Category Archives: Call for papers

CFP: Health data and public value in the Nordic countries (Nordic STS conference, Oslo 7-9.6.2023)

The Nordic welfare states have always been systematically collecting large amounts of population data (Bauer 2014, Tøndel 2014), including health and welfare data. Traditionally, this information was meant for governance and improving public health. In recent years, some Nordic countries, such as Finland, have positioned themselves in the global health data economy to attract investments (Tupasela, Snell, and Tarkkala 2020). This development includes efforts in building large national health infrastructures, such as Findata in Finland (Snell, Tarkkala and Tupasela 2021), Denmark’s National genome center (Jensen and Svendsen 2021), or a Health analytics platform in Norway (Åm, Frøyhaug and Tøndel 2021). There are multiple ways health data can become valuable (Fiske, Degelsegger-Márques, Marsteurer and Prainsack 2022). The potential to derive financial profits from health data may challenge relations between citizens and the welfare state. The question emerges how publics are considered, and how efforts, that increase the availability of health data, are for the benefit of society and of public value. There is little civic engagement in this topic, but the building of health infrastructures has caused some controversies. In this panel, we invite contributions on the issue of public value and health data in the Nordic countries. We invite empirical and theoretical contributions addressing questions and topics such as:

  • How do relations between citizens, Nordic welfare states, and marked actors change through new ‘data logistics’ (Tupasela 2023)’ in health care?
  • What and who is driving developments towards a health data economy in Nordic countries? What are the justifications? Which benefit-sharing-models are envisioned (if any)?
  • How do developments in health data governance build on or morph values expressed in the Nordic model concerning ‘community’ and ‘collectivity’? What are the similarities and differences among Nordic countries as regards public values and health data governance?
  • How does the policy work on a European Health Data Space influence health data governance in the Nordic countries, and vice versa?
  • How is policy learning from biobank governance in the Nordic countries translated into the new health data economy, regarding issues of data ownership, relations between samples and data, consent and opt-out, or public purpose evaluations
  • What new roles and forms do ‘quality indicators’ take in this larger picture of the health data economy and datafication?
  • Definitions and conceptualizations of public value and social benefits of health data in theory and practice

Organizers: Heidrun Åm, Lotte Groth Jensen, Karoliina Snell, Aaro M Tupasela, and Heta Tarkkala

 

For more information about the conference see conference website: https://www.sv.uio.no/tik/english/research/news-and-events/events/conferences/2023/nordic-sts/

Abstract submission, see: https://www.sv.uio.no/tik/english/research/news-and-events/events/conferences/2023/nordic-sts/accepted-panels.html

CFP: STS Helsinki: Methods in Motion at the Annual Conference of the Westermarck Society 2023

STS Helsinki will host the working group ‘Methods in Motion’ at The Annual Conference of The Westermarck Society 2022 in Tampere 23–24 March 2023.

STS Helsinki: Methods in Motion

Co-ordinators:

Marianne Mäkelin, marianne.makelin@helsinki.fi

Santtu Räisänen, santeri.raisanen@helsinki.fi

The sociology of science has always taken a keen interest in the practices by which scientific facts are constructed, their credibility produced and their uncertainty tamed. In this panel, we turn this analytic eye to methodological explorations in sociology itself. While methods with long traditions are often seen as the gold standard of knowledge production, increasingly we are seeing interest in escapades into new methodological territories. For example, in STS researchers have borrowed from aesthetic or design practices to produce knowledge by walking (Thorsen 2016), “mind-scripting” (Allhutter 2011) or producing “biographies of artefacts and practices” (Hyysalo et. al 2019). Engaging in STS inspired self-reflexivity, we feel that there is room for discussion about how these kinds of explorations are formed and what they aim at.

To engage with the conference theme of knowledge and doubt, this year STS Helsinki will organize a panel about methodological experiments, crossovers, and collaborations.

How do we produce knowledge? What might be rendered knowable by verging beyond well-theorized methods such as interviews and observation? How do we theorize with them? What kinds of claims do we make with them? To what extent do our more commonly used methods entail adjustments, improvisation, and risk? What can or should be doubted, and what role does doubt play in doing (social) science?

We invite presentations dealing with these questions, from out-there experiments to more down-to-earth reflections. We hope the panel could serve as a meeting point for researchers interested in experimental methods. We are also interested in if and how your methodological explorations draw from STS.

 Presentations in both English and Finnish are welcome.

Please apply to the working group by via the abstract submission form linked here. The deadline is Tuesday 31th of January 2023. Update: Deadline extended until 15 February.

