"Networking Europe" was a thematic research network under the ESF Network of Excellence Tensions of Europe. It ran from 1999-2005.
Project leaders
Arne Kaijser, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Erik van der Vleuten. Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands
Key Publication
Erik van der Vleuten and Arne Kaijser (Eds.), Networking Europe. Transnational Infrastructures and the Shaping of Europe, 1850–2000 (Science History Publications USE, 2006). 335pp., illustrated, 0-88135-394-9.
Program description
The working group built a research network and a research agenda to investigate the construction of Europe as a nework society, i.e. as a society shaped in interaction with the development of network technologies ('transnational infrastructure'). In this exploratory project, we particularly focused upon the conceptual and empirical study of transnational linking (or non/delinking) of infrastructure networks. In order to avoid a more or less determinist perception of infrastructure growth as an automatic process, we intended to be particularly sensitive to the conflicts and tensions around these processes.
More information
Read the "last author version" of Erik van der Vleuten and Arne Kaijser, ‘Networking Europe’, History and Technology 21 (1) (2005), 21-48
This explorative and network-building project on the history of European transnational infrastructure was later followed by: