Research news
Award for contribution to public understanding of science
Posted on behalf of: STEPS Centre
Last updated: Wednesday, 24 October 2012
An interdisciplinary research and policy centre based on the Sussex campus has won a new international award for “the most innovative cooperation in a venture to promote the public understanding of the social dimensions of science”.
The European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) has awarded the STEPS Centre (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) its new John Ziman award for a project that recommends new ways of linking science and innovation to development for a more sustainable, equitable and resilient future.
The STEPS Centre, which is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), is based on the Sussex campus at the Institute of Development Studies and SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research.
The Centre’s award-winning New Manifesto project includes many collaborative and interactive elements such as an interactive wiki-timeline mapping over 40 years of science and technology for development and and a multimedia version of the Manifesto, illustrated with video and audio.
The STEPS Centre became the first ever winner of the John Ziman prize – selected on the basis of “originality and influence” – after the EASST decided to celebrate collaborative activity with a set of three new awards. Distinguished theoretical physicist John Ziman was an avid promoter of initiatives at the public interface of science.
(Another of the three awards is named in memory of Professor Chris Freeman, Professor of Science Policy at Sussex for more than 20 years and a founder of SPRU.)
Dr Adrian Ely, convenor of the New Manifesto project, said: “This award is a testimony to the collaborative efforts of hundreds of participants who contributed to the project through seminars, round tables and background papers.”
The €1,000 prize money - presented at the EASST’s joint meeting with the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) in Copenhagen from 17-20 October - will be used to continue broadening the public understanding of the social dimensions of science through the Manifesto project.