Introducing the symposium : REFOUNDING THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC RELATIONS IN THE POST- WAR PERIOD:<br />THE EXACT AND NATURAL SCIENCES DIVISION OF UNESCO IN ITS FIRST YEARS. - Archive ouverte en Histoire etPhilosophie des Sciences et des Techniques Accéder directement au contenu
Communication Dans Un Congrès Juan José Saldana (ed) Science and Cultural Diversity, Proceedings of the XXIst ICHS (Mexico, July 2001) Année : 2005

Introducing the symposium : REFOUNDING THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC RELATIONS IN THE POST- WAR PERIOD:
THE EXACT AND NATURAL SCIENCES DIVISION OF UNESCO IN ITS FIRST YEARS.

Résumé

In November 1945 the foundation of Unesco took place in the very specific political and historical context of the immediate post-war period, before the cold war over-determined international relations and while several key assumptions of the allied war effort were still to some extent in place: that the role of the state would be decisive for reconstruction as it had been for the war effort; that international organizations should function to prevent war and to build a better world; that the economical and social functions of science as recognized by Governments during the war (and by the public opinion, especially since Hiroshima) would be taken for granted. In these conditions, international scientific co-operation was perceived as a crucial ideological and political issue, and as an arena of opportunity of building bridges at the end of the second world war, it seemed wise to try to organize science at a global and international level, and not only through disciplinary unions or national bodies as these had existed before the war.
A specific division was established for the exact and natural sciences. This component of the new organization had no precise precedent before the war. According to its promoters, particularly Joseph Needham, the first divisional director, the Science Division of Unesco was intended to inaugurate a revolution in the international organization of science.
Between 1946 and 1953, the Science Division pursued a number of key aims: the providing of support to ICSU and its unions; the action of Unesco as a scientific clearing house; the establishment of four field scientific co-operation offices; and the promotion of research, through international laboratories, international coordinating committees and technical assistance programs. The Science Division also joined other divisions for similar non-Eurocentric projects, such as the propagation of the declaration about the race relations, and the editing of the Scientific and Cultural History of Mankind.
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halshs-00115558 , version 1 (21-11-2006)

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  • HAL Id : halshs-00115558 , version 1

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Patrick Petitjean. Introducing the symposium : REFOUNDING THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC RELATIONS IN THE POST- WAR PERIOD:
THE EXACT AND NATURAL SCIENCES DIVISION OF UNESCO IN ITS FIRST YEARS.. Juan José Saldana (ed) Science and Cultural Diversity, Proceedings of the XXIst ICHS (Mexico, July 2001), 2005, Mexico, Mexico. pp.1260-1272. ⟨halshs-00115558⟩
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