Michel Callon (1945-2025)

The Center for the Sociology of Innovation is deeply saddened to announce the passing of Michel Callon on July 28, 2025.

A civil engineer from the École des Mines de Paris who earned a postgraduate degree in economics, he joined the Centre for the Sociology of Innovation in the late 1960s. Sharing a close intellectual friendship with Jean-Pierre Vignolle and Antoine Hennion, he conducted research on the development of electric vehicles, pioneering an approach to innovation by studying the controversies they raise. Callon laid the foundation for a sociological approach to innovation through translation processes and implemented original scientometric methodologies.

In 1982, Callon became director of the CSI. Through his recruitment choices, scientific direction, and ability to obtain financial resources, he transformed the centre into a leading institution in the field of the sociology of science and technology. With the help of Bruno Latour, whom Michel Callon brought to the CSI, he conducted research projects on the construction of science and technology. These projects made a significant contribution to the development of Science and Technology Studies (STS).

par le Collectif Attachements

Jérémy Damian, Amandine Guilbert, Rémi Eliçabe, Anne-Sophie Haeringer,
Antoine Hennion, Sophie Houdart et Brice Laurent

Qu’il s’agisse de l’organisation quotidienne d’un petit-déjeuner pour les migrants au nord de Paris, de savoir où marcher à Fukushima après le désastre, de décrire avec justesse l’expérience incertaine du toucher des ostéopathes, des décisions vitales et tâtonnantes à prendre en soins palliatifs, de la façon dont l’Europe définit des objets à la fois techniques et politiques, ou encore de la réalité plurielle d’un territoire comme les Murs à Pêches, à Montreuil, les textes sur ces problèmes très divers réunis dans ce livre […]

Presses des mines

by Antoine Hardy and Laurène Le Cozanet (Eds)

Putting the world into numbers is profoundly political. This multidisciplinary collective book sheds light on a crucial yet little-explored aspect of these operations: their audiences.

Presses des mines

June 3, 2025. For its 3rd edition, and as part of the course entitled “Description de controverses” [Description of controversies] coordinated by Madeleine Akrich (CSI-i3, Mines Paris-PSL), the TTI.5 Environmental Controversy Award rewarded the best study of an environmental controversy carried out by students in the Civil Engineering Program at Mines Paris-PSL.

Essays on the Politics, Ethics, and Aesthetics of Maintenance and Repair

Edited by Fernando Domínguez Rubio, Jérôme Denis and David Pontille.

An original essay collection that explores the generative dimensions of fragility, which can help reveal new life-affirming politics and ethics.

The MIT Press, Infrastructures Series

Agence SCAU – Centre de sociologie de l’innovation

In order to understand what fragility does and could do to architecture, the architectural agency SCAU and the Center for the Sociology of Innovation (CSI – Mines Paris PSL) have partnered to supervise a doctoral thesis in Science and Technology Studies (STS), the objective of which is to provide empirical and theoretical input to the research studies on maintenance and repair practices initiated within the agency several years ago and carried out at the CSI.

The deadline for submitting applications is April 30, midnight.

by Marine Al Dahdah, Mathieu Baudrin, Laurène Le Cozanet, Clément Marquet, and Benjamin Raimbault

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the book analyses the changing forms of industry in the contemporary period, focusing on four key questions: How do industrial transformations lead us to rethink our methods of inquiry? How have information technologies changed the way industry is done? Which human and non-human actors are resisting processes of industrialisation? What territories are produced by these reconfigurations? […]

A book edited by Ève Chiapello and Alexandre Violle.

Sociology of financial circuits. Money infrastructures and their policies.

How can money be traced and its role in the formulation and implementation of public policy be accounted for? Using an ambitious conceptual framework, this book delves into the heart of the material operations and infrastructures of money circulation.

by Jérôme Denis and David Pontille

What does a coffee machine, a car, road signs, a smartphone, a cathedral, a work of art, a satellite, a bicycle, a washing machine, a bridge, a watch, a computer, the body of a prominent politician and a tractor have in common? Pretty much nothing – except for the fact that, no matter how small, large, important or insignificant something is, it rarely survives without being cared for. […]

Michel Callon (1945-2025)

Attachements et fragilités

Les publics de la mise en nombre

TTI.5 Award for the Best Case Study of an Environmental Controversy from the course ‘Description of controversies’

Fragilities

Call for Cifre PhD applications: What fragility does to architecture

(Dé)faire l’industrie. Enquêter sur les formes contemporaines de l’industrialisation

Sociologie des circuits financiers. Les infrastructures de l’argent et leurs politiques

The Care of Things. Ethics and Politics of Maintenance