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Big STEM collaborations should include humanities and social science

Nature Human Behaviour volume 7, pages 1229–1230 (2023)Cite this article

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Big STEM collaborations, however, do not operate in isolation but are part of an interconnected web of social institutions, relations and values. Part of this involves recognizing that science often comes with complex effects on the world around it, not all of which are immediately obvious — advances in renewable energy technology, for example, are reliant upon metals that are often mined in regions with lax labour and environmental regulations that endanger workers and surrounding communities1. Humanities, social science and behavioural science scholars are positioned to understand and shape these interactions by emphasizing different ways of knowing and different approaches to questions that can, among other benefits, help to mitigate long-term risks from the outset. In return, they become part of a global real-time case study, which enables access to data (both physical and social) and provides unique opportunities to try new ideas with a continuous feedback loop.

What major trans-disciplinary collaborations look like is often hard to picture. As a group of decision theorists, philosophers, historians and astronomers working together on the ‘Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope’ (ngEHT) we want to offer our own insights into the multimodal interactions that characterize this project2.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the hundreds of researchers and engineers worldwide who have contributed to the ngEHT and have helped to define the direction of this collaboration. In particular, we are grateful to the members of the History Philosophy Culture (HPC) Working Group, and the attendees of the 1st HPC Workshop and Responsible Siting Workshop, as well as to J. Nguyen for comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. N.C.M.M. acknowledges support from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme for the funding received under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 101065772 (PhilDarkEnergy) and the ERC Starting Grant agreement no. 101076402 (COSMO-MASTER). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. A.C.T, N.C.M.M, S.S.D., P.G. and M.D.J. acknowledge the Black Hole Initiative, a project funded in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. It was also made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of these foundations. S.S.D. and M.D.J. acknowledge support from National Science Foundation grant AST-1935980, and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grant GBMF10423. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Alexandru Marcoci

  2. McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA

    Ann C. Thresher

  3. Freudenthal Institute, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Niels C. M. Martens

  4. Descartes Centre for the History and Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Niels C. M. Martens

  5. Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Peter Galison

  6. Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Peter Galison

  7. Black Hole Initiative, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Ann C. Thresher, Niels C. M. Martens, Peter Galison, Sheperd S. Doeleman & Michael D. Johnson

  8. Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Sheperd S. Doeleman & Michael D. Johnson

  9. Stanford Doerr School for Sustainability, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA

    Ann C. Thresher

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  1. Alexandru Marcoci
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Correspondence to Alexandru Marcoci.

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Competing interests

A.M., A.C.T., N.C.M.M., P.G., S.S.D. and M.D.J. are members of the ngEHT collaboration, an interdisciplinary project that spans STEM, the humanities and the social and behavioural sciences. A.M., A.C.T., N.C.M.M. and P.G. are members of the History Philosophy and Culture Working Group (led by P.G.). S.S.D. is the principal investigator of the ngEHT collaboration and the founding director of the EHT collaboration. M.D.J. is the project scientist of the ngEHT collaboration.

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Marcoci, A., Thresher, A.C., Martens, N.C.M. et al. Big STEM collaborations should include humanities and social science. Nat Hum Behav 7, 1229–1230 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01674-x

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