The Centre for Science, Technology, and Society Studies of IP CAS is an interdisciplinary research unit dedicated to salient issues at the intersection of history, theory, and methodology of science with special emphasis on the humanities dimension in the study of science. Our members thus conduct research in areas such as philosophy and ethics of science, foundations of mathematics, role of communication in science, or epistemological, ethnographic, and digital inquiry into the central scientific concepts, artefacts, and institutions. The Centre encourages the inclusion of the social sciences and the humanities in the general framework of science studies and promotes the analysis of social, cultural, and communicative dimensions of knowledge production, evaluation, and application.
The departmental STS-oriented research current probes into socio-cultural and institutional contexts in which scientific knowledge is produced, and thus follows one of the major tenets of STS tradition: that the shape/form of scientific knowledge, including technological artefacts and the context of their production are mutually constitutive. In particular, the Centre’s research in this area has advanced new conceptual connections between sociology of time and specific methodological and analytical streams within the STS tradition (i.e. "laboratory studies", (post-)ANT), for which the researchers mobilize established anthropological methods of inquiry. Overall, the STS-oriented research aims to articulate insights that would contribute to current debates both in STS and sociology of time.
Brief history
The Centre was founded in 1968 as the Centre for Theory and Methodology of Science. Under the leadership of Prof. Ladislav Tondl, the Centre took up a significant role in shaping the area of science and technology, especially through his activities within International Council for Science Policy Studies. Due to political reasons, the Centre was discontinued in 1970. It has been fully renewed in 1993 under its current name. In the 1990s, the Centre looked into transformation processes at the national level (with the outcome published as Transformation of Science and Research in the Czech Republic, Filosofia, Prague 1998. After 2000, the Centre has participated in many international projects such as Recognizing Central and Eastern European Centres of RTD: Perspectives for the European Research Area, Strategic Evaluation on Innovation and the Knowledge Based Economy in Relation to the Structural and Cohesion Funds. Members of the Centre also took part in a number of projects funded by the EU: ProAct, MASIS, PLACES, NANOPINION, ResAGorA, ResInfra@DR.
Scholarly publishing
Teorie vědy / Theory of Science 
Our Centre manages the journal TEORIE VEDY / THEORY OF SCIENCE which is a peer-reviewed academic journal founded in 1969. It focuses on the inquiry into philosophical and methodological principles of scientific knowledge. It traces the interrelationship of science, technology, and society; the problems of the historical development of science and knowledge; and the interdisciplinary relations across and within Humanities, Social, Natural, and Life Sciences. Public relevance of science is also addressed. The journal publishes original research articles in English and Czech languages. Unsolicited book reviews are typically in Czech. Currently, the journal is listed in databases SCOPUS, DOAJ, ERIH PLUS, EBSCO, CEJSH, The Philosopher’s Index, Ulrich's Periodicals Directory.
Link: http://teorievedy.flu.cas.cz
Online services
Evalvis 17+
Charting application for the data from the bibliometric evaluation of the Czech R&D results of research organisations in 2017.
Link: http://evalvis.flu.cas.cz