Related Centers

Centers working on studies of science and technology.

Interested in having your center added?
Please contact UC STS Network Coordinator.

University of California, Berkeley

• Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy. The UC Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy provides an interdisciplinary forum for scholarship in the fields of business law, and law and economics.
• Berkeley Nanotechnology Club. The Berkeley Nanotechnology Club fosters and promotes information exchange and entrepreneurship opportunities for Berkeley students and alumni in the San Francisco Bay Area. The club supports the ethical invention, development and implementation of novel nanotechnologies by facilitating discussion amongst the present and future leaders of technical industries.
• Berkeley Workshop on Environmental Politics. The workshop draws together over fifty faculty and doctoral students from San Francisco Bay Area institutions (the University of California campuses at Berkeley, Santa Cruz, and Davis, and Stanford University) who share a common concern with problems that stand at the intersection of the environmental and social sciences, the humanities and law.
• Boalt.org (Student Organization). A Boalt School student group working for the public interest in technology law.
• California Climate Change Center. In 2003, the California Energy Commission, through its Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program, established the California Climate Change Center to undertake a broad program of scientific and economic research on climate change in California. The Center is organized as a "virtual" institution with sites at both the UC Berkeley campus and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography (UC San Diego campus). The Berkeley Center, based at the Richard & Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy, is focusing on economic and policy analysis, while the Scripps Center focuses on physical climate modeling. URL:
• Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS). The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society was established to sponsor collaborative information technology research that will ultimately provide solutions to grand-challenge social and commercial problems affecting the quality of life of all Californians.
• Center for Medicine, Humanities and Law. The Center inspires, develops and supports innovative scholarship and education through interdisciplinary collaborations among medicine, the humanities, social sciences, and law. The Center is a place where faculty, students, educators, and researchers join with the community, policymakers, and the professions to explore interdisciplinary concerns about the effects of biomedicine on individuals and society.
• Center for New Media. Berkeley's Center for New Media brings together humanists, technologists, social scientists, artists, and designers who engage in critical study of the potentials and pitfalls of New Media, informed by a broad multidisciplinary knowledge base and a deep historical and theoretical perspective.
• Center for Responsible Business. The Center for Responsible Business vision is to create a more sustainable, ethical and socially responsible society by establishing the Haas School of Business as the preeminent educational institution for research, teaching, experiential learning, and community outreach in areas of corporate social responsibility.
• Center for Weight and Health. The Center For Weight and Health facilitates interactions among researchers, policy makers and community based providers from various disciplines and institutions who are concerned about weight, health and food security, and promotes collaboration on projects between professionals and members of diverse communities.
• Center for Work, Technology, and Society at IIR. WTS was founded at UC Berkeley as part of the Institute of Industrial Relations to support research and education in the areas of work, technology and society.
• Environmental Policy Center. The goal of GSPP's Center for Environmental Public Policy (CEPP) is to help bridge the gap between environmental theory and policy implementation. In particular, CEPP activities are geared to help fill the global need for competent environmental managers who are adept at policy-making within the context of limited and varying resources.
• Healthcare@Haas. Healthcare@Haas educates students on the multi-faceted nature of the healthcare industry as well as connects students with industry alumni and professionals. The club encompasses all areas of the healthcare industry - provider organizations (hospitals, clinics), technology, health plans, policy, medical products (biopharma, medical devices, diagnostics), and related services (consulting, investment banking.
• History and Social Studies of Medicine and the Body. HSSMB, aka Med Heads, discusses a pre-circulated work in progress by a member of the group once a month over a potluck dinner, allowing an interdisciplinary group of participating graduate students, faculty and independent scholars to get feedback on their work and exchange ideas.
• Institute of Cognitive and Brain Sciences. The Institute for Cognitive Studies was created in 1984 to promote research opportunities in the field of cognitive science. It was recently renamed the "Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences" (ICBS) to reflect an evolution in its program over the past ten years: namely, the marriage of the study of the mind and the brain in an interdisciplinary manner.
• Laboratory for the Anthropology of the Contemporary. LAC is a center for research on assemblages of life, labor, and language. Focusing on contemporary problems, LAC is engaged in anthropological research with global reach and long-term perspective. Dedicated to the invention of new modes of collaborative work among and between social and natural scientists, LAC is located at the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, a National Genome Center of Excellence founded in 1996 by Nobel prize laureate Dr. Sydney Brenner and directed by Dr. Roger Brent. The Laboratory for the Anthropology of the Contemporary is directed by Professor Paul Rabinow and Associate Directors Professor Stephen Collier and Professor Andrew Lakoff.
• Office for History of Science and Technology. OHST promotes research and discussion in the history of science and technology through international exchanges, conferences, colloquia, research facilities, and administrative assistance. Its colloquium series on the history of science, technology, and medicine is run jointly with UCSF's Program in The History of Health Sciences.
• Regional Oral History Office - Program in Bioscience and Biotechnology Studies. The Program in Bioscience and Biotechnology Studies promotes research, teaching and publication in the history of the biological sciences and its contributions to biotechnology. The Program offers open access to the largest collection of oral histories in these fields for scholars, students and educators around the world.
• Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic. The Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic at Boalt Hall was the first clinic in the country to provide law students with the opportunity to represent the public interest in cases and matters on the cutting-edge of high technology law. Students participating in the Clinic play an integral role in defining how civil liberties and other public values will be protected in an increasingly high-tech world. The Clinic takes on projects in many fields relating to the public interest in technology.
• Science, Technology, and Society Center (STSC). STSC connects researchers and programs across the rich landscape of existing centers of excellence on the UC Berkeley campus. The Center will house and initiate research on topics of broad faculty interest. Working with departments and programs, it will help develop curricula. STSC will foster links, through its webpage and programming, with related programs across the country and around the world.
• Transnational Feminist Studies: Science, Technology, Environment and Medicine Area, Graduate Group in Transnational Feminist Studies. Under Development

