Maastricht University Science, Technology and Society Studies

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The Maastricht University – Science, Technology and Society Studies (MUSTS) research programme studies the relations among science, technology and society, focusing on Cultures of Research and Innovation. We are interested in settings that are infused with new knowledge, instruments, artefacts, actors, and skills—whether in the laboratory, the hospital, the workshop, the concert hall, or regulatory agencies.

We study such cultures of research and innovation in a radically interdisciplinary way. The classic disciplines of sociology, anthropology, history and philosophy play a constituting role. Cultural themes are historicized; historical questions are shown to have normative dimensions; and ethical issues are studied as social phenomena. Analysis typically moves among different levels (from micro-level studies of local practices to macro-level questions of governance, policy and morality). MUSTS research is adventurous in exploring theoretical and empirical fault lines, but it is always rigorous in its methodological approach, theoretical grounding, and scholarly justifications.

 Director: Prof. Cyrus Mody

 View recent MUSTS publications

News

Darian Meacham appointed Professor of Practical Philosophy

Darian’s research focuses on how philosophy can help us to better understand and steward the co-shaping of technology and politics.

Darian Meacham

Harro van Lente receives RWTH Aachen Research Fellowship

The project 'Epistemic Imaginaries' will study how within research fields ideas about 'where to go' emerge, stabilize and change under external pressure, such as the climate crisis. 

Harro van Lente

Amsterdamska prize awarded to Anna Harris’s and John Nott’s book

The jury applauds the book for its "original exploration into the materiality of medical knowledge reproduction."

MUSTS Making sense of medicine

Jacob Ward wins 2024 Turriano Prize

The 2024 Turriano Prize from ICOHTEC (the International Committee for the History of Technology) was awarded to Jacob Ward’s book Visions of a Digital Nation (MIT Press, 2024). The Turriano Prize recognises the best first book by an historian of technology. 

Jacob Ward

2 NWO PhD in the Humanities grants for FASoS

Max Boutell and Sharon Anyango will work on separate projects on the role adaptive architects in the neoliberal turn, and on gender expectations of Somali and Eritrean refugees in the Netherlands.

Max Boutell and Sharon Anyango