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| Institute for the History of Science (IHUS) | |
|---|---|
| Name | Institute for the History of Science (IHUS) |
| Established | 20th century |
| Type | Research institute |
| Location | University campus |
| Director | Academic director |
Institute for the History of Science (IHUS) The Institute for the History of Science (IHUS) is a specialist research center dedicated to the study of the historical development of scientific ideas, instruments, and institutions. It brings together historians, curators, archivists, and scholars in interdisciplinary collaborations linking archival scholarship with museum practice. IHUS hosts seminars, doctoral supervision, and exhibitions that engage with global histories of medicine, astronomy, engineering, and natural history.
IHUS was founded in the 20th century in response to initiatives linking university-based research with museum collections and governmental collections policies championed by figures associated with Royal Society, Smithsonian Institution, Max Planck Society, British Museum, and Bibliothèque nationale de France. Early leadership drew on networks that included scholars from Cambridge University, University of Oxford, Harvard University, Princeton University, and University of Chicago, and formed partnerships with archives such as Wellcome Collection, Bodleian Library, and Vatican Library. Throughout periods marked by events such as World War II and the postwar expansion of research funding influenced by Marshall Plan, IHUS expanded its mandate to collect instruments from laboratories linked to Louis Pasteur, Marie Curie, Alexander Fleming, and to document practices in institutions like Johns Hopkins University and Imperial College London.
IHUS's mission emphasizes historical analysis of scientific practice across space and time, engaging topics tied to figures and institutions including Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei, Charles Darwin, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Carl Linnaeus, Ada Lovelace, James Clerk Maxwell, Michael Faraday, Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, Marie and Pierre Curie, and Rosalind Franklin. Research programs examine entanglements among laboratories, hospitals, observatories, and industrial firms such as Rutherford Laboratory, Bell Labs, Siemens, and DuPont while situating scholarship in relation to archives like National Archives (UK), Library of Congress, and Archives Nationales (France). IHUS fosters projects on the circulation of instruments from makers like Breguet, Tavistock, and Reichert and on the migration of scientists across networks including diaspora movements after events like Russian Revolution and Nazi Germany.
IHUS curates substantial holdings of manuscripts, correspondence, laboratory notebooks, and scientific instruments associated with individuals such as Robert Boyle, Gregor Mendel, Louis Agassiz, Rudolf Virchow, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Erwin Schrödinger, and Werner Heisenberg. Its archival holdings include donation series from institutions like Royal Society of Chemistry, Royal Institution, Kew Gardens, and from industrial archives related to firms such as General Electric and Westinghouse Electric Corporation. The instrument collection complements material culture in museums like Science Museum, London, Musée des Arts et Métiers, and Deutsches Museum, and the photographic archive documents observatories such as Greenwich Observatory, Yerkes Observatory, and Mount Wilson Observatory.
IHUS supervises graduate students enrolled in programs at universities such as University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, Columbia University, Yale University, and University of California, Berkeley. Coursework and seminars connect with faculty appointments linked to departments like Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge, Department of the History of Science, Harvard, and collaborative programs with museums including Natural History Museum, London and American Museum of Natural History. IHUS offers doctoral training partnerships with funding bodies such as European Research Council, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Arts and Humanities Research Council and internship schemes with archives like Wellcome Collection and National Library of Medicine.
IHUS produces monographs, edited volumes, and periodicals in collaboration with presses and publishers such as Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Routledge, Springer, and Taylor & Francis. Major projects have included documentary editions of correspondence related to Charles Darwin, corrective catalogues for instrument makers like E. Dent & Co., and digital initiatives modelled after infrastructures like Europeana and Gallica. IHUS staff contribute to journals including Isis (journal), Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, Journal of the History of Biology, Medical History (journal), and Technology and Culture.
IHUS curates thematic exhibitions and public programs in partnership with institutions such as Victoria and Albert Museum, Science Museum, London, Wellcome Collection, Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History, and Museum of the History of Science, Oxford. Exhibitions have foregrounded collections related to Antisepsis, Vaccination campaigns tied to Edward Jenner, X-ray pioneers including Wilhelm Röntgen and Marie Curie, and narratives of exploration covering HMS Challenger voyages and polar expeditions connected to Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott. Public engagement includes lecture series with speakers drawn from Royal Society, National Academy of Sciences, and cultural partners like BBC.
IHUS is governed by an academic board with representation from partner institutions including University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Princeton University, Columbia University, Max Planck Society, and national funding agencies such as Arts and Humanities Research Council, National Endowment for the Humanities, European Research Council, National Science Foundation, and philanthropic foundations like Wellcome Trust and Gates Foundation. Financial support combines endowments, competitive grants from bodies like Leverhulme Trust and corporate partnerships with firms historically engaged in science patronage such as Siemens and General Electric.
Category:Research institutes