3S Chair Jason Chilvers and Jan-Peter Voß (Berlin University of Technology) are advertising a Call for Papers for an open panel on “Democracy in the making” to be held at the 4S/EASST conference in Prague, 18-21 August 2020. They invite submissions which reconstruct how ‘the demos’ is enacted in practice and how this is supported by…
The enduring significance of the sciences of environmental change, and their impact global politics, has increasingly attracted the attention of historians of science (Edwards 2010; Howe 2014). Yet the definition of ‘environmental science’ is often taken for granted. In the post-war period the idea of ‘the environment’, and of a distinctive ‘environmental science’, began to…
FAB-GGR is an interdisciplinary project that aims to better understand the real-world feasibility and consequences of large-scale afforestation and biomass energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) approaches to greenhouse gas removal (GGR). As part of FAB-GGR, 3S researchers – Jason Chilvers, Laurie Waller, Irene Lorenzoni – are studying the social and political feasibility of developing afforestation and…
Remaking Participation, a book edited by 3S Chair Jason Chilvers and Matthew Kearnes (UNSW, Sydney), has received the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) 2018 Amsterdamska Award. The award, in honour of science and technology studies (STS) scholar Olga Amsterdamska, is made for a “significant creative collaboration in an edited book or special issue…
3S member Martin Mahony, who is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in Human Geography, has published a new working paper based on his work on the history of atmospheric science and technology. It looks at the historical geographies of British imperial air-shipping, and examines what happens when imaginations of technological futures collide with…
In this British Academy-funded project 3S lecturer Martin Mahony is investigating the intersections of science, empire and climate in order to understand how practices of predicting and observing the weather were shaped by the context of British colonialism. Relationships between science and empire have been well documented in a burgeoning field concerned with the histories and…
Deliberate large-scale interventions in the Earth’s climate system known as ‘geoengineering’ have been proposed in order to moderate anthropogenic climate change. This PhD research critically reviewed existing appraisals of geoengineering before developing and executing its own appraisal method in response to their limitations. The research developed an innovative multicriteria method called deliberative mapping to ‘open…
‘Citizen science’ can place citizens at the centre of a process that generates new knowledge for disaster risk reduction. This project, funded under the Research Councils UK Global Challenges Research Fund, aims to understand how citizen science is currently applied to disaster risk reduction (DRR) objectives in the face of natural hazards, and how it might be more…
Large concentrations of jellyfish are increasingly being recorded worldwide. The main drivers of this are hypothesised to be as a result of increasing ocean temperatures and increases in prey availability. These factors are often influenced by anthropogenic activities that alter the characteristics of the oceans in favour of gelatinous zooplankton. The impacts of a bloomed…
Many communities along the Norfolk coast have historically, and more recently, seen changes to their landscapes. Significant changes are likely in the future, especially in areas where coastal erosion is evident. The way these changes are communicated and the level of community engagement in the decision making process on how to deal with current and…
The need to rapidly decarbonise the energy systems which underpin modern societies is widely accepted, yet there is also growing criticism of ‘top down’, technocentric transition visions. Transitions are, such critics claim, unpredictable, contested, and comprise of multiple and competing perspectives. This paper opens up to diverse visions of UK energy transitions by studying a…
In a new open access paper in the Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning Jason Chilvers and Noel Longhurst set out a new framework that reconceives public and civil society engagement in energy transitions as co-produced, relational and emergent. The paper speaks to the urgent challenge of transitioning to sustainable low carbon energy systems and debates…
In this paper we develop an approach to sociotechnical change that is grounded in relational and co-productionist theories from science and technology studies (STS) and wider social theory. This is a constructive project to further develop and advance understandings and explanations of actor dynamics and sociotechnical change. In doing so we propose a new relational…
This project looks at the recovery process and adaptation strategies of local communities affected by a volcanic eruption. Noting a large gap in the understanding of post-disaster period, I aim to understand the different stages and strategies which lead the recovery process and the adaptation choices, especially in terms of sustainable development and reduction of…
Fifty years ago, Michael Polanyi wrote his classic essay in defence of the autonomy of scientific enquiry: The Republic of Science: its political and economic theory. Contrasting with this vision, the past 30 years have seen the proliferation of Global Environmental Assessments (GEAs) which are explicitly associated with societal goals. The most recent example is…
In the turn to a more critical and reflexive mode of research on public participation with science- related issues limited attention has been given to ‘public participation expertise’, the rise of mediators as a new category of expert, and the ‘technologies of participation’ that they assemble. Drawing on an in-depth study involving mediators of public…
There are two propositions about knowledge society and policy-making which – if true – are troubling in the context of climate change. First policy-making seems ever more reliant on knowledge and yet science seems to deliver knowledge (at least in this context) with ever less certainty or authority. And second and here I quote Dan…
This paper contributes to a more reflexive mode of research on public engagement with science- related issues through studying actors that mediate science-society interactions, their roles and relationships, and the nature and extent of learning and reflexivity, in participatory governance networks. A mapping framework is developed to describe the roles and relations of actors mediating…
Changing visions of science and the characterization of scientific expertise have been co-produced with imaginations of ‘the public’ and its proper role in science policy-making. Since the middle of the twentieth century, visions of science as the product of an isolated community devoted to free intellectual inquiry have largely been replaced by the recognition both…
EPSRC and ESRC (2009-11) Promotes interdisciplinary understanding of and research into differentiated landscapes of energy vulnerability and resilience – shaped by complex interactions between technologies, infrastructures, policies, markets and practices.
EU FP7 (2009-13) Aims to provide a reference framework for the development and possible implementation of monitoring activities and associated stakeholder engagement during relevant phases of the radioactive waste disposal process.
Leverhulme Trust (2007-11) This project explored public, scientific and policy understandings, conceptualisations and responses to framings of energy policy.
EU FP7 (2011-14) Aims to generate a better understanding of the complex interplay between the technical and the social in radioactive waste management and, in particular, in the design and implementation of geological disposal.
NERC and ESRC (2012-16) People living in the shadow of six potentially active volcanoes will take part in this major new study exploring better ways to forecast and cope with future eruptions.
Thursday 10 June 2010, University of East Anglia The third workshop of the ESRC seminar series Critical Perspectives on Public Engagement in Science and Environmental Risk explored the topic of emerging forms of public engagement and participation in the context of geologic and flood hazards. The management of natural hazards has traditionally been dominated by…
3S (Science, Society and Sustainability) Research Group 