ESHS Brussels 2022: Science policy and the politics of science

In 2022, the European Society for the History of Science (ESHS) will host its tenth biannual conference. This year’s edition will take place in Brussels, Belgium, and is organised by the National Committee for Logic, History and Philosophy of Science (NCLHPS) of Belgium.  

The theme of the ESHS 2022 conference will be Science Policy and the Politics of Science, a topic with a particular resonance over these past years. The outbreak of Covid-19 has called attention to the shifting legitimacy of science-based expertise and the reliance on expert authority in policy-making by state and national governments. Clearly, this serves as an indication for a need to understand the role of scientists and scholars in society within a broader historical frame. From a historiographical viewpoint, the conference will be an opportunity to showcase the latest investigations of scientific institutions across time and space. Beyond the traditional views on history of science governance and management, recent studies have enhanced our understanding of scientific knowledge and practice from global, epistemological, and gendered perspectives, encompassing new experimental and digital methodologies. We welcome proposals on all periods, geographic locations, and areas of specialisation, addressing topics including, but not limited to, the following:  

• Institutions, places, and spaces of scientific knowledge: centre and peripheries
• Patronage and science funding: public and private interests
• Theory and practice in scientific and technical expertise
• Material, visual, and textual cultures in the institutionalisation of the sciences
• Circulation and networks of scientific knowledge
• Colonial histories and heritage in the sciences
• Gender and ethnicity in scientific institutions and leadership
• Trials and standardisation in science making
• Openness and secrecy in the dissemination of scientific knowledge
• Amateur scholarship, lay practice, and citizen science
• Trust and authority in scientific discourse and policy
• Scientific movements, ideologies, and related historiographical narratives