About

Institutionalization of the field of history of technology in Eindhoven accelerated in the late 1980s with the appointment of Harry Lintsen as the first TU/e Chair in the history of technology, the establishment of the Foundation for the History of Technology SHT by the Royal Engineering Society KIVI, and the coordination of major collaborative interuniversity projects on the Dutch history of technology in the 19th and 20th centuries (resulting in a 13-volume book series, published 1992-2003).

In the 2000s, we were chiefly engaged in building a new collaborative project on the role of technology and technology actors in European Integration and fragmentation. This theme required a technological turn in European (integration) history, a transnational turn in the history of technology, and above all an international network of committed researchers. This resulted in the establishment of the interdisciplinary Pan-European research collaboration Tensions of Europe (founded in Eindhoven in 1999). This collaborative research program ran through several stages. Its capstone was the Making Europe book series.

Our collaborative research program approach was recently reviewed and discussed by Eda Kranakis in Technology & Culture (read here).

Since 2015, we developed a new collaborative research program on the roles of technology in societal challenges 1800-2050, in the context of the Tensions of Europe research community (see here). Meanwhile the Foundation SHT was asked to host the secretariat of the Society for the History of Technology SHOT and the editorship of its quarterly journal Technology & Culture. The SHT also still hosts the Tensions of Europe secretariat.

From 2021, we have embarked on an exciting new collaborative research program called Global Sustainability: Past-Present-Future. In this context we envision a global network of colleagues and students to jointly develop new research agenda and new research, teaching, and engagement programs.