Modern people are surrounded by too many things, while the world is facing shortages of key raw materials, some of which are extracted under ethically unacceptable and environmentally unsustainable conditions. The material dimension of human existence is thus a major challenge and threat to contemporary society. At the same time, materiality can be seen as an important trace that materials and objects leave behind. If we explore it through interdisciplinary collaboration, it can lead us to a new understanding of the historical, cultural and technological roots of the problems facing humanity today. Through these hitherto unknown contexts, we may also be able to suggest new ways of addressing them.

The programme aims to bring together researchers from all three science fields of the CAS and from other academic and public institutions. Together we seek to rethink the potential of materiality to structure our thinking and to organise the world hierarchically. We will reinterpret the mobility of materials, technologies and knowledge in terms of their technical, cultural and power implications. Innovative raw materials, technologies or products are associated with both major modernisation shifts and environmental threats, and shape social relations and political regimes. Conversely, the retreat of the same technologies leads to large-scale processes with uncontrollable effects, such as deindustrialisation or the crisis of democracy. Studying the traces of materiality allows us to analyse these social and technical phenomena in their broader environmental and ethical contexts, and to communicate the conclusions to the public.

For the humanities and social sciences, the material turn is a major challenge. However, it is a logical response to the long predominance of studying discourses, ideas and abstract phenomena; the material and technological aspects of social reality and intellectual creations represent a very welcome broadening of horizons and a new focus of attention. In the case of the technical and natural sciences, asking similar questions in historical context can transcend the usual interpretation and help us find new paths in developing sustainable and technologically advanced materials. Only the synergy of the latest approaches of the humanities, engineering and natural sciences with the environmental perspective makes it possible to formulate technical and ideological solutions to contemporary crises.