University of California, Davis

• Graduate Research Cluster in Science and Technology Studies. This research cluster brings graduate students from different departments together around issues related to STS.

University of California, Irvine

• Center for Research on Information Technology. The Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations (CRITO) at UC Irvine has a rich tradition of studying the impacts of information technology (IT) on organizations and society that stretches back more than two decades. It is home to well over a dozen internationally recognized experts in the fields of management, computer science, and social science, often bringing the advantages of multidisciplinary perspectives to the problems at hand
• Center in Law, Society and Culture. The Center in Law, Society and Culture brings together Social Ecology, Social Sciences, and Humanities faculty who share interests in law, society, and culture, broadly defined. Issues of interest to center affiliates include race, law and justice; law and literature; critical legal theory; legal consciousness; law and space; legal philosophy, culture and policing; the interaction of local and international legal cultures; globalization; migration; knowledge production; law, science, and society; and law and history. The center sponsors Symposia in Critical Legalities, discussions of participants' work, and other events that foster intellectual dialogue relating to issues in law, society, and culture.

University of California, Los Angeles

• Center for 17th and 18th Century Studies.
• Center for Society and Genetics. The Center for Society and Genetics seeks to provide direction to this co-evolution of science and humanity by promoting innovative and socially relevant research and education.

University of California, Merced

• Center on Global Peace and Security. The Center on Global Peace and Security is a multidisciplinary research and teaching center that focuses on: 1. new elements of national and international security, including economic competitiveness, disruptive technologies, energy self-sufficiency, global migration and immigration, and adaptation to climate change; 2. bio-security, including the threat of emerging pathogens and infectious diseases; decision-making in theory and historical practice, and; 4. risk and emergency management.

University of California, San Diego

• SCRIPPS Institution of Oceanography. Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego is one of the oldest, largest, and most important centers for marine science research, graduate training, and public service in the world.

University of California, San Francisco

• Center for AIDS Prevention Studies. The mission of the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) is to conduct rigorous theory-based research that will have maximum impact on the theory, practice, and policy of AIDS prevention. Our cores stimulate new research projects to keep pace with the ever-changing epidemic, provide necessary services to our existing research projects and to the scientists at CAPS, and provide the platform for scientific interactions to advance and enhance multidisciplinary research in AIDS prevention.
• Institute for Health and Aging. The mission of UCSF's Institute for Health and Aging is to optimize the health and aging of individuals, communities, and society through research, education and public service in the social and behavioral sciences.

