Jan Balon is the head of the department of Science, Technology, and Society Studies of the Czech Academy of Science. He specializes in the study of formative periods in the history of social science. He is the author of 5 books including Sociological Theory (2007), The Society of Our Age (2011), Contemporary Sociological Theory (2011), Sociology in the USA (2011), History of Sociology in the Czech Republic (2017); and the editor of 6 collections. He took part in a number of research projects that looked into various aspects of the institutional development in the academic field (e. g.