Awareness Concept

The STS Hub 2025 is a space for scholarly engagement, collegial exchange and networking within the field of science and technology studies and adjacent fields. The conference brings together over 600 scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds, career stages, cultures and identities. We want to ensure a welcoming and appreciative atmosphere for all participants throughout the conference and at conference-related social events. The STS Hub 2025 local organising committee, members of the scientific advisory board, including their associations, and all conference participants hold a shared responsibility in creating and maintaining a safe, inclusive, respectful and accessible environment at the event.

Our mission

As conference organisers, we are committed to establishing good relations on site. We have therefore developed an awareness concept for the STS Hub 2025, following the good example of the well-received Conference Etiquette of the inaugural conference of stsing e.V. in Dresden in 2024. Each conference participant is encouraged to reflect their own positionalities and privileges, especially before taking the floor or voicing criticism, carefully attending to the ways power differentials affect people and influence their willingness and ability to participate. You can orient yourself with the ‘(self-)critical questions’ that are included below. We are striving towards a conference that is free of abuses of power, discrimination and harassment (be it intentional or unintentional) and seeks to promote scholarly exchange and professional development without bullying, exploitation, intimidation, and victimization. We do not tolerate discriminatory or abusive language or behavior. This includes sexism, racism, antisemitism, anti-Muslim racism, ableism, classism, homophobia, trans*phobia and any other form of discrimination. See below the STS Hub 2025 Code of Conduct for a list of unacceptable behaviors that covers both in-person and online participation and may be verbal, non-verbal or written.

(Self-)Critical questions

What position of power do I hold in society?

Where am I in academic hierarchies?

How does this affect people who are in subordinate positions to me?

How much space and time do I take in discussions?

What are my intentions here?

At what point am I reflecting on my gender positioning, and how sensitized am I to other gender positions?

Am I aware of my privileges in the racist system?

Do I recognize situations of ableist discrimination?

How is my behavior possibly impacting the precarity experienced by other conference participants?

The ‘(self-)critical questions’ were part of the awareness concept at the inaugural conference of stsing e.V. in 2024. They are based on the awareness concept of the Membra(i)nes conference (annual conference of the gender studies association, 2023).

What can the Awareness-Team do for me?

All day events can get very busy and feel like a lot, including the mix of many people, noises, needs. That is why it is important to recognise if you need a break, a quiet place, or if any issues pop up during your participation at the conference. During the STS Hub 2025, an Awareness-Team will support all of us to implement the above policy collectively. Two members of the Awareness-Team will be present at the venue during the four days of the conference and at the get-together at Flutgraben on Thursday evening. The members of the awareness team have a wide range of experience in different contexts, which enables them to handle a wide variety of situations with care. The Awareness Team generally offers a point of contact for orientation, a calm space and a break from the conference setting as well as a space to talk, to listen to concerns and to look for solutions or whatever is needed in your specific situation.

The Awareness-Team provides advice if you feel unsure, insecure or uncomfortable. You can always be sure that no action will be taken without your consent. You can reach out to the Awareness-Team if you want to talk to someone, need help, feel overwhelmed, unsafe and/or if you have experienced or observed discriminatory behavior. You will find them in the Awareness-Room (room 1.307 on the third floor) at the main conference venue (Dorotheenstraße 24) and also walking through the corridors and visiting panels and other sessions. The Awareness-Team will be easily identifiable with blue glittery vests.

At the get-together at Flutgraben at least one person of the Awareness-Team will also be found in a calmer space of the venue and another one will walk around and will be identifiable by a blue glittery vest. Also there, the awareness team will offer first support in any situation you feel unwell and/ or need a calmer space.

How to approach the Awareness-Team during the conference?

  • ➜ Come to the Awareness room at the main venue (room 1.307 on third floor)
  • ➜ Turn to the Awareness-Team directly or ask at the registration desk or any member of the organising team how to approach them

If you want to share any thoughts about awareness with the organisers of the conference or prefer to report incidents in a written form, write to: sts-hub2025.awareness@hu-berlin.de Be aware that we can attend to the emails only occasionally during the conference days. For any urgent matter, please turn to the Awareness-Team.

Code of Conduct

STS Hub 2025 builds upon and applies the Code of Conduct developed and endorsed by stsing e.V.

STS-Hub 2025 commits to an intersectional feminist perspective in which conflict and violence are seen as social and political issues, rather than merely individual or interpersonal. Our response to conflicts and violence embraces support of/for those harmed and strives to go beyond sanctioning, shaming or isolating individuals. This requires that everyone involved accepts their own and others’ boundaries and the commitment of reflecting and recognizing one's own and others’ intersectional implications in hierarchies and power relations. STS-Hub 2025 is dedicated to developing tools that help participants share accountability and develop collaborative practices that seek to transform power abuse into solidarities.

In order to achieve this goal, we ask you to familiarize yourself with the definitions of unwanted and prohibited behaviours at the STS Hub 2025 as listed below:

  1. Abuses of power, including labor‐related (unjustified transfer of professorial tasks to non‐professorial staff or student assistants; arbitrary exercise of professorial decision‐making power, e.g., over the organisation of panels or other event formats that they have not contributed to themselves; demands for free labor, e.g. for urgent and unavoidable organisational tasks), and space-related issues (cutting someone off or taking up a disproportionate amount of speaking time because of one's own position)
  2. Community misconduct (academic bullying; career sabotage; professional slander; gender disparities in both lauding and criticising contributions)
  3. Sexual harassment (unwanted sexual attention; sexual coercion; derogatory use of language, with sexual sub‐text or connotations)
  4. Discrimination on the basis of sex (including actual or perceived sexual and gender identity,as well as pregnancy, marital status and parental status, but excluding sexual harassment), age, disability, physical appearance, ethnicity, nationality, socio‐economic status or background, religion, citizenship status, criminal record
  5. Physical assault
  6. Other gross violations of good academic conduct (quid‐pro‐quo arrangements; threats; targeted isolation from networks or resources; cultivating toxic or hostile group dynamics)

Please keep in mind that prohibited behaviours may be verbal or written, intentional or unintentional and take place in virtual or physical spaces. Prohibited behavior also covers retaliation for making a good faith reporting of such behavior, harassment, or discrimination. It also covers false reporting and other types of abuse of the Awareness-Team resources.