Arenas of Expectations for Hydrogen Technologies

Technological options can be regarded as variations in an evolutionary development process. The variations are put forward by their respective technological communities and are selected by technology selectors. Building on the notion of quasi-evolutionary technology development we show how technological communities secure their position on R&D agendas through feeding and maintaining expectations in arenas of expectations. We examine this process by studying the expectations work of the community that tries to develop metal hydrides for the on-board storage of hydrogen for mobile applications. Metal hydrides are proposed as a promising alternative to gaseous and liquid hydrogen storage but are yet underdeveloped. Its proponents however, succeed in convincing their sponsors of the future potential of metal hydrides. In this paper we show how expectations of this technological option are raised and maintained by its developers and how this has kept them on hydrogen technology agendas for over 40 years.alternative fuel, energy storage, hydrogen, mobility, on-board

Cultural history and technology : theory, concepts, and examples from the Netherlands

Based on a lecture and using examples from my own research, the paper suggests ways of doing a cultural-historical analysis of debates about technolog

Naar aanleiding van 4 mei: 'Herdenken', 'denken over' en 'bruikbaar verleden'

a critical discussion of the Dutch 4 May ritua

Huizinga's children: Play and technology in twentieth century Dutch cultural criticism (from the 1930s to the 1960s)

This article traces the development of critical thought about the socio-political impact of technology in the Netherlands between the 1920s and the 1960s, from the perspective of thinkers and movements that developed theories about play and put these into practice. The historian Johan Huizinga, the painter Constant Nieuwenhuys and the Provo youth movement shared the conviction that play was a crucial element in society. In the late 1930s, Huizinga argued that play, which he believed was at the basis of all culture, was gradually suppressed in modern societies, as a consequence of the ascendancy of utility and technological efficiency as dominant goals. A much more optimistic view of the future of play and technology was developed after World War II, first in the utopian designs of Nieuwenhuys and then, from the middle of the 1960s, in more practical proposals developed by the Provo youth movement and its successor, the Kabouter Partij. This article describes an intellectual trajectory from deep cultural pessimism and technological determinism towards a utopian constructivist view, issuing in what was later called ‘appropriate technology’

Nederlandse uitgevers op de internationale markt, 1960-1990

Het artikel analyseert de verschillende strategieen bij de internationalisering van twee Nederlandse uitgevers, Kluwer en Elsevier

The romance of technology in an age of extremes. Leonard de Vries' Hobby Clubs, 1945-1965

An analysis of the work of the most popular science popularizers in the Netherlands, late 1940s to 1960s, who offered a romantic view of technology as an alternative to the then common pessimistic cog-in-the-machine view

In search of relevance: The changing contract between science and society

This paper presents a framework to study the historical development of the relationship between science and society. We elaborate this relationship as a contract that specifies the mission of scientific research, the rationales for public support for science, and the conditions under which scientists work. These three structural elements will always be part of the contract, but their specific content can vary. The credibility cycle, as a model for scientific practice, helps to describe and understand the consequences of a changing contract for the work of individual scientists. A brief case study of chemistry in the Netherlands demonstrates the usefulness of the framework. We show how concepts of relevance have changed since 1975 and how this affects the practice of academic chemistry.relevance, contract, credibility cycle, chemistry

Who believed in a second industrial revolution? The 'age of computers and automation' in popular media in NL and elsewhere

__Intro__ This paper is about a new project I have just started. So far, I have mainly worked with Dutch sources, but this is such an international subject that I’d like to broaden the project, preferably in some kind of collaboration. So the whole setup is up for discussion; and if you are interested in cooperation or know of others who are doing similar work, I’d be very intereste