Academic communities often emerge from the collisions of scholarly interests, the building of new research programs, and opportunities for collaboration. STS in Ecuador started humbly as a study group at FLACSO Quito in 2008. By involving students and professors it grew rapidly into a small research team at the Media Studies Program, and very soon started organizing international seminars and workshops.
The group became an epistemic community which supported the effort of developing shared understanding of STS. It provided the environment for fostering shared knowledge, founded academic programs, and opened STS lines of research.