11th International Conference on History of Chemistry

11th International Conference on History of Chemistry (11ICHC) The International Conference on History of Chemistry (ICHC) is a biennial conference which aims to bring together and facilitate communication between historically interested chemists/chemistry educators and historians of chemistry from all over Europe and beyond. The 11th conference in the series of ICHC meetings (11ICHC) was organized in Trondheim in august-september 2017. Its specific aims were 1) to provide an arena where chemistry educators, chemists and historians from all over the world could meet to present and discuss ongoing research in the history of chemistry, 2) to strengthen and stimulate cross-disciplinary cooperation, and 3) to strengthen the Norwegian contribution to research in the history of chemistry and make new research from this field more visible in Norway. Though organized by and in Europe, the ICHCs are unique in the world and constitute an important meeting opportunity for the community organized around the history of chemical sciences broadly construed. The ICHCs take place under the auspices of The Working Party on History of Chemistry (WPHC) of the European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences (EuCheMS). The main host of the 11ICHC was Department of teacher education, NTNU, in collaboration with the Norwegian Chemical Society and the Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF), USA. Other formal collaborators were University of Regensburg, Germany and Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. The 11ICHC was one of the ICHCs with highest attendance in history. The 111 participants were university professors, independent scholars, researchers employed at museums or in chemical industry, and chemistry teachers? coming from various disciplinary backgrounds, e.g. chemistry, physics, philosophy, history, STS or science/chemistry education. 31 of them were students. Attendants came from Australia, Taiwan, Japan, China, Mexico, Canada, USA and many countries in Europe. The variety in disciplinary, institutional and national backgrounds made the 11ICHC a unique arena for networking, exchange of ideas, discussions and collaborations on history of chemistry across nations, professions and backgrounds ? in keeping with the objectives of the conference. The programme consisted of three plenary lectures and 17 parallel sessions including 73 oral presentations, one film screening and a closing panel, as well as a social programme with excursions. A variety of aspects of the history of chemistry was discussed; its history of ideas, its teaching, its connection with industry, chemistry and its relations to other disciplines, chemistry and health, political and social aspects of practicing chemistry ? through the whole of its history from alchemy to modern times. 21 participants came from a Norwegian university, museum or school ? of which eight gave a presentation, thereby making Norwegian contributions more visible in the international community. For some of the Norwegian participants this was their first encounter with the international community in the history of chemistry and an opportunity to network and exchange ideas with colleagues from all over the world.

The 11th International Conference on History of Chemistry (11ICHC) is a biennial conference which aims to bring together and facilitate communication between historically interested chemists/chemistry educators and historians of chemistry from all over Europe and beyond. The ICHCs are the only conferences of their kind in the world. They attract researchers from various backgrounds, teachers, museum personnel, PhD and Master students and chemists employed elsewhere. There is a long tradition for science educators to look to history and philosophy to improve their teaching and guide their curricula, and university researchers who participate usually come from a range of fields including chemistry, chemistry education, history, philosophy or sociology. The 11ICHC is therefore an important place to stimulate cross-disciplinary and cross-national research. Furthermore, the 11ICHC is an opportunity to make visible the research projects taking place in Norway and develop them further, to connect scholars from different professional groups (science educators, teachers, museum personnel, researchers) and thus contribute to strengthen the Norwegian network within the history of chemistry as well as internationalization. The conference welcomes young and/or inexperienced scholars and will support them through the whole process from review of abstracts, through presenting papers and possibly through review of papers for publication.