DHST is the Division of History of Science and Technology of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IUHPST). Its origins lie in the international organization of the history of science that took shape in the late 1920s. In 1927, the Italian historian of science Aldo Mieli (1879–1950) called on his colleagues to participate more actively in discussions taking place within the discipline of history at large. The following year, historians of science attending the 6th Congress of the Historical Sciences in Oslo founded an International Committee of History of Science, which organized the first International Congress of History of Science in Paris in 1929.
At the second International Congress, held in London in 1931, the Committee became the International Academy of the History of Science, an association of individual members created to represent and organize the history of science at an international level.
At the behest of the newly-established UNESCO, a distinct organization was founded at the fifth International Congress, held in Lausanne in 1947: the International Union of History of Science (IUHS). Unlike the Academy, the Union had no individual members but was conceived as a worldwide federation of national committees representing communities of historians of science. It assumed responsibility for organizing the International Congresses of History of Science (and Technology) and became a member of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), one of the predecessors of today’s International Science Council (ISC).
In 1955, the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science (IUHPS) was created, bringing together the International Union of History of Science and the International Union of Philosophy of Science. The new Union consisted of two divisions: the Division of History of Science and the Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science.
In 2001, the then Division of History of Science (DHS) joined the International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences (CIPSH). CIPSH had been created in 1949 at the direct request and under the auspices of UNESCO, establishing a further institutional link between the Division and UNESCO’s longstanding support for international cooperation in the humanities and the sciences.
In the twenty-first century, “Technology” was added to the names of the Union and its divisions, reflecting the development of the disciplines and their broadened intellectual scope. The former Division of History of Science thus became today’s Division of History of Science and Technology (DHST) of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IUHPST).