The Maurice Daumas prize was created in 2011 to award the best history of technology papers published by young scholars. It is sponsored by the Université de technologie de Belfort-Montbéliard (UTBM), in France. This prize attracts a great interest among young researchers around the world. The papers presented show the dynamism and the high standard of the young scholars.

In the 2025 appeal, 12 papers from scholars working in 9 countries had been presented. The subjects deal with a number of interesting questions in several fields of history of technology, including social and political discussions: the role of technology in scientific practice in the case of X-ray mutagenicity; multipurpose reservoirs in India, from irrigation to hydropower; a comparative study of water chlorination in Bogotá, London, and Jersey City, in early XX century; the rack railway of Montserrat and the first attempt to build a Swiss-style mountain in Spain (1877–1889); agriculture machinery at the second and third wave of technological change in Spain (1850-2000); wood Impregnation in early twentieth century Bosnia and Herzegovina and its precarious legacy; air form buildings by Wallace Neff in Spain and Portugal in the 1950s; firing architectural terracotta in the modern era, between know-how, wood shortage, and innovations; the contributions of Carlos Matus to Latin American STS; tragedy and the bipolarity of value in the Hermeneutics of Technology; challenges in the Mexico City refinery, 1932-2010; Preparatory labour for chemical fertilizer: Rural modernity and the practices of South Korean farmers in the 1960s.

Given that the papers presented were published in peer-reviewed journals, the standard of all of them is very high. Thus, the committee has had actual difficulties to select the best among the papers presented.

In 26th May 2025, after the corresponding deliberations, the committee has decided to award the ICOHTEC Maurice Daumas Article Prize 2025 (the fifteenth) to:

Reynaldo de los Reyes Patiño: “Contesting cornucopia: Life and death of the Mexico City refinery, 1932-2010”, Journal of Energy History / Revue d’histoire de l’énergie, 12, 2024, p. 1-22

https://stm.cairn.info/journal-of-energy-history-2024-1-page-1c?lang=en

The author analyses the history of the oil refinery in the Mexico City, from 1932 to 2010. The research is done using the Archives of the Mexican state oil company, PEMEX, and a revision of the press and the issues from the neighbors’ associations, and urban activism in the City of Mexico. The paper concludes that people affected by the industrial pollution played an important role in the process. He convincingly shows what transformations the refinery was going through using the example of Mexico City, and how important it is to study the social context in order to understand changes in the economy, politics, and society.

Reynaldo de los Reyes Patiño is a postdoctoral researcher at the Université de Genève (Switzerland) as part of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNFS) funded project “Anthroposouth”: Latin American Oil Revolutions in the Development Century. He holds a B.A. in History from the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, an M.A. in Regional Studies from Instituto de Investigaciones Dr. José María Luis Mora, and, in 2023, a Ph.D. in History from El Colegio de México. His doctoral dissertation, “Energy transitions, Infrastructures, and Environment in Mexico City, 1910-1970”, analyzes how energy shaped modern Mexico City, promoting industrial concentration and economic growth, but also creating an uneven metropolis, with social and environmental problems for both the city and its hinterlands.

We received 12 applications, 10 in English, and 2 in Spanish from 9 countries, as the following table shows:

Author Names	Paper Title	Language	Country
1-Svit Komel	Technology in scientific practice: how H. J. Muller used the fruit fly to investigate the X‑ray machine	English	Slovenia
2-Aditya Ramesh	From Irrigation to Hydropower: The Political Economy of a Multipurpose Reservoir in Interwar South India	English	United States of America
3-Edisson Aguilar Torres	Toward a Symmetrical Global History of Technology: The Adoption of Chlorination in Bogotá, London, and Jersey City, 1900–1920	English	Great Britain
4-Carles Gorini Santo	The origins of the rack railway of Montserrat and the first attempt to build a Swiss-style mountain in Spain (1877–1889)	English	Spain
5-Bruno Esperante Paramos	La oferta de maquinaria agrícola en la segunda y tercera onda del cambio tecnológico en la agricultura en España, 1850-2000	Spanish	Spain
6-Martin Meiske	Empire, Extraction, and Externalization. Wood Impregnation in Early Twentieth Century Bosnia and Herzegovina and Its Precarious Legacy	English	Germany
7-Sheila Palomares Alarcón	Wallace Neff, edificios airform y otras construcciones con forma de iglú realizadas en España y Portugal en la década de 1950	Spanish	Portugal
8-Cyril Lacheze	‘The Manner of Conducting Fire’: Firing Architectural Terracotta in the Modern Era, between Know-How, Wood Shortage, and Innovations	English	France
9-Celeste Viedma	Science, technology, and strategic calculation: the contributions of Carlos Matus to Latin American STS	English	Argentina
10-Freya Häberlein	Tragedy and the Bipolarity of Value in the Hermeneutics of Technology	English	Germany
11-Reynaldo de los Reyes Patiño	Contesting cornucopia: Life and death of the Mexico City refinery, 1932-2010	English	Switzerland
12-Juyoung Lee	Preparatory labor for chemical fertilizer: Rural modernity and the practices of South Korean farmers in the 1960s	English	United States of America