The Maurice Daumas Prize for papers on the history of technology is sponsored by the Université de Technologie de Belfort-Montbéliard (UTBM), France, and consists of 500 Euro. Each year the prize-winning article is presented and discussed at a special session of the ICOHTEC symposium immediately following the award. An additional 300 Euro is available to the winner in support of traveling to the conference to receive the prize. The prize aims to encourage innovative scholarship in the history of technology. ICOHTEC is interested in the history of technological development as well as its relationship to science, society, economy, culture and the environment. There is no limitation as to theoretical or methodological approaches.
The prize will be awarded to the author of the best article submitted which deals with the history of technology in any period of the past or in any part of the world and which was published in a journal or edited volume in last two consequent years. Eligible for the prize are original articles published in (or later translated into) any of the official ICOHTEC languages (English, French, German, Russian or Spanish). Submissions are welcomed from scholars of any country who are currently in graduate school or have received their doctorate within the last seven years.
2024 Call for Submissions
NOTE: The call for submissions is announced here usually in October of each year, with the deadline for submissions set to following mid-January. The winner is announced early May to give a ample time for arranging travel to pick up the prize at our annual symposium, which usually takes place in second half of July.
The Winners
2023 : Rebecca L. Jackson, for her paper “The Uncertain Method of Drops’: How a Non-Uniform Unit Survived the Century of Standardization”, Perspectives on Science, vol. 29, no. 6, 2021, pp. 802-841. DOI 10.1162/posc_a_00395 ex-aequo with Jan Hua-Henning, for his paper “Opening the Red Box: The Fire Alarm Telegraph and Politics of Risk Response in Imperial Germany, 1873–1900”, Technology and Culture, Volume 62, Number 3, July 2021, pp. 685-708. DOI 10.1353/tech.2021.0104
2022 : Andrew Morris, for his paper “’The joint labours of ingenious men’: John Smeaton’s Royal Society network and the Eddystone Lighthouse,” Centaurus Vol. 63, no. 3, 2021, pp. 513–531. DOI 10.1111/1600-0498.12398
2021 : Dominique Berry, a research fellow at the University of Birmingham, for his paper “Making DNA and its becoming an experimental commodity” published in 2019 in Environment and History, 25, 219-244
2020 : Luke Keogh, Senior Curator at the National Wool Museum in Geelong, Australia, for his paper “The Wardian Case: Environmental Histories of a Box for Moving Plants” published in 2019 in Environment and History, 25, 219-244.
2019 : Suvobrata Sarkar for his paper “The Electrification of Colonial Calcutta: Role of the Innovators, Bureaucrats and Foreign Business Organization, 1880-1940” published in Studies in History 34.1 (2017): 48-76. DOI: 10.1177/0257643017736194
2018 : Mirjam Sarah Brusius, Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Oxford / German Historical Institute, for her paper “Photography’s Fits and Starts: The Search for Antiquity and its Image in Victorian Britain” published in History of Photography, 40.3 (2016): 250-266,DOI: 10.1080/03087298.2016.1209027
2017 : Gemma Cirac Claveras, Postdoctoral Researcher at Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires et Sociétés, France) for her paper “Factories of Satellite Data Remote Sensing and Physical Earth Sciences in France” published in ICON. Journal of the International Committee of the History of Technology, 21 (2015): 24–50. Full text PDF
2016 : William Rankin (Yale University) for his article “The Geography of Radionavigation and the Politics of Intangible Artifacts” published in Technology and Culture, 55.3 (2014): 622-674. DOI: 10.1353/tech.2014.0077
2015 : Stefan Krebs (Université du Luxembourg) “‘Dial-gauge versus Senses 1-0’: German Car Mechanics and the Introduction of New Diagnostic Equipment 1950-1980” published in Technology and Culture, 55.2 (2014): 354-389. DOI: 10.1353/tech.2014.0034
2014 : Donna J. Drucker (Technische Universität Darmstadt) for her article “Keying Desire: Alfred Kinsey’s Use of Punched Card Machines for Sex Research” published in Journal of the History of Sexuality, 22.1 (2013): 105-125. DOI: 10.7560/JHS22105
2013 : Nathan Ensmenger (Indiana University) for his article “Is chess the drosophila of artificial intelligence?” published in Social Studies of Science, 42.1 (2012): 5-30. DOI: 10.1177/0306312711424596
2012 : Mara Mills for her article “On Disability and Cybernetics: Helen Keller, Norbert Wiener, and the Hearing Glove” published in Differences, 22.2-3 (2011): 74-111. DOI: doi.org/10.1215/10407391-1428852
2011 : Joseph Masco (University of Chicago) for his article “Bad Weather: On Planetary Crisis” published in Social Studies of Science, 40.1 (2010): 7-40. DOI: doi.org/10.1177/0306312709341598
Timeline
The call for submissions is announced on this page usually in October of each year, with the deadline for submissions set to following mid-January. The winner is announced early May to give a ample time for arranging travel to pick up the price at our annual symposium, which usually takes place in second half of July.