Short Abstract

This panel invites contributions that critically and creatively explore how quantum technologies are imagined, developed, and governed, and how they might shape or challenge resilient and responsible futures.

Description

Quantum technologies are increasingly positioned as key enablers of future transformations across computing, communication, and sensing. Yet their societal meanings, expectations, and implications remain fluid and contested. This panel invites reflections on how quantum technologies are being shaped as sociotechnical projects, through research practices, policy discourses, infrastructures, imaginaries, and everyday engagements, and how these processes connect to broader discussions about responsibility, resilience, and desirable futures.

We welcome empirical, theoretical, and methodological contributions that examine quantum technologies as emerging sites for rethinking established STS concerns, including expertise, uncertainty, governance, temporality, and power. Possible entry points include (but are not limited to) studies of how “quantum” is made meaningful in scientific, political, or cultural contexts; how narratives of disruption, sovereignty, or sustainability inform their development; and how diverse actors and publics imagine, contest, or co-produce their trajectories.

By opening space for multiple interpretations of “resilience” and “responsibility,” this panel seeks to connect different strands of STS research interested in how technological futures are envisioned and enacted under conditions of global instability. Our aim is to foster dialogue across disciplinary, regional, and thematic boundaries, contributing to EASST 2026’s broader conversation on More than now: Exploring resilient futures.

This Traditional Open Panel has 2 pending paper proposals.
Propose paper