The 9th EASTS Networks Conference

The 9^th East Asia Science, Technology, and Society Networks Conference,
National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, 17-18 April 2009

We warmly invite you to participate in the 9th East Asia Science, Technology, and Society Network Conference (EASTS Network Conference), jointly held with the 1st annual Conference of Taiwan Science, Technology & Society Association (Taiwan STS Association), in Tainan, Taiwan. It is hoped that the participants of the conference will share their views on recent developments in STS researching fields, and those in biotech in particular.

Announcements

Deadline for abstract submission
An abstract with a maximum of 300 words should be submitted by Saturday 3 January 2009 to Conference Assistant, Mr. Zen Bo-Wei (bowei0702@gmail.com) with subject “2009 EASTS Network Conference”. Reviewed results will be notified through e-mail in mid-January 2009.
For those who would like to apply for the waver of local expense, please inform us as well.

Conference organising committee
Japan:：Professor Hideto NAKAJIMA, Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Korea：Professor Hong Sungook, Seoul National University.
China：Professor ZENG Guoping（曾國屏）, Tsinghua University.
Taiwan：Professor Chung-Hsi Lin（林崇熙）, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology,
Professor Bei-Chang Yang（楊倍昌）, National Cheng-Kung University.

Call for Papers

Featuring a better world –
Biotech Capitalism in East Asia

The 9th East Asia Science, Technology, and Society Networks Conference,
National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, 17-18 April 2009

The STS communities in the East Asia have their own characteristics owing to both historical and geological differences. However, the common ground for the East Asia is ‘late development’ in comparison with their Western counterparts. Therefore, this conference calls for papers on the theme of ‘Biotech Capitalism in East Asia’. We try to feature a better world by understanding activities of biotech capitalism in the East Asia and its influences.

Since the completion of human genome project, biotech has seemed to become the Messiah in terms of historical development of human beings. Biotech has given great promises: once getting on its surge, the economic hegemony could be remained, a new economic miracle could be created, or advanced countries could be caught up with.

Nevertheless, it is worthy to pay attention to the following concerns: how democratic participation and public opinions are involved in biotech development, how huge public budgets are distributed to biotech research and development (R&D), what political legitimacy of biotech research and development and its application, what ethical issues have been raised up social concern since the application of biotech, what effects have been merged from the movement of self-protection responding to biotech development.

Of course, we welcomes all STS-related papers and organized panels presented in its annual meeting, such as ‘Democracy, Public Participation in Science and Technology’, ‘Ethics and Research in Science and Technology’, ‘Contemporary Risk Governance and Society’, ‘Food Safety and Cotemporary Science and Technology’ and so on. Accepted papers will be arranged to present in either EASTS Network conference or the annual conference of Taiwan STS Association depending on their theme and content.