CfA for a pan­el at EASST2026 Con­fer­ence Krakow: „Toward Bio­med­ical and Health Test­ing Stud­ies. Reassem­bling Test­ing Prac­tices and Health Futures”
Sep 8–11 2026
Dead­line Mar 9 

Cfp for an open pan­el “Toward Bio­med­ical and Health Test­ing Stud­ies: Reassem­bling Test­ing Prac­tices and Health Futures” (P050) at the EASST2026 Con­fer­ence in Krakow (Sep 8–11). The call for abstracts is open until March 9, 2026. Sub­mit your abstracts, and feel free to cir­cu­late the call!

Short Abstract: P050 Toward Bio­med­ical and Health Test­ing Studies
Reassem­bling Test­ing Prac­tices and Health Futures

This pan­el invites con­tri­bu­tions exam­in­ing the epis­te­molo­gies, ontolo­gies, moral­i­ties and pol­i­tics of test­ing in bio­med­i­cine and (pub­lic) health. We par­tic­u­lar­ly seek papers that explore how test­ing is done in prac­tice and how it might be done or con­fig­ured otherwise.

For more infor­ma­tion and to apply, see the attach­ment or visit:
Con­fer­ence Page: https://easst.net/conference/easst2026/easst2026-home/
Abstract Sub­mis­sion: https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/easst2026/p/18029#

Please cir­cu­late the call and con­tact us if you have any questions.

Con­venors:

Ingrid Met­zler (Karl Land­stein­er Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sciences)
Kate­ri­na Vlan­toni (Nation­al and Kapodis­tri­an Uni­ver­si­ty of Athens)
Vic­to­ria Mek­lin (Alpen Adria Uni­ver­sität Klagenfurt)
Mara Köh­ler (Karl Land­stein­er Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sci­ences, Uni­ver­si­ty of Vienna)

Long Abstract:

Over the past three decades, schol­ars in STS and relat­ed fields have engaged with the phe­nom­e­non of test­ing in bio­med­i­cine and health. Since the late 1980s, research has explored genet­ic test­ing as it has been envi­sioned and prac­ticed in clin­i­cal, pub­lic health, and recre­ation­al con­texts, as well as the moral­i­ties embed­ded in the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works shap­ing its uses. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, schol­ars con­tribut­ing to the soci­ol­o­gy of diag­no­sis have inves­ti­gat­ed how test­ing con­tributes to mak­ing up peo­ple. More recent­ly, stud­ies have turned to test­ing in emerg­ing fields such as pre­ci­sion med­i­cine, pay­ing par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to the polit­i­cal economies and gov­er­nance of test­ing, or the rise of self-test­ing prac­tices. Schol­ars have also ana­lyzed the visions, uses, and infra­struc­tures of test­ing in glob­al health ini­tia­tives and in the man­age­ment of dis­ease out­breaks, most notably dur­ing the COVID-19 pandemic.
In this pan­el, we pro­pose to use test­ing as a bound­ary object to open a dia­logue between these diverse strands of research. Build­ing on work devel­oped under the labels of the “anthro­pol­o­gy of med­ical test­ing” (Street and Kel­ly, 2021) and the “soci­ol­o­gy of diag­no­sis and screen­ing” (Petersen and Pien­aar, 2021), we sug­gest the label “bio­med­ical and health test­ing stud­ies” to fos­ter such engagement.

We invite empir­i­cal and con­cep­tu­al con­tri­bu­tions that address the epis­te­molo­gies, ontolo­gies, moral­i­ties, and pol­i­tics of test­ing across bio­med­ical and health domains. Pos­si­ble top­ics include test­ing in bio­med­ical, pub­lic health, and glob­al health con­texts; self-test­ing and tin­ker­ing; and the absences, con­tes­ta­tions, or refusals of test­ing. We par­tic­u­lar­ly wel­come con­tri­bu­tions that explore how bio­med­ical test­ing might be con­fig­ured oth­er­wise and how STS schol­ars can con­tribute to shap­ing the futures of health testing.

Petersen A and Pien­aar K (2021) Test­ing for Life? Regimes of Gov­er­nance in Diag­no­sis and Screen­ing. Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Soci­ety 26(1): 7–23.

Street A and Kel­ly AH (2021) Intro­duc­tion: Diag­nos­tics, Med­ical Test­ing, and Val­ue in Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy. Med­i­cine Anthro­pol­o­gy The­o­ry 8(2). 2: 1–16.

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Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence „For a Bet­ter Pub­lic Health and Health­care: Mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary Solutions”
Mon­te­ca­ti­ni Terme (Italy)
13–15 March 2026

Good Health and Well-being is one of the 17 UN Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals, close­ly inter­con­nect­ed with social chal­lenges, such as pover­ty and inequal­i­ty. Avoid­able poor health and inequal­i­ties in health and access to health­care per­sist across all coun­tries, while health­care costs con­tin­ue to rise. This con­fer­ence aims to stim­u­late mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary think­ing and action to devel­op solu­tions that grasp the oppor­tu­ni­ties offered by tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion, while tack­ling the socio-eco­nom­ic deter­mi­nants of health and the effects of envi­ron­men­tal challenges.

