Beyond Techno-Solutionism: Digital Commons and Solidarity Economies for a Sustainable Future
1st (Inaugural) Annual Dedicated Workshop of the
Saturday, 13 September 2025, 10:00-13:00
New Building, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, NKUA
Guest Faculty: Vasilis Kostakis
Professor of Technology Governance and Sustainability at TalTech's Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance in Estonia; Faculty Associate at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society; founder of the P2P Lab and both the Tzoumakers rural makerspace and the Commonen energy cooperative
Workshop Description: Environmental degradation and global wealth inequality are critical challenges today. Many promote high-tech solutions like 'smart cities' and 'green growth' as silver bullets that enhance services, reduce carbon footprints, and empower citizens. Yet these technologies rely on scarce metals and minerals often sourced through questionable practices in the Global South. Their life-cycles consume energy, create toxicity, and involve precarious labor. We face a paradox: Can technologies that may worsen these issues truly solve our problems? This workshop explores the relationship between technology, sustainability, and global equity, focusing on alternatives like digital solidarity economies, commons-based approaches, and open cooperativism. We will examine how decentralized governance and digital commons might create more equitable technological futures that avoid extraction. We will also challenge dominant narratives while exploring how cooperative ownership models could transform our technological relationships and address contradictions in our current techno-economic paradigm. Join us as we envision a future where technology serves humanity and our planet through democratic, sustainable, and solidarity-based infrastructures.
Contact/Information: Katerina Vlantoni, Assistant Professor, STS NKUA Alumni Network Faculty Advisor (kvlantoni[at]phs.uoa[dot]gr) & Abbigail (Abby) Chernila, STS NKUA Alumni Coordinator (achernila[at]gmail[dot]com)
Monday, 19 May 2025, 7-8pm
Online Guest Lecture & Discussion
"Becoming Material: The affective landscapes of sustainable AI and AI for sustainability"
Anastasia Nesbitt, Researcher, Department of Science and Technology Studies, University of Vienna
Discussion Moderator: Ellie Danae Vartziotis, Doctoral Candidate, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Zoom link
Η Αμερική δίνει άδεια για εκτόξευση πυραύλων μεγάλου βεληνεκούς, η Ρωσία αλλάζει το δόγμα πυρηνικού πολέμου και ξεκινά μαζική κατασκευή πυρηνικών καταφυγίων, Ισραήλ και Ιράν δεν αποκλείουν τη χρήση πυρηνικών. Έξι δεκαετίες μετά την πρώτη προβολή του, το αριστούργημα Dr Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Lovethe Bomb [SOS Πεντάγωνο καλεί Μόσχα] του Stanley Kubrick δεν θα μπορούσε να είναι πιο επίκαιρο. Θα το συζητήσουμε διαδικτυακά στο πλαίσιο του μαθήματος ‘Science, Technology, Society’ του Interdepartmental Program of Graduate Study ‘Science, Technology, Society—Science and Technology Studies’ (Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Φιλοσοφίας της Επιστήμης & Τμήμα Πληροφορικής και Τηλεπικοινωνιών, ΕΚΠΑ) με καλεσμένους τον Δρ. Γιάννη Κουκουλά, ιστορικό της τέχνης, μεταδιδακτορικό ερευνητή στο ευρωπαϊκό πρόγραμμα Tethics, και τον Δρ. Γιώργο Βελεγράκη, μεταδιδακτορικό ερευνητή στο πρόγραμμα Ethics4Challenges, διδάσκοντα στα μεταπτυχιακά προγράμματα ‘Science, Technology, Society—Science and Technology Studies’ και ‘Ιστορία και Φιλοσοφία των Επιστημών και της Τεχνολογίας’ (Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Φιλοσοφίας της Επιστήμης, ΕΚΠΑ).
Συντονισμός συζήτησης: Κατερίνα Βλαντώνη, επίκουρη καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Φιλοσοφίας της Επιστήμης, ΕΚΠΑ.
