Registration open: Science in Public 2016
University of Kent, Canterbury, 13-15 July 2016
Registration for the Science in Public 2016 conference is now open via this link. The early bird rate is available until 20 May.
A draft timetable for the conference runs from lunchtime on Wednesday 13 July to about 3pm on Friday 15 July. There is a full range of packages with accommodation or day rates available. Thanks to support from the British Society for the History of Science we can offer reduced rates to students, unwaged and freelance attendees.
The annual Science in Public conference is an occasion for cross-disciplinary debate and discussion and a forum for sharing all work considering the relationships between science, technology, medicine and their multiple publics. We include scholarship in, for example, science communication, history of science, science policy, geography, psychology, literature, social or cultural studies and practitioners of communication, engagement or the arts in relation to science. Papers may relate to science in mass media, museums or online spaces; public engagement and participation; popular science and its histories; science, publics and policy; and science in fictions, art and cinema.
The theme for this year’s conference, hosted by the Centre for the History of the Sciences at the University of Kent, is Science in Public: Past, Present and Future. We therefore particularly welcome papers, panels, projects and sessions that can draw on and speak to questions about science and the public across different time periods or that consider how historical studies might influence current thinking, or vice versa. Opening and closing plenary sessions supporting this theme are from the interdisciplinary projects Constructing Scientific Communities (with Professors Sally Shuttleworth and Chris Lintott) and Unsettling Scientific Stories (with Professor Iwan Morus and Dr Amanda Rees). We will also, on the Thursday, have a strand focusing on comedy and science communication, including: a panel session looking at its history, role and pitfalls; a workshop for those who would like to use comedy in their own communication activities; and a SiP-themed comedy gig.
Please send queries to Rebekah Higgitt (r.higgitt@kent.ac.uk).