Ludwik Fleck Prize

Awarded annually for the best book in the area of science and technology studies.

Created by the 4S Council in August of 1992. The author(s) receives a monetary stipend and an engraved plaque.

Please submit book nominations (author, title, publisher) to the Secretary, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Eligibility

Each year the committee will review books with publication dates in the 3 prior years. For example, during the 2012 meeting, the committee will consider books with copyright dates of 2009 - 2011. While the author(s) is informed immediately, the presentation and award will be made at the banquet during the 2012 meeting. Authors need not be members of the Society for Social Studies of Science. It is permissible to resubmit works that have already been considered in a previous year so long as their eligibility has not expired.

Content areas

"Science and technology studies" is an interdisciplinary field, so the range of eligible books is very broad. It includes, but is not limited to, the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, political science, economics, geography, and psychology as well as works combining or outside of the traditional academic disciplines. It includes studies of knowledge, policy, government, R&D, the uses of expertise, technological controversies, technology transfer, feminist studies, rhetorical and literary analyses, and studies of specific technologies. The main criterion is that the substantive content of the work be concerned with science and/or technology, however defined.

The Ludwik Fleck Prize is named after microbiologist Ludwik Fleck (1896-1961), author of the Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. Fleck's case history of the discovery of the Wassermann reaction to syphilis, was originally published in German in 1935, and republished in English in 1979 after having been cited by Thomas Kuhn as an important influence on his own conception of the history of science. Both Fleck's history of discovery, and the history of his book's re-discovery, exemplify a view of progress that continues to inform research in the science and technology studies fields.

Procedures

Committee: Membership on the book prize committees is completely ex-officio, consisting of council members and officers of the Society.

Nominations: For each of the three prizes (Fleck, Carson and Mullins), nominations may be made by any member of the Society to any Council member or officer of 4S. In addition, books may be self-nominated or nominated by any 4S member. Publishers are contacted in late January and invited to submit eligible books from their lists. Publishers may also nominate books that have not been nominated by members. Publishers are responsible for sending review copies to each member of the committee before the cutoff date. Books may be renominated until their elibility expires. (The cutoff date varies slightly each year, but is usually the end of May.)

Short List: Through the procedure above, committees will designate a preliminary short list and meet during the 4S annual meeting to determine the winners. Awards are to be granted solely on the basis of merit as determined by the members of the committee, without reference to book reviews or recommendations by outside members. If a consensus winner does not emerge, a secret ballot will determine the winner, with honorable mentions as appropriate.

Award: All award winners are announced at the annual banquet of the 4S, which takes place on Friday of the annual meeting.The Chair will inform the winner(s) as soon as possible in order that they may be present at a ceremony during the banquet the following year. Author-Meets-Critics sessions may also be held at that meeting to discuss the work.

Prize Winners

2011. Marion Fourcade, Economists and Societies: Discipline and Profession in the United States, Britain and France, 1890s to 1990s. (Princeton, 2009).

2010. Warwick Anderson. The Collectors of Lost Souls

2009. Steven Epstein. Inclusion: Politics of Difference in Medical Research

2008. Michelle Murphy. Sick Building Syndrome.

2007. Geoffrey Bowker. Memory Practices in the Sciences.

2006. Philip Mirowski. The Effortless Economy of Science?

2005. Peter Keating and Alberto Cambrosio. Biomedical Platforms

2004. Annemarie Mol. The Body Multiple

2003. Helen Verran. Science and an African Logic

2002. Randall Collins. The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change

Lily E. Kay. Who Wrote the Book of Life? A History of the Genetic Code.

2001. Karin Knorr Cetina Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge

2000. Adele E. Clarke Disciplining Reproduction: Modernity, American Life Sciences, and 'the Problems of Sex'

1999. Donna J. Haraway. 1996. Modest Witness, Second-Millennium: Femaleman Meets Oncomouse: Feminism and Technoscience

1998. Peter Dear. Discipline and Experience: The Mathematical Way in the Scientific Revolution

1997 Theodore M. Porter, Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life

1996 Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in 17th Century England

1995 Londa Schiebinger, Nature's Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science

1994 Donald Mackenzie, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance

Rachel Carson Prize

For a book length work of social or political relevance in the area of science and technology studies.

Nominations that provide a new perspective, or a feminist or minority voice, are especially encouraged.

Please submit book nominations (author, title, publisher) to the Secretary, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) .

Procedures

Committee: Membership on the book prize committees is completely ex-officio, consisting of council members and officers of the Society.

Eligibility: Each year the committee will review books with publication dates in the 3 prior years. For example, during the 2012 meeting, the committee will consider books with copyright dates of 2009 - 2011. While the author(s) is informed immediately, the presentation and award will be made at the banquet during the 2012 meeting. Excluded are reprints, second editions, edited volumes, reference works and similar volumes. Multiply authored books are eligible where they represent original work.

