About

The Centre for the History of Medicine, Science and Technology (CHMST) brings together a wealth of expertise in related fields across the University of Warwick.

The Centre’s members seek to understand how medicine, science and technology have developed within particular social, political and cultural contexts in the past. Our expertise incorporates a diverse range of cultures, regions and time periods, from early modern South Asia through to contemporary Britain.

We cover the full range of medical and scientific disciplines, from genetics and anthropology to chemistry and mathematics, as well as the technologies associated with them.

We also engage with the many challenges faced in the world of medicine, science and technology today through our work in policy and public enagement.

Employing historical, literary, ethnographic, and social science methodologies:

• We ask questions about how medicine, science and technology works, the basis of its authority, and what ethical and moral questions are involved in its practice.
• We investigate how the practice of medicine and science is related to wider intellectual, cultural, social, political, and economic trends, to changes at a particular moment in history or at the present.
• We seek to understand the history of medicine, science and technology across a range of cultures, regions, and chronologies.
• We aim to contribute to the formation of new intellectual agendas and perspectives around the history of medicine, science and technology.
• We aspire to reach beyond academic life and engage with the local communities and the public at large over contemporary medical, scientific and technology concerns, and to do so in creative ways.