Τετάρτη 27 Νοεμβρίου 2024, 6-8μμ
Δηλώσεις συμμετοχής στη συζήτηση: tympas[at]phs.uoa[dot]gr | Zoom link
7th Go-JuST webinar, Thursday 24 October 2024, 17.00-18.00 EEST (Athens time)
Webex link:
https://uoa.webex.com/uoa/j.php?MTID=m020d72a9f9b8845d3159eaffa28adb41
"Cultivating Knowledge: epistemic implications of lab-grown meat"
Speaker: Alexandra Plakias, Hamilton College, USA
6th Go-JuST webinar, Thursday 17 October 2024, 17.00-18.00 EEST (Athens time)
Webex link:
https://uoa.webex.com/uoa/j.php?MTID=m66ba7d52ddd72551b6a7619eb75e6ab3
"Climate action, energy transition and labor markets: Public policies and sectoral implications of just transitions"
Speaker: Stella Tsani, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
For information, see here.
5th Go-JuST webinar, Thursday, June 13, 2024, 16.00-17.00 CEST (17.00-18.00 EEST)
“Food and Intellectual Property Rights between Exploitation and Empowerment”
Speakers:
Andrea Borghini, Department of Philosophy, University of Milan
Enrico Bonadio, The City Law School, City, University of London
4th Go-JuST Webinar, June 6, 2024 10:00 AM CEST (11:00 AM EEST)
"The Promise of Multispecies Justice"
Speaker: Sophie Chao, Lecturer in Anthropology, University of Sydney
Sophie Chao is Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Sydney. Her research investigates the intersections of Indigeneity, ecology, capitalism, health, and justice in the Pacific. Chao is author of In the Shadow of the Palms: More-Than-Human Becomings in West Papua and co-editor of The Promise of Multispecies Justice. She previously worked for the Indigenous rights organization, Forest Peoples Programme. Chao is of Sino-French heritage and lives on unceded Gadigal lands in Sydney, Australia. For more, visit www.morethanhumanworlds.com.
Join Zoom Meeting: https://NTNU.zoom.us/j/96664766052?pwd=bk9IM0xTaFE2MlBOS0dseWttWE15Zz09
Meeting ID: 966 6476 6052 / Passcode: 165794
Πληροφορίες, εδώ.
Thursday 25 May 2024 16.00 CET (17.00 EET)
"Lifeworld, Landscape and Law: From Territoriality to Rights in Knowledge"
Speaker: Graham Dutfield, Professor of International Governance, School of law, University of Leed
For information, see here.
Thursday 25 April 2024 16.00 CET (17.00 EET)
"From pleasure to morality. The political taste of Slow Food"
Speaker: Valeria Siniscalchi, Directrice d’études de l’EHESS, CeRCLEs – Campus EHESS Marseille
In the context of the Go-Just research project, the first Webinar will take place on 28/3/2024, 16.00-17.00 CET (17.00-18.00 Athens Time).
Title: Complex political problems: Why Science can’t speak with One Voice
Speaker: Silvio Oscar Funtowicz, Center for the Study of Sciences and the Humanities, University of Bergen (UiB), Norway
CONEF Hybrid Event
END OF PROJECT Workshop & Kick off event
Go-JuST
Date/Time: 14 December 2023, 9:30-20:30 (EET/Athens time)
Place: Goudarouli Seminar Room, University Campus, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Ilisia, 15771
& Webex link
Registration is compulsory. Please register by email providing your name and affiliation to: Post-doc Researcher: Dr. Yanis Fotopoulos (iofot9@phs.uoa.gr)
You can find the event flyer, here.
Day/Time: Monday, 18 December 2023, 17:00-19:00 (Athens time)
Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86003468724?pwd=RzJxb2RYUmRrc2JIY2VlRkpjekJGZz09
You can find the event flyer, here.
Day/Time: Tuesday, 12 December 2023, 16:00-18:00 (Athens time)
Place: Teaching Rooms, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
You can find the event flyer, here.
Day/Time: Friday, 18:15-20:00 (EEST)
Place: Teaching Room C, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA)
Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86003468724
Find the spring semester program, here.
The coordinator is Prof. Vasilis Kostakis. The summer school is co-organised by the P2P Lab of Tallinn University of Technology, and by the Interdepartmental Graduate Program “Science, Technology, Society – Science and Technology Studies” of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
For more information, see here.
You can find the program, here.