Past Winners

2011. Lynn M. Morgan, Icons of Life: A Cultural History of Human Embryos. (University of California, 2009)

2010. Susan Greenhalgh. Just One Child

2009. Jeremy Greene. Prescribing by Numbers

2008. Joseph Masco. The Nuclear Borderlands: The Manhattan Project in Post-Cold War New Mexico

2007. Charis Thompson. Making Parents: The Ontological Choreography of Reproductive Technologies

2006. Joseph Dumit. Picturing Personhood: Brain Scans and Biomedical Identity

2005. Nelly Oudshoorn. The Male Pill

2004. Jean Langford. Fluent Bodies

2003. Simon Cole. Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification

2002. Stephen Hilgartner. Science On Stage: Expert Advice as Public Drama.

2001. Andrew Hoffman. From Heresy to Dogma: An Institutional History of Corporate Environmentalism.

2000. Wendy Espeland. The Struggle for Water: Politics, Rationality, and Identity in the American Southwest.

1999. Steven Epstein. Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge

1998. Diane Vaughan. The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA

Prizes and Awards

Career Award

John Desmond Bernal Prize

Distinguished Contribution to the Field. The Bernal Prize is awarded annually to an individual judged to have made a distinguished contribution to the field.

Book Prizes

Prize Coordinator: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Ludwik Fleck Prize

Awarded annually for the best book in the area of science and technology studies. Created by the 4S Council in August of 1992. The author(s) receives a monetary stipend and an engraved plaque.

Rachel Carson Prize

For a Work of Social or Political Relevance. Created in 1996, a prize is awarded annually for a book length work of social or political relevance in the area of social studies of science and technology. Nominations that provide a new perspective, or a feminist or minority voice, are especially encouraged.

Article Prize

David Edge Prize

Awarded annually for the best article in the area of science and technology studies. This is a new prize created by the 4S Council in August 2008.

Student Paper Prize

Nicholas C. Mullins Award

Outstanding Scholarship in Science and Technology Studies. Awarded each year by 4S for an outstanding piece of scholarship by a graduate student in the general field of Science and Technology Studies.

John Desmond Bernal Prize

Distinguished Contribution to the Field

Awarded jointly by the Society for Social Studies of Science and the Institute for Scientific Information from 1981 to 2010.

The Bernal Prize is awarded annually to an individual judged to have made a distinguished contribution to the field. Please submit nominations (names, with a brief vita or justification) directly to the President of 4S.

Past winners have included many of the founders and prominent scholars who have devoted their careers to the understanding of the social dimensions of science and technology.

Now accepting nominations

Members are invited to submit nominations for the Bernal Prize to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Award Recipients

2011 - Evelyn Fox Keller

2010 - Brian Wynne

2009 - Karin Knorr Cetina

2008 - Steve Woolgar

2007 - Ruth Schwartz Cowan

2006 - Wiebe Bijker

2005 - Donald MacKenzie

2004 - Sheila Jasanoff

2003 - Helga Nowotny

2002 - Michel Callon

2001 - Steven Shapin

2000 - Donna Haraway

1999 - Martin J.S. Rudwick

1998 - Barry Barnes

1997 - H.M. Collins

1996 - David Bloor

1995 - Bernard Barber

1994 - Mary Douglas

1993 - David Edge

1992 - Bruno Latour

1991 - Melvin Kranzberg

1990 - Thomas Hughes

1989 - Gerald Holton

1988 - Dorothy Nelkin

1987 - Christopher Freeman

1986 - Michael Mulkay

1985 - Joseph Ben-David

1984 - Joseph Needham

1983 - Thomas S. Kuhn

1982 - Robert K. Merton

1981 - Derek de Solla Price

Nicholas C. Mullins Award

Student Essay Competition

Deadline for Submission: August 1, 2012

The Nicholas C. Mullins Award is awarded each year by the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) for an outstanding piece of scholarship by a graduate student in the field of Science and Technology Studies. The prize consists of a check for US $1,000 and a plaque.

Only currently enrolled graduate students are eligible to submit a paper for the 4S Mullins competition. If receipt of PhD (or other terminal graduate degree) is held by the submission deadline, those degree recipients are not eligible for the competition.

The competition is for graduate student papers in the field of science and technology studies, including unpublished papers, published articles, and dissertation chapters. Dissertation chapters should be adapted so as to make them "stand-alone." The work may not be older than two years at the time of submission. A graduate student can only make one submission a year. A paper that is coauthored by a faculty member is not considered a graduate student paper. However, a paper coauthored by current graduate students only (with no faculty authors) is eligible.

