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Short abstract:

China's renewed academic system has integrated STS as a key sub-discipline within the History of Science and Technology (HST). This highlights HST's unique role in China, where it's used to promote scientific research, legitimizing its academic standing.

Long abstract:

Recently, the Chinese official department announced the latest discipline system for graduate degrees in China. Among them, "Science, Technology and Society" (STS) is listed as one of the eight secondary disciplines of "History of Science and Technology" （a primary discipline of science）. This reminds us of the unique association between the research on the history of science and STS in China. Embedded in the academic context of China, STS has rich and expansive connotations, and the history of science is sometimes understood within its framework, thus being endowed with unusual meanings. For instance, research on the history of science is encouraged in China as a way to promote scientific research. This may sound a bit strange. But it actually shows the legitimacy of STS to be incorporated into the “history of science and technology” discipline in China.

Conventionally, utilising the history of science to advance scientific knowledge is “not at the forefront of historians’ thinking”. However, with the prosperity of internalism and the unestablished disciplinary boundaries, historians of science in twentieth-century China did adopt a highly ‘technical’ approach, which accelerated scientific advancement in China. In this process, the history of science served as material, enlightenment, experience, and literature review for studies in hard sciences. Yet, in recent decades, this kind of ‘technical’ tradition in the historiography of science has been marginalised in China. This was induced by multiple dynamics including academic systems, social-cultural thoughts, and research financing.