For more information about the conference, please go to:  https://sosiologipaivat.fi/

Call for papers: Science, technology and society working group at The Annual Conference of the Westermarck Society

STS Helsinki will host the working group ‘Science, technology and society’ at The Annual conference of the Westermarck Society 2021 in Helsinki 11–12 March 2021. This year the theme of the conference is sociology of hope. Keynote speakers include Matthew Desmond and Akwugo Emejulu.

The conference will be organized partly online and partly on-campus in Helsinki, if possible. All working groups in the 2021 conference will take place online on Zoom.

Science, technology and society

Co-ordinators:

Marianne Mäkelin, University of Helsinki, marianne.makelin[at]helsinki.fi
Vera Raivola, University of Eastern Finland, vera.raivola[at]veripalvelu.fi
Jose A. Cañada, jose.a.canada[at]helsinki.fi

Science and Technology Studies (STS) is an interdisciplinary field of study that examines the interaction between society, science, and technology. STS pays attention to how different fields, such as law, politics, and everyday life, become intertwined with science and technology. This is relevant when thinking about heatedly debated topics as diverse as climate change, the role of experts, medicine, genetics, gender, robotics or organic food. The field calls for a deeper understanding of the development, processes, practices and outcomes of such social phenomena. STS explores the mechanisms behind knowledge claims and ontological assumptions that guide our everyday. Or, as a prominent STS scholar, Steve Woolgar, has said: STS looks at how the world defined by science and technology “could be otherwise”.

STS Helsinki calls for theoretical, methodological and empirical papers on current research in social studies of science. Papers both in Finnish and English are welcome. The aim of this working group is to offer a forum to discuss the practices that contribute to the shaping of technoscientific objects and subjects. How is scientific knowledge established and negotiated, and how do historical processes contribute to the development of certain technologies? We especially welcome papers that reflect on the role of hope in the field of STS. This working group is defined as a meeting point for both Finnish and international scholars to share and discuss their work with others studying science, technology and society.

Please apply to the working group by sending your abstract to the working group coordinators. The deadline is Friday 29th January 2021. The maximum length of abstracts is 300 words and they should be in .doc, .docx, or .rtf format. Deadline has been extended until 12 February!

Call for papers: Science, technology and society working group at The Annual Conference of the Westermarck Society

STS Helsinki will host the working group ‘Science, technology and society’ at The Annual conference of the Westermarck Society 2020 in Rovaniemi 26–27 March 2020.The theme of the conference is community, and keynote speakers include John Clarke, Open University, Mia Liinason, University of Gothenburg, Nira Yuval-Davis, University of East London, Sanna Valkonen and Áile Aikio, University of Lapland, and Sigga-Marja Magga, University of Oulu.

Please send your abstract of maximum 300 words to the working group co-ordinators no later than 15 January. Edit: The deadline for abstracts has been extended until 31 January.

Science, technology and society

Co-ordinators:
Jose A. Cañada, University of Helsinki, jose.a.canada (at) helsinki.fi
Marianne Mäkelin, University of Helsinki, marianne.makelin (at) helsinki.fi
Vera Raivola, University of Eastern Finland, vera.raivola (at) veripalvelu.fi

Science and Technology Studies (STS) is an interdisciplinary field of study that examines the interaction between society, science, and technology. STS pays attention to how different fields, such as law, politics, and everyday life, become intertwined with science and technology. This is relevant when thinking about heatedly debated topics as diverse as climate change, the role of experts, medicine, genetics, gender, robotics or organic food. The field calls for a deeper understanding of the development, processes, practices and outcomes of such social phenomena. STS explores the mechanisms behind knowledge claims and ontological assumptions that guide our everyday. Or, how a prominent STS scholar, Steve Woolgar, has said: look at how the world defined by science and technology “could be otherwise”.

STS Helsinki calls for theoretical, methodological and empirical papers on current research in social studies of science. Papers both in Finnish and English are welcome. The aim of this working group is to offer a forum to discuss the practices that contribute to the shaping of technoscientific objects and subjects. How is scientific knowledge established and negotiated, and how historical processes contribute to the development of certain technologies? We also welcome papers that reflect on the role communities in the field of STS. This working group is defined as a meeting point for both Finnish and international scholars to share and discuss their work with others studying science, technology and society.

