On Dec. 9th, 2014, at the Room of Faculties of IHNS came the No. 31 Gezhi Series——SHOT: Past, Present and Its Significance. Two talks were delivered by associate Professor Yao Dazhi and associate Professor Zhang Zhihui of IHNS, focusing on the creation and present trends of SHOT (the Society for the History of Technology) and its influence on the development of history of engineering in China. The Talks were chaired by Yao Dazhi.

　　At the beginning of Yao Dazhi’s talk, present trends of SHOT were analyzed first by introducing the SHOT Annual Meeting, Nov. 6 – 9, 2014, in Dearborn, USA. He presented further, the issues concerning circulating information of SHOT in China and improving more active communication between Chinese and Asian scholars were discussed as one of main topics of SHOT Asia Network in 2014 Annual Meeting. Then he gave a comprehensive review of the origin of SHOT and its context in 1950s, such as changes in engineering education and tensions between historians of science and technology.

　　Zhang Zhihui, systematically discussed whether “history of engineering” has the rationality to become a discipline. In November 2014, China established the society of history of engineering as one secondary branch society under Chinese Society for The History of Science and Technology. Around this interesting event, she analyzed its political and institutional metaphor, and reviewed the academic publications around “engineering” in SHOT academic community. Finally she predicted “history for engineering” should absorb more nutrition from philosophy and sociology of engineering to develop its unique preliminary paradigm.