"I would like to see things like the “Making & Doing Program” at 4S (Society for Social Studies of Science) further affecting the field of STS research. As in, using things like art and creative expression to enhance the weight of our research, its impact on the public (through public demonstrations, or other forms of mass media), and research agendas. I think it would benefit STS researchers to explore non-traditional methods of data collection/analysis/presentation, and would also help others to become interested in the field.
Take for instance Donna Haraway’s Story Telling for Earthly Survival. That film is one hell of an interesting way to introduce people to the field of STS, rather than handing them seventeen papers to read, despite how important/interesting each of those papers may be…"
"My dream is that Drexel expands the STS program to offer a doctoral degree. If this happens, I would be the first to sign up!"
"It would be great to see an STS course or two added as standard credits to more academic programs/degrees. I believe the courses and theories will provide students with an opportunity to expand their understanding of our society, and the connections between cultural/social perceptions and public policies; how they often co-opt on another and feed each other. Maybe then, we would be able to collectively understand the impact certain policies have on marginalized communities."
"There is an increasing recognition across disciplines that successful research into any given problem is subject to a stubborn interconnectedness that reflects social reality. While traditional disciplines each have their unique tools for collecting and analyzing data, they need to be able to converse with one another in a more productive way. STS scholars have consistently shown that STS concepts are extremely useful for enabling these kinds of interdisciplinary conversations. My dream is for this to be increasingly recognized throughout traditional disciplines so that STS can serve as a kind of theoretical touchstone that unites researchers and enables disciplines to contribute to one another more purposefully."
"Both for STS as a field, and for academia as a whole, I would like to see academic spaces genuinely open up to non-traditional scholars. Writers, artists, activists, and "lay" people in general have a lot to offer, in terms of re-envisioning the world. I think if we really want to move our critiques of science and technology forward, we need these sorts of "outside" perspectives. STS is particularly well-suited to making the case for science "from the ground up." But I also hope the field can turn the lens on itself and begin to dismantle some of the academic gate-keeping that prevents new thinkers from accessing and contributing to the knowledges it creates."
"What I'd really love to see would be people with STS training taking on leadership roles in the NGOs, government agencies, and private companies that are tackling some of today's biggest challenges and shaping tomorrow's world. This would see practitioners drawing on STS insights to, for example, consult the UNDP on sustainable development projects, or to assist city governments in designing environmentally friendly transportation infrastructure. Ideally, this would be truly global in scope--STS sans Frontières!"
"STS is the original mash-up, a polymathic fishbowl in which endless remixing and remediation bring about unique insights. I believe everyone's experience is different, and hope we never achieve enough orthodoxy to become a "community of practitioners". That's the beauty of it."
"On a very pragmatic level, my dream for STS as a field is to reach a point where we don’t have to work to explain and justify our existence to other, disciplinary scholars and to the institutions that house us. It would be awesome to be able to meet another grad student and not have to spend the first five minutes filling them in on what we do (or just flattening what we do to “history of science” or “cultural anthropology, looking specifically at science as a culture”).
Thinking a little bigger, I do think there’s something incredibly powerful in true interdisciplinary research. As I mentioned above, my experience with Drexel’s CSTS convinced me of the generative and analytic potential of working/thinking interdisciplinarily. So, on some level, my dream for STS is to get to a post-disciplinary moment, where we all have all the tools and strategies and methods and theories to use to answer our questions, and it’s really the questions that drive research. There’s something very tempting about STS at Arizona State University in that ASU has structurally enacted interdisciplinarity in a pretty radical and exciting way. I want to get to a point where that structure is more the norm and where we don’t have to worry as much about the institutional pressures to present as one or another discipline to get a job or a grant."