The idea for this volume was aired among friends from various countries of the European Periphery, pausing in a hotel lobby somewhere in Corfu during the 8th Science and Technology in the European Periphery (STEP) meeting, organized by the Department of History and Philosophy of Science of the University of Athens in June 2012. If the initial motivation was the coming retirement of Kostas Gavroglu, this was, of course, just as good an opportunity as anything else to pay tribute to a superb scholar and a very good friend. That this book ended up being edited by the three of us is the result of practical reasons: we have in a way become the spokespersons for an extended group of Kostas’s friends (and colleagues). No more no less.