The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a starting grant for a
project entitled ‘The Earth Under Surveillance (TEUS): Climate Change,
Geophysics and the Cold War Legacy’. This is one of the largest ever grant
awarded in Europe for research in the history of science and technology and
the first assigned within the ERC programme to a project in this
disciplinary area.
The project will be held at the Centre for the History of Science,
Technology and Medicine (CHSTM, University of Manchester) in collaboration
with the Institut de Recherche en Sciences et Technologie (IRIST, Université
de Strasbourg) and the Centre d'Història de la Ciència (CEHIC, Universitat
Autònoma de Barcelona).
The five-year TEUS project will support the establishment of an
international research team including Simone Turchetti (as principal
Investigator), Soraya Boudia, Néstor Herran, Jérôme Lamy, Sébastien Soubiran
and Leucha Veneer. Some PhD scholarships will also be advertised in the
running of the project.
The research will seek to track down the ancestry of scientific studies on
the earth and the environment, especially by examining how the Cold War
shaped research and funding trajectories. If the recent rush towards earth
science studies has been propelled by the environmentalist discourse, a big
leap forward in geophysics took place because of strategic imperatives
deriving from the confrontation between superpowers. Our historical study
aims to map the rise of geophysics in Europe in the light of these
contextual factors. Among its innovative features will be a focus on the
interplay and mutual shaping of the geosciences and intelligence programmes,
especially in the organisation of geophysical explorations.
The research team will use a variety of sources, including archival material
from the US, Europe and Russia and interviews with prominent earth
scientists. The team will work in a transnational mode, i.e. mapping
national trends onto the broader geopolitical frame defined by the Cold War.
For more information: Simone Turchetti [log in to unmask]
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