Location: Ermoupolis of Syros, Greece
6th to the 9th of July, 2007
The Commission Women in Science of the International Union for History and Philosophy of Science/Division of History of Science and Technology is organizing a conference to honor the 25th anniversary of the Commission’s establishment. The conference explores the importance of networking in science and technology from a gender perspective, taking as indubitable that networks and professional connections play an important role in the development of both.
Historically participation in professional organizations and other scientific networks have been long ago recognized as the most essential part in the advancement of science and in technological development. However, networking for women arose partly out of women’s experiences of being shut out of the „old boys“ networks.
Women have also found that much of the important transfer of information takes place outside the office, the workshop or the laboratory, at golf games, at lunches or dinners and at sporting events. As a response, there seems to be a tendency in some disciplines for women to organize in women’s network and to remain away from the „mainstream“ networking. The emergence of online technology and networking, of modern ways of scientific communication and knowledge exchange led also to a growing class of ‚information poor‘ who have been excluded, among other things, due to gender. Women are particularly seen only as ‚consumers‘ of information and Internet services.
The conference aims to a sociological and historical understanding of the role of scientific networks to women’s professional careers and the role of gender to the establishment and maintaining of networks in science and technology. We encourage contributions on topics such as: gender and networking in engineering, women’s positioning in networks among different disciplines, gender differences in networking in physical sciences and humanities, women’s ways of networking in science and technology, women’s contributions to communication technologies, academic networking, gender politics of networking.
The venue of the conference is the Ermoupolis Seminars in Syros, a Cycladic island in Greece. The Ermoupolis Seminars constitute an important institution in Greece. For the last 23 years they have been organized by the National Hellenic Research Foundation
_http://www.eie.gr/_ in collaboration to the Scientific Foundation of Cyclades. The topics vary and cover interesting and current themes in history, social sciences, and humanities. The seminars last for two weeks each year and take place at the historical building of the Town Hall of Cyclades and the Industrial Museum of Ermoupolis, the capital of Syros. The commission’s meeting is held from the 6th to the 9th of July, 2007.