Professor Jane Calvert from the University of Edinburgh Science, Technology and Innovation Studies group gave the second Andrew Webster Memorial Lecture in the historic National Centre for Early Music, York on 7th September 2023. This public lecture is organised by the University of York and its Science
and Technology Studies Unit (SATSU) to commemorate the contribution of Professor Andrew Webster, who established the department.
Jane’s talk, entitled ‘Synthetic biology and the social sciences:
making room for collaboration’, examined the close but
contradictory relationships that Science, Technology and
Innovation Studies scholars have with scientists, engineers,
policymakers and diverse publics, around Synthetic Biology.
Jane used the metaphor of different rooms (laboratory, ivory
tower, policy room) to examine the challenges of undertaking
theoretically-informed critical research while engaging with
interdisciplinary collaborative programmes and with public
policy. These ideas form the basis of a book to be published by
MIT Press next year.
There were also two respondents to Jane’s lecture: Dr Ros
Williams‘ (University of Sheffield) work spans across Science
and Technology Studies (STS), critical media studies, sociologies of race and ethnicity, and of health and illness. Dr Koichi Mikami (Keio University in Japan)
is interested in exploring the role of social sciences and humanities in the governance of science and technology.