LONDON’S GLOBAL UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY STUDIES Alchemy UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE The newsletter of the Department of Science & Technology Studies /// Spring 2019 Welcome Undergraduate Welcome to Alchemy Net Neutrality - undergraduates report! Second and third Year BSc students follow in the footsteps of Simon Schaffer and Helen Longino, by publishing an STS Occasional Paper. This is the third edition of STS Alchemy. The third?!? Oh my, how time Net Neutrality (NN), is the concept that flies. It seems only yesterday when we were talking about creating an internet access should be available alumni newsletter. With characteristic STS ambitions, we decided to to all - that internet providers cannot take it up a notch and produce something we thought worthy of the offer faster access to preferred fantastic people, events, and ideas pulsing through our community. websites, creating a two-tier system. “Make it worth the stories it tells,” we agreed. This idea has been challenged in recent years, and STS students are So, here we present the third edition of STS Alchemy. I see it as among the first to tackle the subject. evidence of the landscape-gardening approach we have in our training and research. Some projects have been long in the making and carefully During the 2017-18 HPSC3032 cultivated. Others have grown closely tied to the soil underneath Gordon Investigating Contemporary Science Square. Still others are exotic imports, arriving flair and novelty, then leaving us much the better off for them having visited. module, STS students spent ten weeks using the analytical tools they I also see STS Alchemy as evidence of a strong community ethos. At a had learned in the department to recent event to celebrate publishing a book edited by and including some investigate the topic of Net Neutrality brilliant research by STS academics, the room was packed with current Professor Joe Cain and produce a report for policy The authors of Occasional Paper 8 - (l-r) Raphael Piccolin, Daniel Shuttlewood, Ho Cheung, Josh makers, with the individual chapters Huntley, Alice Conway, April Wheeler, Alia Asad, Ralitsa Tchobanova, and Jason Murugesu (Holly staff and students, alumni, friends, and sympaticos. Scanning the photos Clarke was unavailable) later, we noted with very pleasant surprise just how many of “us” we are. forming the basis of their assessment. and whether the US repeal of net The report is summarised by three This year will be rough for universities, for specialist subjects such Undergraduate This report has now been published neutrality will cause further problems recommendations, reached as a result as ours, and for many of the principles we hold dear. But the bonds we as an STS Occasional Paper - a step 3 - Net Neutrality Paper in the UK. Others analyse the evolution of the students' work. They are: develop in Gordon Square and the confidence we have in those who 4 - Student Summers previously taken in publishing works of the internet, and ask whether it was pass through our programmes give firm foundations for hope. We’re going 7 - Parliament /Seminars by Simon Schaffer, Helen Longino, ever neutral in the first place. The NN debate needs to be to make it. It’ll be tough, perhaps, but we’ll continue to be central to the Maja Horst and others following their reconsidered in light of technology’s subject. JBS Haldane lectures - see page The students involved - Alia Asad, inherent non-neutrality, so as to Masters 28 for more information on recent This is my last opportunity to introduce STS Alchemy. It’s the normal Ho Cheung, Holly Clarke, Alice attain a more adequate approach 8 - Image & Sound Haldane lectures. Conway, Josh A Huntley, Raphael to managing the Internet and its course of events at UCL for heads of departments to serve fixed terms, 9 - Restart then step aside for new energy and new ideas. This is essential for vitality, Piccolin, Daniel Shuttlewood, Ralitsa openness via acknowledging the 10 - Birthing a Monster Available via the STS Website, 'Net Tchobanova and April Wheeler - came presence of cultural assumptions and and it’s a protocol I strongly support. I became STS Head of Department Neutrality: Setting Sun or a New Dawn in 2011. After two terms, it’s time for me to step aside. STS is profoundly from a variety of courses around UCL, values underpinning it. PhD for the Internet?' looks at the very future and used their varied knowledge to different in 2019 compared with 2011 thanks to the hard work of many, of the internet. Chapters look at whether many people. But we’re also very much the same: high ambitions, absolute approach the issue from such a wide Governmental power over the commitment to teaching excellence, and hungry to engage the big 12 - STS in NYC new regulations will disproportionately range of