"Technology won’t bring about a sustainable society, but here’s something that can"
A lecture by Vasilis Kostakis
Professor of P2P Governance at TalTech; Faculty Associate at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center; Recipient of a four-year (2019-) grant from the European Research Council, to study how to create a sustainable and inclusive economy based on locally productive communities that are digitally interconnected; Founder of the P2P Lab and a founding member of the rural makerspace Tzoumakers (Epirus, Greece)
Wednesday, 10 November 2021, 20:00-22:00
Webex Link:
https://uoa.webex.com/uoa/j.php?MTID=mfddc80613e7c344ad75738e427c5b64f
Organized in the context of the course: Science, Technology, Society Graduate Program ‘Science, Technology, Society – Science and Technology Studies’ (sts.phs.uoa.gr)
Department of History and Philosophy of Science & Department of Informatics and Telecommunications
School of Science
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Further Information: Aristotle Tympas (tympas@phs.uoa.gr)
Find the flyer, here.
In the frame of "Sustainability, Techno-sciences, Transitions: From history to contemporary environmental and social challenges" series, we are joined by Dr. Sabine Clarke, Senior Lecturer, Department of History, York University, UK.
The title of this webinar is "Difficult Chemicals: Understanding the slow uptake of insecticides in British Farming after 1945"
Join Zoom Meeting: us02web.zoom.us/j/81932213086
Sabine Clarke is Senior Lecturer in Modern History. She works on the history of science, technology and medicine in Britain and its colonial empire between WWI and 1965, with a particular focus on the Caribbean and East Africa. Her monograph, Science at the End of Empire: Experts and the Development of the British Caribbean, 1940-1965 was published by Manchester University Press in 2018.
Invitation to the lecture by Dr. Ivan Tchalakov
"Orders of Worth in Nuclear Transition: The Case of Bulgaria (1969-2019)"
Thursday, February 28th 2019, 18:30-20:00
Lecture Room E (Panepistimioupolis, Ano Ilisia), Department of History and Philosophy of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA)
Ivan Tchalakov is Professor of Sociology of Science and Technology - Department of Applied and Institutional Sociology, University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Senior Research Fellow - BAS Institute for the Study of Knowledge & Society
Senior Research Fellow - Center for Policy Analyses & Studies of Technologies (PAST), Tomsk State University, Russia
Organized upon the completion of the EU HORIZON 2020 research project ‘HoNESt: History of Nuclear Energy and Society’
Hosted by the Interdepartmental Graduate Program “Science, Technology, Society—Science and Technology Studies” (Department of History and Philsophy of Science and Department of
Informatics and Telecommunications, NKUA)
Contact: Aristotle Tympas (tympas@phs.uoa.gr)
Find the lecture's poster, here.
A workshop in Delphi/Athens, Greece 4-5 September 2025
Supported by an EASST (European Association for the Study of Science and Technology) Fund
‘Existential threats’, connected to, most notably, the environmental crisis and the associated climate change, biology, medicine and biotechnology (from pandemics to gene editing), and artificial intelligence, are by now a defining challenge for all social subjects and their institutions. Research to understand where exactly we are, and what we may do to have a chance against such threats, is urgently needed, with relevant STS research being of priority due to its focus on the cause of these threats, namely the connection between society/nature and the shaping of science/technology. Preliminary STS research has suggested that local variation may matter in regards to existential threats, just as it matters, as STS has definitely shown, in regards to science and technology. To advance STS research on local variation regarding existential threats, this workshop that will focus on the paradigmatically challenging localities of a region that is emblematic of the European (and Global) South, the Balkans. The workshop aims at the development of STS in this region (STSing Balkans), as well as in sensitizing STS to a possible need for upsetting its present research agenda so as to prioritize research on understanding/addressing existential threats (Balkanizing STS). The workshop participants will represent all Balkan countries (and Balkan STS societies, programs, institutions/networks), in the direction of setting up a permanent EASST-affiliated regional STS forum.
Workshop Program: TBA
Link for online attendance: TBA
Organizer/Contact: Aristotle Tympas, Professor & Director,Interdepartmental Graduate Program ‘Science, Technology, Society-Science and Technology Studies’, Department of History and Philosophy of Science & Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece (tympas[at]phs.uoa[dot]gr);
Scientific Committee: Prof. Aristotle Tympas (existential threats of relevance to AI), Assistant Professor Katerina Vlantoni (existential threats of relevance to bio
