1. Wind up: ways forward for ISSTI?
2013 ISSTI Retreat
Wind up: ways forward for ISSTI?
Professor Robin Williams
Director
Institute for the Study of Science, Technology and Innovation

2. STS marches on? Continued development of concepts
perfomativity; promissory work, anticipation
application in new technoscientific fields
STS concepts extended to understand
Monitoring & policy formation/implementation
How technologies of markets – and markets for technology – are constructed
Infrastructures – sociomateriality over extended time & space
Affordances of expertise
How traditional and scientific knowledge combined (or not)
Interesting to see STS concepts moving out eg to understand sociology of markets, or SY work on policy implementaiton.
Already a full array of research – eg yesterday – technology of markets and markets for technology are constructed
Continual renewal of theoretical base – reworking of work on performativity, on assessment on sociology of promise

3. Disciplinary configurations
New foci of research activity - bring more complex disciplinary configurations
Law School - intellectual property, regulation (Mason Institute; SCRIPT and CREATe)
Edinburgh College of Art – design, architecture
Increasing activity of Business School, international development, Public Health
Interdisciplinary research funding eg from EPSRC, RAEng for ‘deep’ collaborations with science, engineering and medicine
New coordination challenges
Epistemological challenges
cannot presume central position for science and technology studies perspectives
Very rich intellectual context – STS has powerful tools
Building our knowledge in tandem and for ourselves

4. Disciplinary configurations
One specific issue that we may debate this year:
What is the relationship between science and technology studies and innovation studies? (and related work in area of science and technology policy, technology management)
Mutual benefit or mutual incomprehension ?
Edinburgh unusually combines diverse traditions here
Discussing an international network with other centres that share this broad orientation
received history of STS – need history of STSs
There are other dividing forces – often tacit covert baggage of strands of analysis – methods, concepts, narrative commitments, culture

5. Upcoming Grand Challenges?
Big data, knowledge and information infrastructures
Dynamics of e-science/open science
Data in biomedical research
New business and work models
Digital Social Research
The Brain programme: The next post-genomics edgy technoscience?
????
Our priorities driven by public anxieties and where we can trade upon them

6. Organisation of ISSTI ISSTI success as network of networks
Deliberately lightweight, flexible organisational form
Linking together various different nodes to identify mutual synergies - without undue coordination costs
Involve gatekeepers from each of these nodes – to identify/exploit opportunities
Newsletter, webpage, PhD students group – other fora?

7. Thanks are due to: STIS for co-funding this event
Anne Valentine and Geraldine Debard for careful assistance in sorting out all the arrangements
Valeri for photography
An excellent array of speakers and panel organisers and especially our guast speaker: Trevor Pinch
and of course the pandas
Can I propose a quick round of applause

8. A quick round of applause