The intended readership for the papers is a general STS audience. All papers must be submitted in English. The paper should not exceed 10,000 words, including title, notes, and references. Papers longer than the limit will be disqualified.

The deadline for submission is August 1, 2012. Papers submitted after this date will not be considered for this year’s competition, and must be resubmitted the following year. Submissions must observe the following guidelines:

The paper must be submitted electronically, as an attachment to an email message, in MS Word or PDF format.
The subject line of the email message should read “4S Mullins submission.”
The filename of the submission should consist of the first two significant words of the paper title (excluding articles such as “the” or “an”).
Authors must include the total word count immediately after the title on the first page of their submission.
To facilitate blind review, the author's name, address, email address, and institutional affiliation should appear only in the covering e-mail.
Also in the covering email, authors must provide the name of their graduate program, the date they began study, and the date they expect to receive their degree.

Send the submission to the chair of the Nicholas C. Mullins jury, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

The winner will be privately notified immediately following the 2012 meeting. The award will be publicly announced at the 2013 Annual Meeting of 4S, and the winner is expected to attend this meeting.

Past Prize Winners

2011 - Sara Wylie

2010 - Ian Mosby

2009 - Manjari Mahajan

2008 - Jenna Burrell

2007 - Teun Zuiderent-Jerak

2006 - Natasha Myers

2005 - Michael Oldani

2004 - Jennifer Fishman

2003 - Park Doing

2002 - Doug Davis

2001 - Karen Flint

2000 - Cyrus Mody

1998 - Sean Hsiang-lin Lei

1997 - Massimiano Bucchi

1996 - Janelle Taylor

1995 - Stefan Helmreich

1994 - Marc Berg

1993 - Joseph O'Connell

1992 - Shahaf Gal

1991 - Stephan Hirschauer

David Edge Prize

Awarded annually for the best article in the area of science and technology studies by the 4S.

This is a new prize created by the 4S Council in August 2008. The fourth annual award will be made at the 4S Annual Meeting in 2012. The author(s) receive(s) an engraved plaque and cash prize.

Please submit article nominations (complete bibliographic information and, whenever possible, a pdf-file of the article or URL link) to the .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

The Prize is named in memory of David Edge (1932-2003). David was trained in astronomy, and worked with the BBC before becoming the first Director of the Science Studies Unit at the University of Edinburgh in 1966. He had a strong administrative and intellectual role in the development of science and technology studies, as we know it today. He was active with the 4S from its beginning, and served as President and received the Bernal award for lifetime achievement. Throughout his life, David lent his tremendous energy to a broad range of interests and activities. Especially pertinent for this new award was his role as co-founder and long-term editor of Social Studies of Science (1970-2002). He was no ordinary editor: his unparalleled enthusiasm and unique personal touch pervaded even the most routine aspects of editing, and his encouragement and diligent work with new authors helped launch many careers in the field.

Eligibility for the Prize

Published papers that have undergone peer-review are eligible: This includes papers that have appeared in print journals and in e-journals as well as chapters in edited volumes. In the latter case, proof that the papers have undergone peer-review must be provided. Chapters in monographs (such texts are covered by the 4S book prizes) are not eligible.
Publication dates: The prize committee will consider papers that appeared in the years 2010 and 2011 in print or electronically (e-journals) in final form. What counts are the ‘official’ publication dates, and not the dates when preprints (electronic or otherwise) are first available.
Authorship: Single-authored and co-authored articles are eligible. There are no restrictions concerning the author’s professional status.
Language: Texts published in a language other than English can be considered when an English translation is made available.

Procedures

Committee: Membership on the prize committee is ex-officio. The committee chair and other members are nominated by the 4S President. The current 4S President and the 4S secretary are ex-officio members of the committee.
Nominations: Nominations may be made by any member of the society and by editors of journals in the field of STS. Articles may also be self-nominated. Deadline for nominations is July 1, 2012.
Award: The award will be announced at the Annual Banquet of the 4S Meeting 2012. The Chair will inform the winner(s) as soon as possible, in order that they may attend the ceremony.

Winners

2011 - Wen-Hua Kuo, “The Voice on the Bridge: Taiwan’s Regulatory Engagement with Global Pharmaceuticals.” East Asian Science, Technology and Society: an International Journal, vol.3 no.1 (2009), pp.51-72.

2010 – Jason A. Delborne. “Transgenes and Transgressions: Scientific Dissent as Heterogeneous Practice,” Social Studies of Science (2008)

2009 - Alan Irwin. “The Politics of Talk: Coming to Terms with the ‘New’ Scientific Governance,” Social Studies of Science (2006)