Type of event: News

From 27–30 August 2025, we gathered in sunny Groningen, Netherlands, for the European Philosophy of Science Association (EPSA). Our symposium, “The Role of Philosophy of Science in Public,” highlighted ethical and political issues concerning science, and we discussed the social responsibilities of the philosophy of science in shaping public policy. Richard Williams looked at how philosophers and policymakers may work together effectively and fairly. Sabina Leonelli discussed how an Environmental Intelligence framework can help elevate long-term social and environmental goals in technological development, which is currently dominated by short-term goals of convenience and efficiency. Katherine Furman explored how philosophers can help scientists clarify the targets of their research in astrobiology and public health. Rachel Ankeny’s commentary foregrounded the need for realistic views on politics and how trustworthy institutions and practices are needed to facilitate public trust in science. In a separate symposium on data modelling and evidence, Emma Cavazzoni and Sabina Leonelli explored how data models for applied research can help to contribute towards theoretical frameworks.

Award to Paola Castaño: The panel “Ecologies of Life in Space,” organized by Paola Castaño with participation from Ilenia Picardi, Marco Serino, Monica Truninger, and Kärin Nickelsen, was awarded the 2025 Interdisciplinary Organized Session Prize at the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology conference in Porto in July 2025. The panel was recognized for its combination of multiple disciplines and methodologies, with special incorporation of the history and social studies of biology.

Award to Elis Jones: At the 2025 International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB) meeting, TUM researcher Elis Jones was jointly awarded the society’s “Callebaut Prize.” The Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Recognition Research supports the prize, in honour of philosopher Werner Callebaut, and is allocated by the ISHPSSB awards committee. It recognizes, for early-career scholars, “the best manuscript utilizing an interdisciplinary approach based on a presentation at one of the two previous ISHPSSB meetings.” Elis’s paper, presented at the Toronto 2023 meeting, is titled “Exploring the socio-ecology of science: the case of coral reefs,” and is published as part of a special issue on the nature of research environments. It uses data from interviews with coral scientists, alongside ideas from ecology, philosophy, and STS, to argue that coral science is heavily shaped by, and in turn shapes, the ecological systems it is embedded within. The prize was shared with Richard Vangino for his paper “Analogical Anatomy: Neurons, Networks and the Electric Telegraph.”

The Global Metascience Conference will take place in London from 30 June to 2 July 2025, and is organised by Research on Research (RoRI) at University College London. Sabina Leonelli will join a distinguished lineup of speakers, including Maria Leptin, President of the European Research Council; Patrick Vallance, UK Minister of Science and Innovation; and Anna Koivuniemi, Head of Google DeepMind Impact Accelerator, to discuss the role of AI in science. She will participate in two sessions, sharing insights from her work with the multidisciplinary Ethical Data Initiative and her Philosophy of Open Science project (Phil_OS). She will also reference her contribution to the 2024 Royal Society study on Science in the Age of AI. Her sessions include:

• The plenary discussion titled “AI in Science: Accelerating Discovery,” where she will address risks such as conservatism and the tendency to prefer convenience in current AI research developments.
• The session “Funding by Algorithm: AI as Object and Enabler of Research,” where she will offer a philosopher’s perspective on how AI and digital technologies are transforming science, along with the policy and funding challenges they present.

Nathanael Sheehan gave the talk Handling Data & Data Ethics to the alignAI-MSCA Doctoral Network held at the Garching Campus of the Technical University of Munich on 13 May 2025. His talk addressed data ethics, exploring the environmental, social, and epistemic risks of large-scale data use. He emphasised the importance of data transparency and representativeness, reinforced by frameworks like FAIR and CARE principles.

Nathanael Sheehan gave the Keynote talk titled A journey from data ethics to AI governance for the “Data science for life scientists” course at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) in the UK on 19 June 2025.

New report on transdisciplinary research: Sabina Leonelli engaged with a wide variety of stakeholders in public engagement around science and technology at the 19^th Munin Conference for Scholarly Publishing, where she conducted a workshop on Mechanisms for Transdisciplinary Research together with Stefano Rimini of the Pianeta association. A report of the proceedings, with lessons learnt and the original presentation slides, is now available on the Septentrio Conference Series: https://doi.org/10.7557/5.7842

 

Frontiers in Open Research Colloquium: We are delighted to announce the launch of the interdisciplinary colloquium led by Sabina Leonelli. Beginning on Thursday, 24 April 2025, the weekly hybrid seminar (Thursdays, 14:00–16:00 CET) will feature critical discussions on Open Research, research cultures, and systemic challenges, focusing on life sciences, data science, and AI. Each session includes expert talks and insights from recent research. Location: Augustenstrasse 40 (3rd-floor seminar room) and via Zoom.

The Res Philosophica 2025 Conference “Pragmatism and Scientific Inquiry”, to be held in St Louis on April 25-26, 2025, will provide an opportunity for Leonelli to trace and compare the intellectual origins and legacies of Popperian and Bergsonian approaches to the Open Society, and point to their implications for contemporary views on Open Science.

At the International Conference on “Responsible AI” hosted by the Munich Centre for Responsible AI Technologies, held on April 8-10 2025, Sabina Leonelli delivered a keynote on “AI for Democratic Societies” tackling questions of inequity and discrimination in relation to research development, the spread of misinformation and more broadly the imagination of AI underpinning specific ways of using computational technology for science (distinguishing between ‘convenient’ approaches to AI and the different framing provided by Environmental Intelligence).