The Center for Science, Technology, Medicine, & Society (CSTMS) at UC Berkeley promotes rigorous interdisciplinary research based on the conviction that the pressing problems of our time are simultaneously scientific and social, technological and political, ethical and economic.

Mission

As a laboratory for the 21st century university, the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine and Society (CSTMS) conducts cross-disciplinary research, teaching, and outreach on the histories and implications of scientific research, biomedicine, and new technologies.

The Center’s core mission is to:

•  • catalyze cross-disciplinary research on knowledge production and technological change in the past, present, and future;
•  • train new generations of undergraduates and graduate students in multiple literacies; and,
•  • generate broader impact with rapid response forums and major public events on the pressing issues of our time.

CSTMS convenes students and faculty in the social sciences and humanities, the professional and medical schools, engineering, and the natural sciences to advance collaborative accounts of our complex world. We provide a space for debate and dialogue on the implications of new technologies, from geo-engineering to synthetic biology. We provide support for faculty and graduate students seeking extramural grants, and we seek to integrate leading academic research in science and technology studies with the work of policy makers, communities, and non-governmental organizations. We also promote the study of the interface of medicine, the humanities, and the qualitative social sciences.

Through all of these activities, the Center seeks to place Berkeley at the leading edge of global science studies by foregrounding research and training on the transnational dynamics of knowledge production, technological innovation, and inequalities.