Since we're all declaring interests in e-science (and I too was at the Oxford symposium).... I've been studying the use of information and communication technologies in scientific research for some time now. I'm interested in the detail of how these technologies get integrated into working practices, and also how they get designed - in the past I combined ethnographic work with developers of computer systems for geneticists, with ethnography in a laboratory where these systems were used. But, getting to the point of e-science, I'm very interested in how high profile initiatives like grid computing cut across the existing work in the field, bringing some kinds of (often technology-driven) problems to the fore and marginalising others. Funny how when the interesting, novel and high tech stuff comes to the foreground, the ongoing mundane and routine computing work starts to get taken for granted, as if it always works perfectly! Currently I'm looking at the field of biological systematics (or taxonomy), looking at both the policy-level pronouncements which focus on particular uses of ICTs and at the working practices on the ground that use ICTs, whether in high profile initiatives or in more mundane work of simply getting the job done. The aim is to have some kind of map of what is going on, in order to explore what I'm thinking of as the shaping of cyberscience. The developments that I'm seeing in systematics are not grid computing but do fit within some people's definitions of e-science...... I'm certainly seeing that none of these terms are being used innocently and it's important not to buy into these terms uncritically. I'd be really interested to hear from anyone who has thoughts on the birth and growth of e-science, grid science etc at the policy level. Christine Christine Hine Department of Sociology University of Surrey Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, UK http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/christine_hine.htm