[EASST-Eurograd] joint call for abstracts for STS NL 2026 - Metascience, Open Science, and Science Reform Movements

[Wolfgang Kaltenbrunner via Eurograd]

Dear colleagues,

 

Recent developments around Metascience, Open Science, or related Science Reform Movements gained increasing attention in STS. We jointly want to draw your attention to 4 tracks at STS NL Conference 2026, which deal with how scientific culture and practice is currently renegotiated under these terms.

 

While the overarching theme Science Reform is shared, our tracks approach the reform initiatives from different angles and perspectives. The track Making Science Better?, looks at the very politics of notions of epistemic value and research quality, wielded by science reformers, sleuths and others. Investigating how quality can be recognized, maintained, and fostered across diverse scientific contexts.

Taking a different perspective, the track Research Culture(s) in transition interrogates the concept of “research culture”, a not-yet-stabilized lens through which science policymakers, researchers, funders and universities engage with systemic concerns in scientific work, ranging from leadership and incentive structures to career precarity, psychosocial health, and workload.

The other tracks further spotlight some of the contests and complexities in science reform. The track Scopes and Scapes of Science, addresses how conflicts can emerge when  concepts of proper science that stem from the local conditions and preferences of specific research communities become global ones for all of science, either by reform initiatives or by the infrastructurization of scholarly work.

Relatedly, the track Resisting Rent-Seeking focuses on the competition for dominance in scholarly infrastructures between commercial and non-profit actors in an era of data-driven platformization.

 

With these tracks we want to have a rich, extensive, and critical discussion about science reform movements at STS NL next year! So, don’t miss this opportunity to join and contribute your work. Abstracts of up to 200-300 words can be submitted until January 7th 2026 via this site. Interested parties are also encouraged to reach out to the convenors of the track-of-interest.

 

For more information on the tracks, see:

• 4: Scopes and Scapes of Science: Between Global Reforms and Local Confrontations (Sven Ulpts & Alexander Schniedermann)
• 6: Research Culture(s) in transition: Uncertainty, Reform, and the Politics of Change in Academic Research (Melpomeni Antonakaki, Wolfgang Kaltenbrunner, Daniela Craciun, Maarten Derksen and Judit Varga)
• 7: Making Science Better? (Bart Penders, Willem Halffman, Serge Horbach, Yağmur Öztürk and Yj Erden)
• 10: Resisting Rent-Seeking: Nonprofit Platforms and the Politics of Open Science in Scholarly Communication and Evaluation (Tanya Lee and Alex Rushforth)

 

Best regards,

 

Wolfgang Kaltenbrunner, Daniela Craciun, Maarten Derksen, Yj Erden, Willem Halffman, Serge Horbach, Tanya Lee, Yağmur Öztürk, Bart Penders, Alex Rushforth, Alexander Schniedermann, Sven Ulpts, Melpomeni Antonakaki & Judit Varga