Nine Societies Travel Grants for Students, Independent Scholars, and Recent PhDs

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General Audience Summary This award will provide conference travel support a consortium of nine STS societies: The History of Science Society; the Society for the History of Technology; the Philosophy of Science Association; the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, the American Association for the History of Medicine; the American Society for Environmental History, Integrated History and Philosophy of Science; the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology; and the Society for Literature, Science, and Art. The funds are to be used to provide travel grants to graduate students, independent scholars, and junior scholars so that they may attend the societies professional meetings from 2017-2020, including two international congresses of the International Union for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. Members of these societies who are graduate students and junior scholars often have very limited resources to participate in these meetings for a variety of reasons, such as severe cuts in departmental travel funds; similar reasons apply to independent scholars, who typically work in museums, research institutes, libraries, and government agencies. The travel funds make it possible to participate in societal meetings, which facilitates building and maintaining important professional networks, and staying current with pertinent developments in the field.Technical Summary Travel grants for graduate students, independent scholars, and junior scholars serves to make societal conferences richer and more diverse while serving to promote these scholars' research and careers. Such professionalization is crucial on several fronts. Younger scholars will be teaching at major research universities, liberal arts colleges, and community colleges; curating museum exhibits; working at research institutes; overseeing library collections; and helping with government programs. Grants to independent scholars will allow them to maintain contact with their professional societies, creating intellectual and practical stimulation as they continue to work in museums, research institutes, libraries, and government agencies. Finally, recent PhDs, who face severe cuts in departmental travel funds, will have the opportunity to maintain their career trajectories. All of these groups advance the core mission of the NSF by improving science literacy and by elaborating on the nature of science and technology. Their work provides insights into how science operates and how it can be improved, and these insights are especially important during periods of tight funding for science.