Sariola, Salla & Srigyan, Prerna. 2018. "Science & Technology Studies." In STS Publications, created by Aalok Khandekar, Duygu Kaşdoğan, Alberto Morales Ramirez, Noela Invernizzi, and Martín Pérez Comisso. In STS Across Borders Digital Exhibit, curated by Aalok Khandekar and Kim Fortun. Society for Social Studies of Science.
S&TS AT A GLANCE
I. Thirty Years of Science & Technology Studies: A Retrospective
II. People, Projects, and Places
III. Infrastructures
IV. Topics
V. Essay Metanarrative
VI. Elaborations
1988: First issue initiated by the Finnish Association of Science and Technology, titled Science Studies
1994: Editorial board expands beyond Scandivanian countries
2000s: Consistent increase in no. of contributions and geographical diversity of contributors
2011: Three new international editors welcomed to editorial team
2012: Official journal of EASST, journal’s name was changed to Science & Technology Studies
2018: Science & Technology Studies celebrates thirty years of publication
The journal was initiated by an international group with Finnish lead; it was aimed at global audiences but with particular inputs and aims towards strengthening Nordic STS...
This was followed by a rapid internationalization process:
In 1994 the Nordic editorial board was complemented with members from beyond Scandinavia, to include among others, John Ziman...
Throughout the 2000s, Science Studies grew by both published numbers and diversity: as the number of papers submitted to the journal increased, range of themes and concerns also expanded. Hyysalo & Knuuttila write in an editorial in 2009 (No. 2)that“90% of our papers and reviewers come from outside Finland."
In 2012, it became the official journal of EASST, and its name was changed to Science & Technology Studies:
to reflect its content that also addressed an interest in technologies. Moreover, it was felt important for the editorial team to reflect European diversity: a policy of Europe-wide representation in the editorial team was set in place.
So in reflection of EASST’s Europe-wide focus, the editorial team now comprises members from all major linguistic and national networks and hubs of STS: Nordic, German speaking, French-speaking, Dutch, British, Southern, and Eastern European regions.
Beyond Europe:
The journal does not aim to only to publish work by those situated in European universities, or research focused on Europe, however. The authors’ locations underline the international reach of S&TS. Scholars publishing in S&TS span from being situated in universities across UK, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Colombia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, and Switzerland.
Salla Sariola. 2018 Editorial (Forthcoming). Science & Technology Studies. 31(3)
This bar graph compares decade-wise total number of contributions to Science & Technology Studies. The total number of contributions rapidly arose in 2000s, from 116 in 1988-1998, to 186 in 2009-2018.
This bar graph compares decade-wise total number of contributors to Science & Technology Studies. As the number of contributions rose, so did the number of contributors. In 2013, the journal expanded to include three issues per year, and number of special issues also increased.
This stacked bar graph compares gender distribution of contributors across for three decades Science & Technology Studies. According to Salla Sariola,
If the journal’s own numbers are an indication, of the current editorial team, 50% of the members are women and in the journal’s history, four of the six coordinating editors have been women. Of the authors publishing in the journal throughout the 30 years, 46% have been women. During the first decade, the difference was as unequal as 77% of men to 23% women. More recently, however, since year 2009, the number of women authors becomes slightly higher than men at 53%.
This infographic tabulates the continental distribution of contributors to Science & Technology Studies. Coordinating Editor Salla Sariola writes,
As the long list of authors’ locations attests to, the journal’s content scope is global. Indeed, research is reported from further sites and locations as well: translation of STS concepts across different cultures, epistemic traditions, and systems of practice, also beyond the ‘developed world’, has been a topic that authors in S&TS have contributed to...
Work remains to be done, however, to encourage authors based in African countries to be present in the field and to reflect upon intersectionality in STS, both in the topics of study as well as STS’s own knowledge production practices.
This bar graph represents the disciplinary distribution of contributors to Science & Technology Studies. Assigning disciplines for contributors to a journal as interdisciplinary as STS raises many questions, especially if performed by methods other than asking contributors to identify their disciplines, if possible. Since time and other factors (a few authors have died, moved out of academia, or could not be found online) did not permit us to take that route, disciplines were identified based on following criteria: (i) keywords mentioned by authors in their online profiles that revealed disicplinary orientations (ii) departments contributors taught or researched in (iii) disciplines in which authors have their PhDs.
After this process, 137 different combinations of disciplines arose out of 615 contributors. These 137 disciplinary combinations were then further categorised under 23 disciplines, which map the breadth of not only social sciences and humanities, but also natural and applied sciences.
