A report of the Second study days of the “sciences, technological innovation and society” Research Committee 29 of the Association Internationale des Sociologues de Langue Française (AISLF), May 3-5, 2006, Grenoble (France).

The “Sciences, technological innovation and society” Research Committee started at the end of the 1990 and experienced a significant development since the Quebec congress in 2000. This development was stressed by the first study days in Dijon (2003), organized by Pascal Ragouet and the sociology department of Dijon University), then the specific sessions during the AISLF congress in Tours (France, 2004), after which the “Thematic Group” became a “Research Committee”, and finally the conference “Sociology of arts, sociology of sciences” in Toulouse (November 2004) (Co-organized with the AISLF CR18 “Sociology of Art” and the Research network “OPUS”). The second study days, organized in Grenoble by Dominique Vinck and the CRISTO (Research Center in Socio-Technic Innovation and Organisation (http://web.upmf-grenoble.fr/cristo/), thus came to install a regularity in meetings on this thematic.

As during the first study days, the call for communication was broadly opened, not privileging any approach or “school”, but encouraging contributions supported by empirical work and/or a good knowledge of the field. 52 communications were presented by 65 authors. The topics covered analyses of institutions (institution, profession and scientific movement; scientific training), of laboratories (laboratory studies and scientific practices) and work on the techniques (techniques, social practices, body and use). Compared to the preceding meetings, one could observe a slight disciplinary centring (less participants not sociologists) and the renewal of work on laboratories and research practices. These works renew the approaches trying to integrate the results of traditional studies of laboratories on practices, instruments and statement construction and analyses taking more into account the organisational (financings, internal organisation and management), institutional (disciplines, specialities, professions, research system) and societal (relations to various external collective actors) dimensions. On their side, the works on scientific institutions encounter new questions echoing with recent social movements related to the French research system. The international dimension of the meeting made also possible to put in prospect some for these questions through international comparison (introductory conference of Yves Gingras on the universities).

These study days gave place to proceedings edited by Dominique Vinck (under the title “Sciences, Innovation technologique et société”), which gathers summaries and texts of the communications of those authors who agreed to send in advance. The proceedings (in French) can be ordered through e-mail (Catherine.Urrea@upmf-grenoble.fr) for 35 euros. The group decided to pursue the same way into the further. At the end of the second study days, the organizers announced the next launch, (January 2007) of a new journal, the Revue d’Anthropologie des Connaissances, an electronic journal mainly in French (Chief editor, Riga Arvanitis. E-mail: rigas@option-service.fr). The first issue will be dedicated to “techniques, practices, body and use » and the second one to « laboratory studies ».