Sus­tain­able health­care solu­tions and effec­tive pub­lic health deliv­ery require more than just stat­ed com­mit­ments — they demand con­crete action, inno­v­a­tive think­ing and sus­tained col­lab­o­ra­tion across sec­tors to enable a good patient expe­ri­ence and ensure effi­cient and sus­tain­able health ser­vices. This Inter­na­tion­al Mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary Con­fer­ence will bring togeth­er actors in the inter­con­nect­ed fields of pub­lic health, health care and envi­ron­ment to inves­ti­gate the state of health poli­cies and ser­vices across dif­fer­ent fields.
A key objec­tive is to devel­op syn­er­gies between aca­d­e­m­ic research, the man­age­ment of the phys­i­cal envi­ron­ment, pub­lic health deliv­ery, health providers, pub­lic and pri­vate investors and pol­i­cy mak­ers. The aim is to stim­u­late an inte­grat­ed approach to address both imme­di­ate chal­lenges and long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty goals, improv­ing effi­cien­cy, resilience and ser­vice acces­si­bil­i­ty to all com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, while pro­mot­ing a greater focus on reduc­ing demand upstream through appro­pri­ate pre­ven­tive approach­es in the phys­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and psy­choso­cial environment.

The Con­fer­ence will devel­op through work­shops and ple­nary ses­sions focused on three core areas and the com­ple­men­tary ways in which they impact the effi­cien­cy and resilience of pub­lic health poli­cies and health­care sys­tems, and people’s health and well­be­ing in a holis­tic sense. 

The three inter­con­nect­ed core areas are:
(1) Tack­ling Sys­temic Health­care Costs and Health­care Access;
(2) Pub­lic Health and the Phys­i­cal and Socio-eco­nom­ic Environment;
(3) Dig­i­tal Health Inno­va­tion and Respon­si­ble AI in Health Systems.

Fur­ther Details and Updates are avail­able at: Inter­na­tion­al Mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary Health Con­fer­ence 2026 | inter­na­tion­al urban sym­po­sium – ius

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Call for papers: Robots for Care: Explor­ing Down­stream Socio-Eth­i­cal Effects & Upstream Inter­ven­tions, Work­shop @ HRI 2026

🗓️ Sub­mis­sion dead­line: Feb­ru­ary 9, 2026 (AoE)
🗓️ Work­shop date: March 16, 2026, Morn­ing GMT
🙌 Work­shop for­mat: Hybrid and interactive
🔗 Work­shop web­site: https://healthrobotsworkshop.github.io

This is an invi­ta­tion for con­tri­bu­tions to the work­shop „Robots for Care: Explor­ing Down­stream Socio-Eth­i­cal Effects and Upstream Inter­ven­tions” held in con­junc­tion with the ACM/IEEE Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Human–Robot Inter­ac­tion (HRI 2026).

The con­text: Robots hold poten­tial to expand acces­si­bil­i­ty to dis­abled com­mu­ni­ties, such as by pro­vid­ing phys­i­cal or cog­ni­tive assis­tance, and enabling new ways of par­tic­i­pat­ing in social activ­i­ties. They also can sup­port health­care work­ers with ancil­lary tasks and care deliv­ery, to sup­port them work­ing at the top of their license. How­ev­er, the real-world deploy­ment of robots across these con­texts can cre­ate social, eth­i­cal, and orga­ni­za­tion­al chal­lenges (e.g., down­stream effects). They may under­mine the agency of dis­abled peo­ple, dis­rupt care deliv­ery, shift roles, and dis­place labor.

Our aim: Bring togeth­er mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary stake­hold­ers to exam­ine these down­stream effects and explore how they might be mit­i­gat­ed through upstream inter­ven­tions of design, research, and policy.

How to con­tribute: We wel­come short con­tri­bu­tions dis­cussing top­ics rel­e­vant to the work­shop. Top­ics include, but are not lim­it­ed to:

Eth­i­cal, legal, and social impli­ca­tions of robots in clin­i­cal or assis­tive contexts
Crit­i­cal reflec­tions on mis/alignments between design goals and impacts of robots on dis­abled communities
Upstream inter­ven­tions at the meso or macro lev­el (e.g., com­mu­ni­ty pro­grams, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry research, policies)
Com­mu­ni­ty-based research practices
Expe­ri­ence reports or deploy­ment insights from con­texts including:

Social­ly assis­tive robots

Cog­ni­tive­ly assis­tive robots
Phys­i­cal­ly assis­tive robots
Hos­pi­tal deployed robots (e.g., deliv­ery, san­i­ta­tion, surgery)
Reha­bil­i­ta­tion robotics

We par­tic­u­lar­ly encour­age sub­mis­sions that sur­face lived expe­ri­ences, or cross-dis­ci­pli­nary insights that may be under­rep­re­sent­ed in tra­di­tion­al aca­d­e­m­ic venues.

Writ­ten sub­mis­sions will be post­ed on our web­site, and pre­sent­ed inter­ac­tive­ly dur­ing a poster ses­sion. There will also be oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­tribute to a fol­low-up jour­nal spe­cial issue.

Poten­tial Atten­dees: We encour­age aca­d­e­mics, non-aca­d­e­mics, and peo­ple with/without affil­i­a­tions to par­tic­i­pate in the work­shop. Sub­mit­ting a paper is not manda­to­ry to attend. The work­shop is designed to be inter­ac­tive and par­tic­i­pa­to­ry, and we are inter­est­ed in wel­com­ing peo­ple from many back­grounds. The work­shop will be hybrid to sup­port accessibility.

We appre­ci­ate your help in shar­ing this work­shop with rel­e­vant parties.

✉️ Con­tact: healthrobotsworkshop@gmail.com

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