Jacob Ward, FRHistS (J.W.A.P.)
Dr Ward is a contemporary historian, whose work spans the history of science and technology, environmental history, organisational history, and political history. He is currently Assistant Professor (tenured) in the History Department and Science, Technology, and Society Studies Research Programme at Maastricht University's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
For 2022-2026, Dr Ward is the principal investigator for an NWO (Dutch Research Council) VENI Grant, 'The Prediction Machine: Science, Technology, and Futurology in British Government'. This project explores the history of futures research in the UK, from governmental research on resource scarcity and energy futures in the 1970s to the creation of the Technology Foresight programme in the 1990s.
Dr Ward's first book, Visions of a Digital Nation: Market and Monopoly in British Telecommunications (MIT Press, 2024), explores the technological, political, and economic futures that fuelled the digitalisation and privatisation of Britain's telecommunications infrastructure. This book won the 2024 Turriano Prize from ICOHTEC, the International Committee for the History of Technology, for the best first book by an historian of technology. The book is available to download open-access from MIT Press here.
Dr Ward has also won the 2018 Duncan Tanner Essay Prize from Twentieth Century British History for an article from this project, 'Financing the Information Age: London TeleCity, The Legacy of IT-82, and the Selling of British Telecom'. You can read the open-access article for free here.
He teaches in the FASoS BA Arts and Culture and BA Digital Society, and supervises theses in the MA European Studies in Science and Technology. He is the primary supervisor for PhD projects on the history of teledemocracy (Joe Litobarski) and adaptive architecture (Max Bouttell), and co-supervises a PhD project on the history of solar energy and the oil industry (Jelena Stankovic) on Prof. Cyrus Mody's NWO VICI Project, 'Managing Scarcity and Sustainability: The Oil Industry, Environmentalism, and Alternative Energy in the Age of Scarcity'.
Expertises
Dr. Ward's broad expertise is in contemporary history, spanning the history of modern science and technology, environmental history, organsational and business history, political history, modern British history, and science and technology studies.
He specifically focusses on: information and communication technology; neoliberalism and privatisation; infrastructure and technological systems; government bureaucracy; cryptography and surveillance; futurology and forecasting; the financial sector; environmental history.
Career history
From 2018-19, Dr. Ward worked at the University of Oxford as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the History of Computing. He joined Oxford from the Science Museum, London, where he was a Researcher and Content Developer for the exhibition, 'Top Secret: From Ciphers to Cybersecurity'.
From 2017-18, he held the Byrne-Bussey Marconi Fellowship at the University of Oxford's Bodleian Libraries. From 2016-17, he was a Fellow at the Lemelson Center for Invention and Innovation, the National Museum of American History, supported by the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council's (AHRC) International Placement Scheme.
He completed his PhD in 2018 at University College London's Department of Science and Technology Studies, where he was funded by an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award. He undertook this PhD in collaboration with the Science Museum, London's Research and Public History Department.
He holds an MSc in Science, Medicine, Technology, and Society from Imperial College London and a BSc in Medical Ethics and Law with Medical Sciences from King's College London.