The following is reproduced from the S.NET conference website:

The 8th annual S.Net meeting will take place from the 12th to the 14th of October 2016 in Bergen, Norway. It will continue to provide room for reflections on emerging technologies, this time with a special (though not exclusive) focus on politics.

Confirmed keynotes:

• Sheila Jasanoff, Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies,
  Harvard Kennedy School
• Silvio Funtowicz, Adjunct professor Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities
• Joseph Dumit, Professor of Anthropology Director of the Institute for Social Sciences (ISS),University of California

Former discussions at S.Net have often examined politics in the sense of governance of new and emerging technologies; regulation; RRI; research policies; sustainability. The S.Net 2016 conference also invites papers and other contributions that explore other and broader meanings of the “politics of new and emerging technologies”:

How do emerging technologies such as nanotechnology, synthetic biology or ICTs shape institutions, citizen organizations and other political agencies? And, vice versa; how are these emerging technologies shaped by politics? In what new ways are the bodies of citizens’ subjected to technological intervention and what are the political effects of such interventions? What new forms of politics can be seen to emerge together with technological emergence?

We will dedicate a number of sessions to talks, workshops and other formats that examine new and emerging configurations of human nature, ethics (the good life) and politics (the good society) in the context of new and emerging technologies.

The S.Net 2016 Conference will invite the submission of abstracts to explore these topics relating to emerging technologies, tentatively organized around the following themes:

• Innovation policies, imaginaries and practices
• Narratives and imaginaries of emerging and future technologies
• Public engagement, citizenship and emerging forms of expertise
• Politics in the era of emerging technologies
• Safety and security
• Emerging technologies and human nature
• Cancer: Emerging technologies, bodies and politics