Graduate students and early career researchers from all over the world and internationally renowned researchers came together at a summer school on the topic of “Narratives of Disruption and Continuity in Science, Technology, and Society” in the week from 1st to 5th of September 2025 in Wuppertal. The summer school was organized by the Research Training Group in collaboration with the Summer School Series in Higher Education Research and Science Studies (HERRS).
The invited senior scholars (among them two Mercator fellows of the GRK) provided the doctoral students with insights into the complex topic of how narratives are employed and present in scientific research by presenting the latest theories, methods and research designs. Coming from highly diverse fields, they demonstrated how discovery narratives informed the life sciences, gave insight into the narrative strategies employed by political parties of the far right on TikTok and shed light on the challenges involved in regulating online platforms in the age of large language models.
The program consisted of working groups (led by one of the invited senior scholars), keynotes (of the Mercator fellows) and presentations of the young scholars that were then commented by a senior scholar, followed by a discussion. The summer school thus provided early career researchers from the fields of history, philosophy and sociology of science with the opportunity to discuss their topics with leading researchers and develop new ideas for their own projects from an interdisciplinary perspective.
