Call for submissions

The Congress will consider two forms of submission: Symposia and Individual Papers. A Symposium is an organised thematic panel consisting of several papers addressing a specific topic. The call for Individual Papers will be managed separately, and will open in May 2012 (see key dates). The call for Symposia is now open.

A printable version of the information below (pdf) is available.

How to submit

You can download a submission form in Microsoft Word (.doc) format or Rich Text Format. Please email the completed form to submissions@ichstm2013.com.

General guidelines

The Congress requires that each Symposium is organised by two or more individuals from different countries. Organisers may be representatives of institutions, or act together as individuals. We encourage organisers to ensure that the composition of their panels reflects a range of different national backgrounds and perspectives.

The theme of the 24th Congress is Knowledge at work. We construe this theme broadly, and encourage studies of the creation, dissemination and deployment of knowledge and practice across all periods, and from a variety of methodological and historiographical approaches. Possible areas of investigation may include, but are not limited to

• case studies of knowledge-making and knowledge-use in particular scientific, technological and medical communities
• the use and adaptation of scientific knowledge in the workplace, the home, and the wider world
• how facts, and other knowledge-claims, travel between disciplines, countries and communities
• relationships between those knowledge-making enterprises which are described as ‘science’ and those which are not, and the dynamics of the boundaries between them
• definitions and meanings of ‘pure’, ‘fundamental’ and ‘applied’ research
• how scientists, engineers and healthcare professionals (and their historical antecedents) work, and whom they work for
• the status relations of knowledge and work, including the roles of ‘artists’, ‘artisans’, ‘professionals’, ‘amateurs’, ‘devotees’, ‘operatives’, ‘philosophers’, ‘adepts’, ‘scientists’ and ‘workers’
• sites and geographies of knowledge-production and knowledge-exchange: laboratory, field, factory, hospital, ocean…
• communication about science: forms and genres, advocacy and dissent, authorship and audience in print, manuscript, broadcasting, digital media and performance

All proposals should indicate the relevance of the Symposium to the Congress theme, broadly considered.

Each Commission of the Division of the History of Science and Technology of the International Union for the History and Philosophy of Science is expected to organise at least one Symposium in its area.

The Congress has no funds to support Symposia, excepting the probable availability of student bursaries (to be announced at a later date). However, any sponsorship (academic or commercial) that a Symposium may obtain will be fully acknowledged at the Congress and in its publications.

Programme structure

The expected timetabling is as follows: each day of the Congress will be divided into two half-day slots, and each slot into two 90-minute sessions (giving four sessions per day). A Symposium may occupy from one to eight half-day slots in the programme.

Within this session structure, Symposium organisers are free to propose any arrangement of speakers. For instance, a session may contain eight 10-minute papers or three 30-minute papers, with or without commentators.

There is no limit to the total number of papers in a Symposium proposal, provided they can be accommodated in the slots requested.

All proposals must be accompanied by five keywords reflecting the theme of the Symposium. To minimise clashes in a programme which will include many parallel sessions, the choice of these keywords is vital, as they will be used to determine the first draft of the programme. Keywords may be short phrases, and might include a geographical region, a chronological period, a theme, a named individual, etc.For example: ‘nineteenth century’, ‘institutions’, ‘chemistry’, ‘England’, ‘Humphry Davy’.

The Programme Committee will try to arrange for Symposia requiring more than one slot to run sequentially, but this cannot be guaranteed.

To minimise clashes, the Programme Committee also reserves the right to add papers from elsewhere to a Symposium.

Language

Papers may be presented in any of the following languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian and Arabic. Descriptions of Symposia may be submitted in any of these languages, but must be followed by a French or English translation.

Unfortunately, we are unable to provide facilities for translation at the Congress.

Completing the submission form

Symposium organisers are required to complete all the spaces on the form.

Your ‘Description of the Symposium’ should explain how the Symposium addresses the theme of ‘Knowledge at Work’, and indicate as far as possible who will be speaking (the Programme Committee appreciates that you may only be able to give provisional details at this stage).

The form will be taken down at midnight (British Summer Time) on Monday 30 April 2012. No proposals can be considered after this point.

The Programme Committee will send confirmations of all accepted proposals to the named organisers, via the contact details given, by Saturday 30 June 2012. It will then be the responsibility of the Symposium organisers to ensure that their speakers submit their individual abstracts via the individual paper submission system.

Organisers should note that no speaker will appear on the programme who has not registered by 1 July 2013. It is the organiser’s responsibility to make sure that all potential speakers are aware of this.