13 August 2025
As the world changes, often in unexpected ways, it can be valuable to cast a critical eye back in time and ask what we can learn from the scientific, technical and medical revolutions and evolutions of the past. For more than 30 years, the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine has been researching and teaching histories of science, technology and medicine. In the Centre, history isn’t just one element of studying these disciplines, it’s the focus. The aim is to see the ways in which fresh understandings of each discipline can change our understanding of history. It is thanks to philanthropy that the Centre has been able to make such a profound contribution, helping us to see our past, present and future in new ways.
The Arcadia Fund endowment
In 2001, the Centre received a generous endowment from the Lisbet Rausing Charitable Trust (now Arcadia). It was made to honour the achievements of her father, the industrialist Hans Rausing. The long-standing chair in history of science and technology was renamed after him—the Hans Rausing Professor of the History of Science and Technology—and the endowment was put to use supporting graduate students from around the world. It guaranteed that the work of the Centre would extend to new generations of scholars for many years to come. The post is currently held by Professor David Edgerton.
What is an endowment?
An endowment is a donation which is kept invested year after year. The income generated from the investment can then be used to support further work that meets the shared aims of the donor and, in this instance, the University. In other words, endowments have a long-lasting impact.
Developing a distinctive PhD programme
For more than 20 years, the Hans Rausing endowment has enabled the Centre to offer fully funded scholarships for outstanding students.
One of the benefits of the scholarships is that they can support students through both a master’s degree in history (specialising in history of science and/or technology) and a PhD. This has helped to attract the best students from different parts of the world, and from different disciplines, who would otherwise have struggled to access funding from UK sources. PhD students also get to work with not one but multiple supervisors from the Centre, as well as collaborating with peers.
Changing understandings of history in academia and in the world
More than 45 PhD students have graduated from the Centre since its inception,18 of them Hans Rausing scholars. Together with other academics from the Centre, they’ve gone on to make distinguished contributions to the history of science, technology and medicine. For example, Dr Hermione Giffard’s work transformed understandings of the history of British and German jet engines. Dr Galina Shyndriayeva revealed the importance of research on perfumes for the development of chemistry. And Dr Tom Kelsey’s research told a new story about Britain’s technological ambition and power in the post-war period.
Our graduates’ work covers an exceptional range of topics and time periods—from ancient astronomy to the atomic age—and explores global as well as national histories. Together they’ve garnered numerous publications, grants, prizes and positions in academic and cultural organisations around the world. Among them are scholarships and awards from the Society for the History of Technology of the USA, the Institute of Historical Research, and the Royal Institution; first article prizes from the journals Social History of Medicine and the Journal of Contemporary History; as well as book and thesis prizes. Our graduates are teaching and researching in many universities in the UK, and in Taiwan, Colombia, Germany, the USA, Pakistan, India and Japan.
Crucially, the expertise and talent developed in the Centre has been applied to help solve real-life challenges and to enrich understandings of science, technology and medicine among policymakers and the public. Our academics have brought important perspectives to issues including foot and mouth disease, Covid-19 and vaccination, and the politics of science policy.
Looking to the future
Thanks to the endowment, and the Centre’s long-standing commitment to developing its people, King’s has a flourishing pipeline of historians of science, technology and medicine. Like the PhD students before them, members of the current cohort will go on to become mentors to aspiring historians in the years and decades ahead.
While we can’t predict our future, we can be sure there will be outstanding historians of science, technology and medicine to provide thought-provoking academic insight as it unfolds.
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