Abstract
Following the two world wars an important reflection on the role of universities and scientists in the development of political consciousness, citizenship, and national power took place in France. Debates often led by the Academy of Sciences centred on scientists’ mission and universities’ organization as well as on the relationship between academic knowledge and its applications, that is between science and technology. Proposals for enhancing research at the service of the nation’s needs were put forward, as for instance with the creation, in 1919, of the Division of Applications Division of Sciences in Industry within the Academy. From 1935 to 1948, these proposals led to the creation of independent research bodies—National Fund for Scientific Research, National Center for Applied Scientific Research, National Institute for Agronomic Research, Commission on the Atomic Energy—which resulted in the separation of French research from the universities, thus increasing the dichotomy between sciences and its applications. This paradox will be examined in this chapter. Where does this anomaly come from? There are long-standing causes: the French State has always been suspicious of the hotbeds of revolt that universities can provide; and the impact of the two world wars on the researchers’ awareness of the weakness of French science. As the report of the CNRS reorganization observed in October 1944 “the task of scientific research has always been underestimated in France.” The creation of CNRS in 1939 was to revolutionise the French university system for a long time to come. This is the turning point this chapter aims to discuss.
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Notes
- 1.
On the eve of the war this sanctuary of science seemed more dominated by “conservatism”, combined with a reticence in regard to new ideas and a tendency to retreat into fundamentalism.
- 2.
The most important laboratories included the Laboratoire municipal de Paris; the Sorbonne (Professor Grignard was asked to evaluate the analyses of the Municipal Laboratory); the Ecole supérieure de Pharmacie (Professor Paul Lebeau); the Collège de France (Professor Mayer); the Faculty of Medicine (Professeur Achard).
- 3.
He has invented the concept of “science industrielle”.
- 4.
According to the mathematician Emile Picard, “science is becoming a means of domination for our neighbours”: Speech to the AFAS, 28 October 1916.
- 5.
The division was closed in 1976, 4 years after the creation of the first French University of Technology. It was reborn in 1982 as Conseil pour les Applications de l’Académie des Sciences (CADAS: Council for the Applications of the Academy of Sciences), of Compiègne headed by Michel Lavalou who was the second director of the University of Technology of Compiègne. Michel Lavalou, address of 5 January 1998, in Académie des sciences de l’Institut de France, vol. I, 1997–1998, p. 77.
- 6.
Minutes of the management committee meeting of 18 September 1944.
- 7.
Académie des Sciences, session of 4 January 1927, p. 20.
- 8.
Académie des Sciences, session of 3 January 1934, vol. 198, p. 19.
- 9.
Archives nationales (France), F17/17463.
- 10.
Irène Joliot-Curie was the first undersecretary of state for scientific research, from 5 June to 28 September 1938.
- 11.
Académie des Sciences, session of 30 June 1930, vol. 190, p. 1533.
- 12.
Six times in the years 1925–1940.
- 13.
This was a professional initiative, primarily on the part of engineers of the Mines corps, to counter the emerging CNRS, which was seeking to create an institute for metallurgical research. It did not truly come into being until 1946.
- 14.
Jacques Mehring, Félix Bertaut and Louis Weil.
- 15.
Fondation Charles de Gaulle. 2003. Le général de Gaulle et la recherche scientifique. Cahier 12.
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Belot, R. (2015). The Political and Cultural Revolution of the CNRS: An Attempt at the Systematic Organisation of Research in Opposition to “the Academic Spirit”. In: Simões, A., Diogo, M., Gavroglu, K. (eds) Sciences in the Universities of Europe, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 309. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9636-1_15
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