TECHNIS is pleased to invite you to a free webinar. TECHNIS webinars focus on recent legal, economic, managerial, ethical and policy issues related to technological innovation. Our approach is interdisciplinary and presentations are given by experts in different fields such as economics, law, management, STS, sociology, anthropology and philosophy. Webinar presentations last for 20min and are followed by a 40min discussion.

Please join us for a webinar on Tuesday the 6th of May 2025 at 11:00 London time i.e. 12:00 Brussels time, 13:00 Athens time. The speaker is Saheli Datta Burton, UCL. The title of the talk is "The (Geo)Politics of Standardisation in Medicine".

This webinar is free and open to all. The moderator is Dr. Andreas Panagopoulos. 

Join Zoom Meeting: https://uoc-gr.zoom.us/j/84642993639?pwd=4mpCWh3kXwL7TeODcCa7UZ9cKEbbYU.1

Meeting ID: 846 4299 3639
Passcode: 532636

NOTE: To participate please contact Andreas Panagopoulos at least an hour prior to the webinar.

Abstract: Scholarship exploring the politics of technology standardisation is multidisciplinary, exhaustive, and expanding with the bulk of it focused on technology areas broadly related to various engineering disciplines from electronics, telecommunications, computing to materials and fabrication processes. Attention to the politics of standardisation in health is relatively recent (primarily in the last forty years) and largely focused on various aspects of clinical practice. Attention to the politics, and increasingly the ‘geo’ politics, of standardisation in medicines and medical devices – whether (bio)pharmaceuticals, cells, genes, bioinformatics, or diagnostics - remains in its infancy. Using a political economic and intertwined socio-political analysis, I draw on the primary evidence of ‘standards work’ undertaken by related standards development organisations and affiliated actors to unpack these issues. Preliminary findings reveal that (a) standardisation in medicines and medical devices are neither neutral nor objective as popularly perceived. Rather, they are shaped by political economic considerations (b) increasingly underpinned by geostrategic interests aligned with recent shifts towards consideration of ‘health and medicine’ as an integral part of ‘industrial policy’ co-produced by ministries of health with counterparts in departments of trade, economics, commerce, innovation and (increasingly) foreign affairs.