University of California, San Francisco and University of California, Berkeley

• UCB/UCSF Science Studies Cluster for Graduate Students. This joint cluster for graduate students is in its initial formation. We are creating a forum for communication between graduate students across the two campuses who share interests in science studies. Through this forum, we plan to develop reading groups, writing groups, conference panels, and other venues for collaboration. We are also networking and planning joint activities with graduate students at other campuses. For more information about the cluster and to join, contact Krista Sigurdson at krista.sigurdson@ucsf.edu.

University of California, Santa Barbara

• Center for Film, Television and New Media. Conventional forms of communication are changing. Media, entertainment and 'knowledge industries' are transforming the way we interact and even know the world. The Center for Film, Television and New Media brings together faculty from the social sciences, humanities, arts, and sciences to teach and conduct research about all forms of mass and digital media, placing the study of media in the context of a rigorous and broad-based liberal arts education.
• Center for Information Technology and Society. CITS is dedicated to research and education about the cultural transitions and social innovations associated with technology. The Center comprises a diverse team of more than a dozen scholars in the social sciences, engineering, and the humanities. We conduct research, organize public forums, provide multi-disciplinary doctoral education on technology and society, and facilitate partnerships with industry and the public sector. Our research examines many aspects of the social and cultural transitions under way at present around the globe, but we have a particular focus on technological change and three topics: 1. Social Collaboration and Dynamic Communities; 2. Global Cultures in Transition, and; 3. Technology in Education.
• Center for Nanotechnology in Society. The mission of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society (CNS) at the University of California, Santa Barbara is to serve as a national research and education center, a network hub among researchers and educators concerned with nanotechnologies’ societal impacts, and a resource base for studying these impacts in the US and abroad. The CNS carries out innovative and interdisciplinary research in three key areas: 1. the historical context of nanotechnologies; 2. the institutional and industrial processes of technological innovation of nanotechnologies along with their global diffusion and comparative impacts, and; 3. the social risk perception and response to different applications of nanotechnologies. The CNS also explores methods for public participation in setting the agenda for the future of nanotechnologies in the U.S. and abroad and supports a broad range of innovative education and outreach activities. Finally, the CNS presents its research results and other resources for use by researchers and the public. The CNS is one of several Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers funded by the National Science Foundation as part of the National Nanotechnology Initiative.
• New Visions of Nature, Science, and Religion. With the support of the John Templeton Foundation, UC Santa Barbara is proud to sponsor an innovative three-year scholarly effort that focuses on a key unresolved issue central to both science and religion: multiple visions of biophysical and human nature. We seek to: 1. develop a new, comprehensive scholarly vision of biophysical and human nature as the basis for a new vision of science and religion; 2. create a unique research and educational climate at UC Santa Barbara to promote progress in our understanding of nature, science, and religion, and; 3. provide a credible scholarly resource on nature, science, and religion to the general public. > >
• The Center for Film, Television and New Media. This new interdisciplinary Center brings together faculty from the humanities, arts, social sciences and natural sciences to teach and conduct research about all forms of media. The Center is co-directed by film and media theorist Constance Penley and communication researcher Ronald E. Rice. Associate Director Miriam Metzger studies media policy and the internet. The Center's Media Ownership Project sponsors programs where eminent researchers, policymakers, journalists and media industry leaders study and debate how our current media landscape evolved and how it might be better configured to allow greater creativity, competition and democratic access to the marketplace of ideas. The Center's Environmental Media Initiative examines all of the ways that media and the environment influence, structure and inhabit each other. The Center's highly competitive Media Internship Program personally matches UCSB students with major Santa Barbara and Los Angeles media organizations, primarily represented by the Center's influential and active advisory Board .

University of California, Santa Cruz

• Center for Cultural Studies. The international field of cultural studies has emerged from the challenges posed to traditional humanistic and social scientific agendas by new research strategies in visual studies; anthropology, ethnography, and folklore; feminist studies; comparative sociology and politics; semiotics; social, cultural, literary, and political theory; science studies; colonial discourse analysis; ethnic studies; and the histories of sexualities. These challenges, and the new areas of scholarly activity they stimulate, compose the heart of cultural studies at UC Santa Cruz. Thus, the Center for Cultural Studies' concern is to foster research across divisional as well as disciplinary boundaries. While based in the humanities, it engages with the "interpretive" or "historical" social sciences, as well as with theoretically informed work in the arts.
• Science Studies Cluster. A transdisciplinary group that collaborates and converses around themes of science, technology, and culture.