Even though this process has considerable subjectivity, the goal was to arrive at patterns that could potentially indicate which disciplines have contributed most to the journal. Most contributions have come from "STS" itself (173), followed by Sociology (148), Philosophy (46), and Anthropology (36). Out of 615 authors, disicplinary orientations of 54 could not be gleaned through this process.
However, as the next image shows, disciplinary orientations varied across three decades.
The infographic tabulates the top five disciplinary orientations of contributors to Science & Technology Studies across 30 years. If the previous image shows overall disciplinary orientations of contributors, this infographis shows that although four disciplines- Sociology, STS, Philosophy, and Business & Management Studies are consistently among the top five across 30 years, there's a marked difference in their ranking from 1988-1998 to 2009-2018. In the latter, disicplines like Anthropology, Environmental Studies and Design Studies enter the picture, and History contributes much lesser. The category of "STS" itself has shifted in ranking, with more authors identifying related keywords than before. For example, in 1988-1998, only 16 authors are categorised under "STS", compared to 119 in 2009-2018.
At a glance:
Coordinating Editor : Salla Sariola
Editors : Franc Mali, Sarah de Rijcke, Alexandre Mallard, Martina Merz, Antti Silvast, Estrid Sørensen, Jörg Niewöhner, Torben Elgaard...Read more
Previous Editor: Sampsa Hyysalo (2010-2015)
EDITORIAL BOARD : Nik Brown, Miquel Domenech, Aant Elzinga, Steve Fuller, Sampsa Hyysalo, Marja Häyrinen-Alestalo, Merle Jacob, Jaime Jiménez, Julie Klein, Tarja Knuuttila, Richard Langlais, Shantha Liyanage, Roy MacLeod, Erika Mansnerus, Amade M'Charek, Reijo Miettinen, Mika Nieminen, Arie Rip, Nils Roll-Hansen, Czarina Saloma, Londa Schiebinger, Ullica Segerstråle, Matti Sintonen, Fred Steward, Jane Summerton, Juha Tuunainen, Dominique Vinck, Robin Williams, Raymund Werle, Petri Ylikosk, Teun Zuiderent-Jerak
Science & Technology Studies is not only freely accessible online, it is also committed to open publishing, i.e no fees is charged for publication. Coordinating editor Salla Sariola writes,
The entire archive of S&TS is free to download through the journal website, without embargo on any issues. The journal is also free to publish, meaning that the journal does not charge publication fees from authors. During the early years of the journal’s association with EASST, the last issue was reserved for EASST members as a member benefit. The council debated the role of publishing as a ‘commons’, however, as something that should be available all of those interested in STS as a field, rather than restricted to paying members. As a result of these conversations the embargo was removed and in 2017 the journal became fully open access.
The journal is published without ties to commercial publishing houses. The publication is managed on an open source software based platform called Open Journal Systems (OJS) that is developed by the Public Knowledge Project. Open access is possible thanks to the financial support of EASST and the Finnish Science Foundation via the Finnish Society for Science and Technology Studies.
The Finnish Society for Science and Technology Studies publishes STS together with EASST.
EASST is the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology. Established in 1981 it is the organization which represents academics and researchers in the fields of science and technology studies, the social analysis of innovation and related areas of knowledge.
Apart from officially publishing Science & Technology Studies since 2012, the organization has been publishing the EASST Review for the past 30 years, which follows developments in STS, and hosts a biennial conference held in Europe, which is co-organized with 4S every four years.
As the long list of authors’ affiliations attests to, the journal’s content scope is global. Indeed, translation of STS concepts across different cultures, epistemic traditions and systems of practice, also beyond the ‘developed world’, has been a topic that authors in S&TS have contributed to, for example, here, and here.
Salla Sariola. 2018 Editorial (Forthcoming). Science & Technology Studies. 31(3)
The journal has published 15 special issues during the 30 years covering topics such as: knowledge infrastructures, university-society relations, global health, numbers and numbering, politics of innovation for environmental sustainability, energy in society, cultural analysis as intervention, gender at scientific work places, standardization and social texture, architecture, open source, feminist technoscience, computer models and simulation, ageing and technology, antiscientific sentiments, and evaluation. Exciting forthcoming special issues include citizen science, foreknowledge, and expertise.
Salla Sariola. 2018 Editorial (Forthcoming). Science & Technology Studies. 31(3)
Over thirty years, Science & Technology Studies has taken out twenty-two special issues on a wide variety of themes, ranging from global health, university-society relations, energy and knowledge infrastructures to gendered work cultures in physics, theorizing interventions, and...Read more
STS Across Borders digital collections are focused through ten shared questions that can be asked across all STS formations so as to enable comparative insight.
...Read more
STS Across Borders is a special exhibit organized by the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) to showcase how the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) has developed in different times, places...Read more
