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The overarching program of the LOST Research Network between 2002 and 2023 mainly focussed on practices of evidence making under conditions of deep uncertainty and on the ways in which these are co-constituted with practices of designing futures. It started from the assertion that modern public life implicates the quest for ‘matters of fact’ that are institutionally certified as objective. This quest resulted from the juridico-political pursuit of accountability in ordering practices, which incriminates predictability of future scenarios. As such the program was located in the anthropology of knowledge production and science and technology studies (STS). Examination of the ways in which certain matters of fact are certified provided crucial insights into the futures people design for the conduct of public life in the face of invincible uncertainty.