The expansion of science, technology and medicine inevitably extends specialist knowledge and the working identities of experts associated with it. Emerging technologies and evolving fields can entrain new breeds of specialist who cross disciplinary boundaries or create entirely new knowledge. The successful establishment and consolidation of these specialists is often a combination of intellectual innovation and fertile social context.

Such themes were hinted a half century ago by Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), and explored by subsequent sociological studies of scientific communities. Research on technical expertise and cultural identity has further broadened the scope of scholarship, and case studies in history of science, technology and medicine have the potential to enrich the evidence much further.

This symposium of the 2013 International Congress on the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (ICHSTM) in Manchester will be dedicated to exploring the relationship between evolving intellectual frameworks, material resources or skill sets, on the one hand, and occupational, disciplinary or professional identity, on the other. Presentations may include current researches, case studies or reflection on methodological approaches.

Among the possible questions to be addressed are:

• How have new scientific fields or technologies emerged, and what qualities have their key champions and supporters had?
• Why, when, where, and how have novel working identities been shaped?
• How have members of existing fields adapted to shifts in content, perspective or technique?
• What intellectual and social processes govern the division or redirection of a field?
• How has recognition for the new expertise been negotiated?
• What distinguishes ‘successful’ from ‘unsuccessful’ intellectual identities?

The chronological period and intellectual field are open. Cases of science, technology and medicine drawn from the period of accelerating professionalization (late 19C to the present) are particularly welcome.

30 minutes will be allocated to each speaker for presentation and questions.