Call for Papers and Panel Proposals for the Nordic STS Conference

Third Nordic Science and Technology Studies Conference

May 31-June 2, 2017, University of Gothenburg

 

The field of science and technology studies (STS) has grown rapidly in the Nordic countries and the purpose of the biannual Nordic STS conference is to stimulate scientific exchanges among STS scholars by providing a regional forum for presenting on-going work and initiating informal dialogues. At the third Nordic STS conference the keynote speakers are: David Demortain, INRA, Ulrike Felt, University of Vienna and Helen Verran, Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University.

The initiative of organizing the first Nordic STS conference in 2013, coincided with an effort to create a Nordic STS network by strengthening intellectual ties between existing national networks. It was organized by the Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture/TIK, at the University of Oslo and the Department for Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture/KULT at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, The second Nordic STS conference took place in 2015 and was organized by the Techno-Anthropology Research Group at Aalborg University in collaboration with the Danish Association for Science and Technology Studies (DASTS). The third conference is going to take place in Gothenburg, 2017.

The scientific committee and the organizing committee of the Nordic STS conference are now opening up a call for papers and panels for the third Nordic STS conference. Paper proposals should be no longer than 300 words and contain name(s) and institutional affiliation(s) of the author(s). Proposal for thematic panels (3-4 papers) should be short (no longer than 300 words) and contain a brief description of the theme, names and institutional affiliations of the presenters and organisers, and suggestions for papers (title and authors) to be included in the panel (abstract for the papers suggested to be included in the panels are submitted separately). Panels that include scholars from more than one Nordic country are particularly encouraged. The organizing committee can help in identifying potential participants from other Nordic countries (contact: STS2017@gu.se).

Abstracts for papers and panels should be submitted no later than 1 March 2017. Accepted panels and papers will be notified no later than 1 April. Proposals for panels and papers should be sent to: STS2017@gu.se

 The conference is organized by the Department of Sociology and Work Science and Theory of Science at the Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg.

 

Scientific committee:

Kristin Asdal, University of Oslo

C-F Helgesson, University of Linköping

Sampsa Hyysalo, Aalto University

Christopher Gad, IT-University of Copenhagen

 

Organizing committee:

Linda Soneryd, University of Gothenburg

Johan Söderberg, University of Gothenburg

Doris Lydahl, University of Gothenburg

  For more information about the conference, see the conference webpage which is updated continously: http://socav.gu.se/english/research/third-nordic-science-and-technology-studies-conference

Call for papers: “Science, technology and society” – working group at the Annual conference of the Westermarck Society

The Annual conference of the Westermarck Society will be held under the theme “Excess and Owerflows” at the University of Tampere on 23.-24.3.2017. The keynote speakers are: prof. Christian Borch (Copenhagen Business School, Denmark), prof. Sarah Green (University of Helsinki, Finland), prof. Annemarie Mol (University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands) and prof. Iddo Tavory (New York University, USA).

STS Helsinki is hosting its own working group and announces call for papers:

Working group 29. Science, technology and society

Coordinators: On behalf of the STS-Helsinki group at the University of Helsinki: Jose A. Cañada, Lotta Hautamäki, Mikko Jauho and Mianna Meskus. Please direct possible inquiries to lotta.hautamaki@helsinki.fi.

Science and Technology Studies (STS) is an interdisciplinary field of study that examines the interaction between society, science, and technology. STS pays attention to how different fields, such as law, politics, and everyday life, become intertwined with science and technology. This becomes especially relevant when thinking about heatedly debated topics as diverse as climate change, the role of experts, medicine, genetics, gender, robotics or organic food. The field calls for a deeper understanding of the development, processes, practices and outcomes of such phenomena through problematizing them as social phenomena. In the process, STS explores the mechanisms behind knowledge claims and ontological assumptions that guide our everyday. Or, how one of the most prominent STS scholars, Steve Woolgar, has said in a rather provocative way: look at how the world defined by science and technology “could be otherwise”.

STS-Helsinki calls for theoretical, methodological and empirical papers on current research in social studies of science. Papers both in Finnish and English are welcome. The aim of this working group is to offer a forum to discuss social phenomena at the crossroads between science, technology and society: how is scientific knowledge established and negotiated? How do historical processes contribute to the establishment of certain fields of study or to the development of certain technologies? What are the practices that contribute to the shaping of technoscientific objects and subjects? We also welcome papers discussing the specific topic of excess and surplus. But beyond more specific pressing questions, this working group is defined as a meeting point for both Finnish and international scholars to share and discuss their work with others studying science, technology and society.

The abstract should be sent using Lyyti. (Note that once you are on Lyyti, you can change the language from the upper left corner of the page).