural diversity connect naturally to the conference theme Science, Technology and Medicine between the Global and the Local. Historians, sociologists, and philosophers study the multi-faceted cultural differences and their effect on science and its practice.

Decisions in both national and international science policy are intimately connected to the mentioned cultural diversity of values, aims, goals, and practices. E.g., the aim that a funding instrument is supposed to achieve may be seen as desirable in one cultural context, but not in another; even if two different cultural contexts agree about the desirability of a goal, a funding instrument that helps in achieving that goal in one cultural context may be ineffective or even detrimental in another.

In this symposium, we wish to explore the actual and potential connections between researchers who study the cultural variety of science from historical, sociological, and philosophical perspectives and the deciders and stakeholders in both local and global science policy: Are policy makers informed about the effects of scientific cultural diversity? If so, how does this affect their decisions? If not, what can researchers of cultural diversity in science do in order to connect to the decision makers?

IASCUD (International Association for Science and Cultural Diversity) is an inter-division commission shared by the two divisions of the International Union for History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IUHPST), the the Division for History of Science and Technology (DHST) and the Division for Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology (DLMPST). It was founded in the year 2000 during the VII Congreso Mexicano de Historia de la Ciencia y la Tecnologia and was officially commissioned by the DHST/IUHPST in 2001 and by DLMPST/IUHPST in 2015. For more about IASCUD: http://www.iascud.org/

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