Philanthropic foundations for scientific research (1916-1956) – FONDASCIENCE

Thanks to a collective and transversal analysis, the objective of FONDASCIENCE is to study the role of philanthropic foundations in the development of scientific research from 1910 to 1956, by exploiting archives that have been little questioned or even totally unpublished until now. The starting hypothesis is that the structuring of current French public research was born of the close association between a few foundations/funds/associations and a handful of influential scientists.
Numerous works in the field of social history or art history have been devoted to the patronage and philanthropy of financial, commercial or industrial dynasties in the 19th and 20th centuries. On the other hand, few studies exist on philanthropic foundations dedicated to science. Similarly, while the question of the weight of provincial scientific institutions in relation to Paris has been reassessed since the 1980s, the question of Paris/province patronage remains unexplored. Numerous foundations and their achievements, such as the IBPC, constitute a blind spot in the history of research, just as there are still grey areas for the period of the Second World War.
The project is structured along three lines: 1) a cross-analysis of scientific philanthropic foundations (1910-1939) in France and Belgium to sketch out a map of philanthropic regimes and to identify, if possible, some "models"; 2) a study of the period 1927-1939 of the Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique (IBPC), which was created by Jean Perrin and Edmond James de Rothschild. This study will question the interdisciplinarity promoted by an innovative methodology based on an unpublished corpus, as well as the insertion of the institute into its scientific, institutional and geographical environment (Montagne Sainte-Geneviève); 3) the positioning of the foundations in a new context where public scientific research is emerging and being structured (1939-1956, -colloque de Caen-).
In addition to the exploitation of original sources (Rothschild bank archive (Roubaix), The Rothschild Archive (London), Rockefeller Archive Center (New York State), Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (Brussels), Institut Henri Poincaré, IBPC, Instituts Pasteur of Lille and Paris, etc.), the project is characterized by a resolutely cross-cutting approach, and by varying the scales from the local to the national and international. It relies on the constitution of prosopographic databases. Moreover, the specific study of the IBPC will be part of the historiographic current of the "material turn" by combining written, visual and material sources (and not their simple juxtaposition). The project will also ensure the permanent protection of these unpublished archives (digitization) and their valorization in an open science approach: publications in French and international journals, a reference book, a research notebook, prosopographical databases, an online exhibition, and a conference.
Coordinated by the Director of the IBPC, three complementary teams bring together specialists in the history of interactions between science, industry and states, the history of innovation, public and private finance, public research, patronage and philanthropy, scientific institutions, architecture, and visual and material studies.
Beyond the originality of its subject, scientific philanthropy, FONDASCIENCE is innovative in that it posits that, alongside the State and scientists, philanthropy has played a decisive role in the evolution and structuring of public research. It will also allow for a better understanding of the driving forces behind the organization of French research over the long term and thus contribute to its current evolution and debates.