News

We are excited to welcome Dr. Marcus Carrier, who has joined ISoS in April 2026 as a postdoctoral researcher in the new research project „Edition Wissenschaftliche Software“ (EWS), funded by the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities.

In the EWS project, researchers from the universities of Bielefeld and Aachen as well as from the Deutsches Museum in Munich will focus on collecting, preserving and studying sources related to the digitalization of the sciences in the second half of the twentieth century.

As a member of the Bielefeld project site, Marcus will concentrate on collecting and processing software and documents, as well as conducting oral history interviews - particularly in the field of chemistry - in close collaboration with the teams in Aachen and Munich. A special focus of research at the Bielefeld project site will be on instrument software; for example, programs used for the analysis of NMR or IR spectroscopy, as well as simulation software for reaction pathways. While methods such as NMR or IR have significantly shaped how chemistry is practiced, the corresponding software has so far received rather little attention as a subject of study in its own right. Marcus’ research interests range from the history of science, medicine, and technology in the 19th and 20th centuries, over how computational methods shape science, to expertise, the development of forensic sciences, and the ways gender and the body are conceptualized within the sciences.

Marcus holds a PhD in History from Bielefeld University on a work on chemical expertise in 19th-century poisoning trials  in Franco-German comparison. Prior to finishing his PhD, he studied History and Chemistry (BA) as well as History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science (MA) at Bielefeld University. Before joining EWS, Marcus was a research associate in the history of science at TU Berlin from 2024 to 2026. Further stations include a short-term fellowship at the Science History Institute, Philadelphia, US (Fall 2022), a Junior Fellowship at the Käthe Hamburger Kolleg "Cultures of Research" at RWTH Aachen (2023–2024) as well as a Career Bridge scholarship of the Bielefeld Young Researchers' Fund in Bielefeld (2022–2023).

We are delighted to have Marcus on board!

If you’re interested in learning more about Marcus’ research:

Carrier, Marcus B. Der Wert von Methoden: Forensische Toxikologie des 19. Jahrhunderts im deutsch-französischen Vergleich. Springer VS, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41633-1.

Hocquet, Alexandre, Frédéric Wieber, und Marcus B. Carrier. „And the Winner is…Alphafold!“ Society for Social Studies of Science – Backchannels, 9. Februar 2025. https://4sonline.org/news_manager.php?page=39360.

In a new article in The Transmitter, ISoS Executive Board member Lara Keuck, together with Linda Douw (Amsterdam UMC) and Klaus Eyer (Aarhus University), discuss complexity and heterogeneity as defining characteristics of systems in basic neuroscience and introduce the idea and aims of the new TRANSCEND network.

Read the article here.

The TRANSCEND network is a new European doctoral network funded with approximately 4 million Euros under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) of Horizon Europe. It was initiated and conceptualized by Lara Keuck together with Klaus Eyer and Linda Douw with the support of a Branco Weiss Collaborative Grant.

More information on TRANSCEND can be found here.

We are pleased to announce that the programme of the ISoS Lectures is online!

In the summer term 2026, the ISoS Lectures will have a special focus on the topic of "Scientific Concepts". To see the programme, please visit: https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/zwe/isos/events/lectures/.

The ISoS Lectures currently take place Tuesdays, from 16:15 to 17:45 in room X-E1-200 and over Zoom.

To receive invitation e-mails and updates on the individual lecture sessions, please message to isos[at]uni-bielefeld.de to become member of our mailing list.

The workshop “Representing, Reshaping, Reenacting”, co-organized by ISoS members Dr. Michele Luchetti and Dr. Sasha Bergstrom-Katz (both members of the Research Group in the History and Philosophy of Medicine), took place at the Charité Museum of Medical History in Berlin on 15-16 November 2025.

For more on workshop, read Anatolii Kozlov’s recent report for the Society for the Social History of Medicine: https://sshm.org/2026/02/05/representing-reshaping-reenacting/.

On 6 March 2026, the workshop “Med Methods – Experimental Research and Teaching Methods in the Medical Humanities and the Philosophy of Medicine” brought together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to reflect on how innovative methodologies can foster research and teaching in the humanities on medicine, health, and the human experience of illness.

Participants included philosophers and historians of medicine, as well as medical educators and artists coming from the UK, Norway, Canada, and Germany.

Hosted by the ISoS-affiliated Research Group in the History and Philosophy of Medicine at Bielefeld University and organized by Michele Luchetti and Lara Keuck, the workshop explored how experiential, participatory, and art-based methods can open up new ways of teaching and researching topics such as assisted dying, medical measurement, and the experience of disability.

Many contributions included hands-on activities that engaged participants’ senses and creativity, stimulating reflection while enacting in practice the methodological approaches under discussion. Other contributions addressed the transferability of medical humanities teaching across different contexts, the use of visual art prompts and art-theoretical approaches in teaching philosophy of medicine, and the importance of material encounters for preventing philosophy from reducing the complexity of lived experience.

A final roundtable discussion, prompted by short inputs from Research Group members Alfred Freeborn and Nele Röttger, addressed several overarching questions raised during the workshop: What is the role of research and teaching in the medical humanities? How do shared learning experiences, creative spaces, and even moments of awkwardness shape us as learners and researchers?

To learn more about the activities of the History and Philosophy of Medicine group, click here.

