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4 | 2011
La cour et les sciences : naissance des politiques scientifiques dans les cours européennes aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles

Colloque, 3-5 février 2011, château de Versailles
Sciences and Royal Courts: The Birth of Scientific Policies in the European Courts in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Symposium, 3-5 February 2011, Château de Versailles
Colbert présente à Louis XIV les membres de l’Académie royale des sciences
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Credits: © Château de Versailles, Dist. RMN / © Jean-Marc Manaï

The court, seat of power and site of the concentration of capital, always supported scientific research while it served the country’s interests and the glory of the sovereign. During this conference the focus will be on the scientific policies of European states, deliberate or not, under the Ancien Régime, focusing particularly on ‘fundamental’ research and ‘useful’ research (improving health, fighting against famine, technological progress, of construction and buildings, etc.). Intentionally comparative, the studies will include the European geographical era across three areas: funding of science and scientists, the scientific community in the court, and finally, scientific dissemination and culture at court.

International conference organized on 3, 4 and 5 February 2011 by the Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles in collaboration with the International Academy of the History of Science on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Science and Curiosities at the court of Versailles’ (Château de Versailles, 26 October 2010 to 3 April 2011).

Scientific director: Robert Halleux

Scientific committee: Michel Blay (research director, CNRS), Serge Demidov (Russian Academy of Sciences), Jean Dercourt (permanent secretary, Académie des Sciences à l’Institut de France), Robert Halleux (permanent secretary, Académie Internationale des Sciences), Franck James (Royal Institution), Eberhard Heinrich Knobloch (president, Académie Internationale d’Histoire des Sciences), Enrique Leitao (Centro de História das Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa).

Presentation of the symposium on the Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles website
Symposium programme (PDF)

Audio replay: all presentations (except for those by Aurélien Ruellet and Samir Boumediene), that is, nineteen of twenty-one audio recordings are available below. The audio recordings are accompanied by abstracts of the presentations in French and English, and in some cases by a bibliography and illustrations that were shown during the conference.

Publication of the proceedings: thirteen papers were included in the journal Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences (vol. 62, fascicule 169, December 2012), published and distributed by Brepols. Order the issue. The digital version of the issue is available on Brepols Online.

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