perspectives. network’s core resources should be problems of this generation. My successors – the headship will be 14 - Singapore benefit Internet Service Providers recognized as necessary in light of it jointly held by Dr Emma Tobin and Professor Jon Agar – have exciting 16 - PhD news and online monopolies, the effect on providing some common rules of use, and ambitious plans. They officially begin in September. innovation and emerging technologies, THE CURRENT for as long as this is done openly, Alumni DEBATE AROUND democratically and responsibly. It Prof. Joe Cain - Head of Department should also not restrain the network’s 17 - Alumni news THE SUBJECT IS evolution beyond what is necessary to Staff TOO POLARISED, achieve regulatory aims. Alchemy - Issue 3 (Spring 2019) AND NEEDS TO BE As users can potentially impact 18 - Department projects and make informed decisions about 19 - Falling Walls Editor: Malcolm Chalmers Department of Science OPENED UP the Internet, a user-focused approach 20 - Book launches to the NN debate can be embraced, Head of Department: Prof. Joe Cain and Technology Studies Gower Street, London 21 - STS in the media Module Tutor Melanie Smallman where customers are clearly informed Alchemy is published annually WC1E 6BT | United Kingdom 22 - Staff News shorts congratulated the students on their about non-neutral features, processes, and is freely available in electronic 24 - New arrivals work. 'The publication of this paper www.ucl.ac.uk/sts and policies. User-led appraisal of format at www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/about_ demonstrates just how hard these non-neutral policies can best balance sts Twitter - @stsucl Facebook - STSUCL Department students worked. The final report consumer’s safety with innovation. concludes that the current debate Articles in this issue of Alchemy Instagram - ucl_sts 26 - BEAMS award / accesibility reflect the opinions of the authors, around the subject is too polarised, 27 - Teacher Inset Day "Net Neutrality - Setting Sun or not of UCL. and needs to be opened up to take a New Dawn for the Internet?" is 28 - JBS Haldane lectures account of nuanced arguments about Alchemy is available as a PDF via the STS website. available to read for free and can be 29 - Youtube / 1Book the kind of future we want - the kind In the PDF version, underlined words provide links to the relevant paper or page. found on the STS website. 30 - Book reviews of nuance that can be found in this 31 - 2019 Seminars report.' Words - Malcolm Chalmers 2 ALCHEMY SPRING 2019 UCL DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY STUDIES 3 Undergraduates Undergraduates Undergraduate summers ... ... ... in Ukraine ... ... Hong Kong ... While our degree programmes pause during the summer, our students keep busy, and in 2018 Mohammad Shan and Wilfred Taylor took part in educational experiences overseas. You can hear the rest in their words... Last summer, I had the During most of my time in Ukraine, to live with Marta and Sasha, who opportunity of spending six I lived in Chernivtsi, which is one treated me with so much kindness, weeks teaching English to young of the most beautiful and friendly and helped me to learn in detail children in Ukraine. Admittedly, I cities that I ever been to. The city is more about their country and their was slightly nervous and apprehensive located in western Ukraine by the daily lives. about living in Ukraine by myself for Moldova and Romania border. I was six weeks due to the current political based at School №22 and taught daily climate. However, I am so grateful that English lessons through a variety of THE EXPERIENCE OF I made the right decision and went on classroom and outdoor activities TEACHING ENGLISH this highly enjoyable and rewarding with the support of the lovely team experience. of native Ukrainian English teachers. ALLOWED ME TO I will never forget how on my last SEE THE REAL The programme is run by GoCamp, day of teaching, the teachers took the biggest volunteering organisation me out for dinner and ordered me UKRAINE in Eastern Europe, that hopes to bring almost everything off the menu! 1000 volunteers to more than 600 The highlight of the trip was schools, to teach 100,000 pupils all Each English teaching volunteer definitely when Marta and Sasha over the country. It is hoped that by is allocated a native Ukrainian host took me to their ancestral home in 2020, all children aged 10 to 15 will family to live with for the duration of the village for a weekend. I had the speak English. the program. I was extremely lucky chance to learn how to fish and Photographs from Mohammad's 2018 trips to Ukraine (left page) and Hong Kong (right page) experience what life is truly like THE TEACHING appreciated the global emphasis without good Wi-Fi! that was placed in each class by WAS WORLD CLASS the passionate lecturers.