Impressions from the workshop:

A group of nine doctoral and postdoctoral researchers from the Institute for Studies of Science (ISoS) came together from 23 to 25 February 2026 for a Networking and Writing Retreat at the Bildungsstätte Einschlingen in the Teutoburg Forest.

The participants came from various research areas and disciplines involved in ISoS, ranging from political sociology and philosophy of science to the history and philosophy of medicine and the history of science.

The aim of the retreat was to create an opportunity to leave everyday tasks behind in order to work on current writing projects in a focused setting and to exchange within the ISoS community. In several writing sessions, the focus was on concentrated work on ongoing projects; from journal articles and dissertation chapters to grant proposals and book projects.

Complementing the writing sessions, which were accompanied by short reflection rounds on the writing process, the retreat offered opportunities for exchange, not least during a joint hike in the surrounding Teutoburg Forest in good weather.

As the first multi-day event specifically for doctoral and postdoctoral researchers at ISoS since its establishment as a Central Academic Institute of Bielefeld University in May 2025, the retreat pursued the aim to strengthen exchange within the ISoS community. At the same time, it already provided a space to develop ideas for future joint activities.

The Deutschlandfunk program Computer und Kommunikation recently reported on the new project “Edition Wissenschaftliche Software”, which is co-directed by Carsten Reinhardt, member of the ISoS directorate. In an interview with host Manfred Kloiber, Reinhardt outlines this new long-term project, which is planned to run for 21 years.

The project’s goal is to collect, edit, and archive scientific software from the past 60 years. Reinhardt heads the project together with Gabriele Gramelsberger (RWTH Aachen), Ulf Hashagen (Deutsches Museum), and Helmuth Trischler (University of Munich).

Funding is provided by the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities. Participating institutions are the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. The interview was broadcast on Deutschlandfunk on 20 December 2025 and is available online (in German).

Further information on the project can be found here:

https://www.awk.nrw/news/akademienprogramm-vier-neue-projekte-aus-nordrhein-westfalen

Together with David J. Colaço (Munich), ISoS member Philipp Haueis has published a new interdisciplinary study on the role of metabolic considerations in cognitive modeling. The study appears in Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

A recent blog post introduces the background and the research aim of the study (in German): https://aktuell.uni-bielefeld.de/2025/11/24/denken-kostet-energie/ 

Publication (Preprint): Haueis P, Colaço DJ. Metabolic considerations for cognitive modeling. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Published online 2025:1-53. doi:10.1017/S0140525X25103956

“Science in Practice and in Society” – under this guiding theme, around 85 researchers from numerous institutions across Germany and Europe gathered on October 24 at the ZiF in Bielefeld to celebrate the launch of the Institute for Studies of Science (ISoS). Founded in May 2025 as a new Central Academic Institute of Bielefeld University, ISoS brings together the Faculty of Sociology, the Medical Faculty, as well as the Departments of Philosophy and History as partners in interdisciplinary science research.

The keynote lectures provided exciting insights into current topics and questions in science studies – from a critical discussion of the foundations of evidence-based policy making, over communication structures in large research projects, to the role of philosophy in the production of scientific knowledge. A roundtable, featuring renowned researchers in science studies, engaged intensively with the conference’s guiding theme and discussed challenges and perspectives on studying the practice of science and its societal embedding.

The programme was rounded off by short lightning talks, in which ISoS researchers offered insights into the thematic diversity of the institute – ranging from animals in the history of technology, through individualization, to open knowledge commons.

As Michaela Vogt – Vice-Rector for International Affairs, Diversity and Society – emphasized in her welcome address, the founding of ISoS reflects and underscores Bielefeld University’s goals of conducting interdisciplinary research, seriously engaging with the role of science in society, and actively addressing the resulting questions and challenges. The opening conference offered a stimulating start for the establishment of ISoS as a platform to bundle and institutionally anchor integrative and interdisciplinary reflection on science at Bielefeld University. The founding conference conveyed – as many participants observed – a sense of momentum in a highly dynamic and interdisciplinary field of research.

The archived programme can be found here: https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/zwe/isos/events/opening-conference

Picture: Participants of the conference.

Dr. Sasha Bergstrom-Katz and Dr. Michele Luchetti, members of the ISoS, are organizing an event titled Performing Science and Medicine at Berlin Museum of Medical History at the Charité in Berlin on November 15. 

Join for an evening of artistic interventions on the relationship between performance and knowledge in the lab, the clinic, and the public realm, featuring the work of artist-researchers Dr. Alex Mermikides, Lucie Strecker and Mariella Greil. The event will take place in the scenic Ruin Hall of the Berlin Museum of Medical History at Charité and will conclude with a conversation moderated by Prof. Dr. Lara Keuck and event organizers Dr. Sasha Bergstrom-Katz and Dr. Michele Luchetti. The event not only features the work of these fantastic thinkers and makers, but also celebrates over a year of conversations in the working group also titled “Performing Science and Medicine.”

• Participation is free, but registration is required.
• Tickets can be found at: https://bmm-charite.de/en/exhibitions/performing-science-and-medicine
• Further, you can find more information about the event and the working group at: https://www.performingscienceandmedicine.com/
• For questions, please contact: michele.luchetti[at]uni-bielefeld.de