COLLABORATION IN BASIC SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING (COBASE)

Don Ihde hosted Laszlo Ropolyi of Hungary from March through July 1999. A third researcher, Robert Crease of SUNY at Stony Brook, joined this team and played an important role in accomplishing the goals of this project. One of the main objectives of the visit was to take part in the Technoscience Research Seminar organized by Ihde. The Technoscience Research Seminar has a wide variety of participants, which include visiting scholars (Ropolyi, plus two Danish scholars), regional faculty from Long Island University, and advanced graduate students. An outcome of the seminar was a draft project, "The Matrix," which is a critical comparison of four contemporary science studies authors. This group attended two conferences during their time together. They were able to attend the first, The Mullasadra World Congress conference held in Iran in May 1999, thanks to funding granted through a private scholarly research foundation in Iran. Ihde, Ropolyi, and Crease all gave papers, organized panels, and led discussion groups. The second conference, "History and Sociology of Research Laboratories," was held at Stony Brook in June 1999. In relation to the grant aims, several significant studies of science/public problems were developed and presented. Ihde and Ropolyi have collaborated on future plans to develop relations between Stony Brook and a consortium of Hungarian universities in the development of a program on history and philosophy of science studies. As a follow up to this grant, Ihde has prepared and submitted a conference grant proposal to NSF for a June 2000 meeting of the International Society for Hermeneutics and Science, whose double centers are Budapest and Stony Brook.