The STS NL Conference 2026, held at the University of Twente, marked the first national Science and Technology Studies (STS) conference in the Netherlands, inaugurating a new platform for regional and international scholarly exchange. The event brought together approximately 300 participants and featured around 260 contributions, including presentations, workshops, and posters. Organized by the Netherlands Research School for Science, Technology and Modern Culture (WTMC) and hosted by the Knowledge, Transformation & Society (KiTeS) group, the conference focused on the theme “Knowledge and Technology in Times of Global Shifts.”
The conference addressed how knowledge production, technological development, and governance are being reshaped in the context of intersecting global crises, including climate change, energy transitions, and geopolitical instability. It emphasized the role of STS in critically examining power, imaginaries, and the co-production of science, technology, and society.
Hydrogen Utopia Session (Presenter)
I presented in the session “Revisiting the Hydrogen Utopia: Failures, Reorientations, and Emerging Visions.” My contribution, “The only salvation or a fragmented future? Islands of Prosperity and Abandonment in Finland’s Hydrogen Utopia,” examined how hydrogen imaginaries shape uneven regional development trajectories in Finland.
The session critically engaged with hydrogen as a dominant transition narrative, highlighting tensions between technological optimism and socio-political realities, as well as the risks of reinforcing spatial and social inequalities. Discussions emphasized the performative role of expectations and the need to pluralize energy futures beyond dominant techno-economic pathways.
History and Crises Roundtable
The roundtable explored how historical narratives inform contemporary crisis responses and future imaginaries. Participants highlighted that transitions are not only forward-looking but are deeply shaped by how the past is mobilized, remembered, and contested.
“Future Stuck” Session
The session “When Futures Get Stuck: The Captivity of Collective Futuring in Transitions” examined how dominant imaginaries can constrain transformative change.
Discussions focused on: how futures can become captured by existing institutions and infrastructures, the risk that “transformative” visions reproduce incremental change, the need to enable plural, contested, and open-ended futures.
This session resonated strongly with debates in the hydrogen track, reinforcing the idea that futures are not neutral but politically and materially embedded.
WTMC Anniversary Plenary: STS Across Four Decades
The WTMC Anniversary Plenary, “Insights from Six Perspectives on STS Enactments Across Four Decades,” provided a reflective overview of the development of STS in the Netherlands. The plenary brought together leading scholars to discuss how STS has been enacted, institutionalized, and transformed over time.
The plenary highlighted WTMC’s central role in shaping Dutch STS over the past decades and emphasized the importance of maintaining plurality and openness in the field moving forward.