Responsibility under Uncertainty: Science, Technology and Accountability
EASST 2002 European Association for the Study of Science and Technology University of York

31st July - 3rd August 2002
<http://www.york.ac.uk/org/satsu/easst2002/>

A key concern for science and technology studies has been to explore and deconstruct the privileging of science and technology as forms of knowledge and practice. More recently, this work has been increasingly accompanied by attempts to build a more accountable science and technology anchored in a more explicit normative and reflexive discourse. Much of the empirical work in STS has demonstrated that things could have been otherwise - materially, culturally and institutionally. The move towards a politics of and policy for science, technology, medicine and engineering that recognises, but is not paralysed by, uncertainty has marked recent debate.

At the same time, science and technology have themselves become politicised and in turn active in the shaping of politics and policy agendas and concerns. The language of uncertainty and 'precaution' and an attempt to enlist rather than enthral the users of science and technology prevail today. Some have argued that science and technology occupy a position in the public sphere that demands their implications be considered at the outset, and not simply when developments are at a point of application. It could be argued that there is a shift towards what can be called anticipatory science and technology.

These changes have raised many questions for STS as well as opportunities for the field to develop analyses that acknowledge the intertwined status of its technical and social 'uncertainty'. This poses a key question which forms the focus for this conference: drawing on the diverse theoretical and methodological traditions of STS is it possible, or desirable, to provide a new framework within which an 'anticipatory science and technology' can be grounded in new forms of social accountability and trust?

There are a number of issues this conference hopes to address surrounding anticipatory science and technology. These relate to a range of concerns, as follows:

- how is it possible to understand and respond to the contested futures for science and technology and how are agendas shaped by the agency of different social groups and publics?

- can STS develop new approaches to technology assessment that incorporate a more nuanced understanding of uncertainty and ambiguity?

- what new forms of governance and institutional developments are required to manage anticipatory science and technology in the 'public sphere' over coming decades?

- how might it be possible to respond to commercial and political investment in new sciences and technologies whose social and technical implications are uncertain; how, given this uncertainty, can they be held accountable?

- how can STS analyses provide for a better understanding of the contemporary and future forms of social division and inequality that reflect and are generated by socio-technical systems?

- how can we develop new methodologies that ensure that STS itself is 'made accountable' in terms of the questions it asks of science and technology, and the ways in which it tries to answer them?

These themes are of interest not only to academic researchers but also to those working in government policy, the science, engineering and medical professions, and lay associations concerned with science and the media.

Contributions will be welcome from the range of disciplines found within the broad field of science and technology studies, including those working within the sociology of science and technology, science and technology policy, innovation studies, the history of science and technology / engineering, public understanding of science and technology, comparative international work, and futures and risk analysis.