Culturico was born in 2018 as a small, independent, non-profit project with a clear ambition: to treat science and society as inseparable domains, each shaping and challenging the other. From the start, it positioned itself as a space where scientific knowledge could circulate publicly without being stripped of its complexity, and where societal questions could be addressed without being reduced to slogans. Culturico operated deliberately in the space between rigor and accessibility, experimenting with formats, tones, and arguments rather than adhering to a single communicative model.
Over the years, Culturico published essays, analyses, and commentaries spanning public health, biomedical ethics, misinformation, vaccines, artificial intelligence, scientific integrity, and broader societal and cultural issues. Its guiding idea was that public discourse benefits from disagreement and plurality, provided these are anchored in scientific evidence and careful argumentation.
What defined Culturico was its posture. It remained independent from political parties, commercial interests, and institutional agendas, and this independence shaped both its editorial choices and its style of engagement. Contributors were encouraged to write with clarity and intellectual honesty, and to address public questions directly. For many authors, Culturico offered a space where academic thinking could be articulated publicly without being reshaped to fit pre-existing media templates.
Culturico also functioned as a laboratory. Ideas that later entered peer-reviewed journals, policy debates, books, and institutional reports were often first developed there in exploratory form. Its legacy therefore extends beyond the material archive it leaves behind.
Culturico was conceived, developed, and sustained through voluntary work, intellectual commitment, and shared responsibility. Culturico leaves behind an archive of work, a network of contributors, and a demonstrated way of engaging publicly with science: one grounded in responsibility, openness, and intellectual seriousness. We thank all the readers, listeners, authors, and collaborators who contributed to Culturico over the years, and who made it a shared space of reflection, debate, and exchange.
Contributors
Federico Germani (Founder and Director; 2018-2025)
Simone Redaelli (Vice-Director; 2018-2025)
Alexander F. Brown (Linguistic editor; 2019-2025)
Anna K. Stelling-Germani (Scientific Editor; 2020-2023)
Anthony Pahnke (International Relations editor; 2019-2025)
Bhavna Karnani (Scientific Editor; 2018-2021)
Bill Spence (Theoretical Physics editor; 2019-2025)
Celeste Varisco (Editor; 2018-2024)
David Ludden (Psychology editor; 2020-2025)
Dawn Chatty (Social Anthropology editor; 2022-2025)
Debbie Hayton (Gender and Identity editor; 2021-2025)
Elena Borelli (Italian Language and Culture editor; 2022-2025)
Emeline Barrea (Artist; 2019-2023)
Gerfried Ambrosch (Poetry and Literature editor; 2020-2025)
Giulia Germani (Copy editor; 2022-2025)
Hind Hashwah (Scientific Editor; 2018-2022)
Hynden Walch (Film and Media editor; 2021-2025)
Jason C. Bivins (Religion Editor; 2022-2025)
Jessica Brown (Linguistic Editor; 2019-2025)
Kathryn Urban (International Security editor; 2020-2025)
Laura Mariotti (Scientific Editor; 2020-2021)
Louise Godbold (Trauma and Resilience editor; 2022-2025)
Meghan Woolley (History editor; 2021-2025)
Pablo Sanchez Bosch (CTO and podcast editor; 2022-2025)
Patrick Lee Miller (Philosophy editor; 2019-2025)
Robert Albro (Anthropology and Latin America editor; 2019-2025)
Robert Ganley (Linguistic Editor; 2018-2025)
Ryan Smith (Physics editor; 2019-2025)
Sandrine Uwase Ndahiro (African Studies editor; 2023-2025)
Tom Reed (Artist; 2018-2022)