A one-day workshop for science, technology, society and innovation scholars at post-graduate and early career stages.

This workshop aims to offer a discursive space for PhDs and ECRs to articulate the stakes of STIS research as they see them and to begin to convey them to nonacademic audiences. This will offer important skill development for early career scholars in terms of selecting and writing with peers, writing funding proposals and demonstrating the relevance of research to wider society.
“What’s at stake?” has many interpretations and can mean many different things - topics participants might want to bring to the discussion may include:

The autonomy of science and innovation
Future societies
Inequalities
Technoscientific-society networks
Environment
Science funding
Identity
Relations
Knowledges
Categories
Risk
Science policy
Precarity of interdisciplinary careers

The ability to reframe these issues and argue convincingly to nonacademic audiences is an invaluable skill in contemporary academe and participants will work towards writing a post to be considered for publication on The Guardian’s Political Science blog.

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP
The workshop will be a site for interdisciplinary idea-exchange and provide an opportunity for participants to expand their network of contacts and collaborate on nonacademic output. During an introductory session participants will be invited to explore the topic through engaging with peers working in similar substantive areas while cross-fertilisation with others from various theoretical backgrounds or empirical sites will be actively encouraged. The workshop will proceed with small groups co-authoring an article for further development and submission to the Guardian’s Political Science blog. Advice and facilitation during the collaborative writing session will be provided by a senior scholar well-known for their non-academic communication. These activities fulfil a core aim of the forum to support scholars as they transition from PhDs to early career and on to mid-career research, whilst reflecting the diversity of STIS and the importance of continued dialogue with other scholars.

Workshop participants are encouraged to attend the networking dinner on the evening of Tuesday 5th December in Brighton. Funds are available to subsidise travel and maintenance for non-Sussex participants based in the UK. Please contact Cian O’Donovan (c.o-donovan@sussex.ac.uk) for more details. STS scholars from departments in which STS is not a core discipline are particularly encouraged to attend.

What’s at Stake(?) A workshop for early career and PhD STIS scholars