CENTRE FOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY STUDIES (CWTS) | LEIDEN UNIVERSITY
Sarah de Rijcke
ABOUT SARAH
Sarah joined the Centre for Science & Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University in the Spring of 2011, where she is currently Professor in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies.
Her long-term research interest is to examine the interactions between science governance and knowledge creation. She has a strong international reputation in Science and Technology Studies (STS), with specific training and expertise in social studies of research evaluation.
Sarah's research has been taken up by a host of international bodies. She recurrently acts as expert advisor in European and global science policy initiatives. She represented the Netherlands in a high-level Unesco Expert Group to write a global recommendation on Open Science (2020-2021). In 2023, the Dutch Minister of Science and Education appointed her as Member of the Unesco-NL Committee, with science in her portfolio.
De Rijcke’s work is funded with large international grants, including from the European Research Council and Arcadia Fund (€1.5M and $1.2M). She has a long list of international invitations for keynotes, panel discussions, and expert meetings, from Australia and Japan to Latin America and the Czech Republic. She regularly acts as chair of international scientific meetings, and (co-) organises meetings herself. She is frequently invited as international assessor of PhD theses (University of Antwerp, University of Copenhagen, Stellenbosch University, University of Vienna, Czech Academy of Sciences), and held a two-year fellowship at the TU Munich Institute for Advanced Study.
Sarah is a regular partner in large-scale international project consortia and in multiple projects funded by the European Commission, resulting in more than 20 international co-authored publications, several new collaborative grants (Arcadia Fund, Wellcome grant), and the prestigious TU Munich Ambassadorship. The latter is an appointment for top-level international researchers who formerly conducted research at the TUM and still enrich the university with their scientific expertise and international experience.
Sarah is Council member of the European Association for the Study of Science & Technology (EASST) and Board member of the Netherlands Graduate Research School of Science, Technology and Modern Culture (WTMC). She is member of multiple international scientific advisory boards, including those of the UK Reproducibility Network (which she chairs), the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna, and the Munich Center for Technology in Society (TU Munich). In 2021, she was nominated by the Swiss National Science Foundation and then selected as member of AcademiaNet, an international network of excellent female researchers from all disciplines.
De Rijcke regularly serves on international editorial boards, including Science, Technology & Human Values (ST&HV); The Global Epistemics Book Series; Interdisciplinary Science Reviews; Science and Technology Studies; and Nature’s Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.
Sarah was elected as member of the Young Academy of Europe in 2016.
In 2010, she received her PhD with honors from the University of Groningen, with Douwe Draaisma & Trudy Dehue.
MEMBERSHIPS
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Evaluation Studies
UNESCO NETHERLANDS COMMITTEE
Every country that is a member of Unesco has a National Unesco Committee. The Dutch Unesco Committee was established in 1947 by Royal Decree. The Committee has a maximum of eleven members. They provide their expertise in one or more of Unesco's four areas of activity: education, science, culture and communication. The Minister of Education, Culture and Science appoints the members. In addition to the regular committee members, there are several advisory members.
Social Theory
Constitutive effects of indicators
History of scientific objectivity
Situated intervention
WTMC
Scholarly Netherlands Graduate Research School of Science, Technology and Modern Culture.
EASST
European Association for the Study of Science and Technology. Established in 1981, it is the organization which represents academics and researchers in the fields of science and technology studies, the social analysis of innovation, and related areas of knowledge.
4S
Society for the Social Studies of Science. Scholarly society. The main purpose is to bring together those interested in understanding science, technology, and medicine, including the way they develop and interact with their social contexts.