Remarques et propositions sur les structures de la recherche publique en France - Rapport n° 46, juin 2012


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La recherche publique française souffre ! Elle souffre de trop de complexité, de trop de papiers à remplir, de trop peu de temps à consacrer à la recherche elle-même. Le chercheur a le sentiment de n'être souvent qu'un simple enjeu administratif entre différentes instances ou organismes, à un moment où la mondialisation des échanges oblige les pays les plus dynamiques à compter sur la créativité et l'innovation pour maintenir un emploi de qualité. Consolider l'existant, ne rien changer, ou pire, faire plaisir à toutes les chapelles qui se sont construites et consolidées au cours des trente dernières années seraient un poison lent qui conduirait à la paralysie de nombreux laboratoires de qualité qui essayent coûte que coûte de se maintenir au meilleur niveau international. La recherche publique doit être attractive pour les esprits les plus curieux, les plus créatifs et les plus avides de connaissance de chaque génération, loin des routines bureaucratiques, afin de continuer à faire de la France un pays de haut niveau intellectuel. C'est dans cet esprit que les membres de l'Académie des sciences ont travaillé, en analysant dix points jugés fondamentaux, en faisant des propositions pour chacun d'entre eux et en dégageant quatre recommandations synthétiques, jugées essentielles pour l'avenir de la recherche publique dans notre pays.








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Science and Empires


Book Description

SCIENCE AND EMPIRES: FROM THE INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM TO THE BOOK Patrick PETITJEAN, Catherine JAMI and Anne Marie MOULIN The International Colloquium "Science and Empires - Historical Studies about Scientific De velopment and European Expansion" is the product of an International Colloquium, "Sciences and Empires - A Comparative History of Scien tific Exchanges: European Expansion and Scientific Development in Asian, African, American and Oceanian Countries". Organized by the REHSEIS group (Research on Epistemology and History of Exact Sciences and Scientific Institutions) of CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research), the colloquium was held from 3 to 6 April 1990 in the UNESCO building in Paris. This colloquium was an idea of Professor Roshdi Rashed who initiated this field of studies in France some years ago, and proposed "Sciences and Empires" as one of the main research programmes for the The project to organize such a colloquium was a bit REHSEIS group. of a gamble. Its subject, reflected in the title "Sciences and Empires", is not a currently-accepted sub-discipline of the history of science; rather, it refers to a set of questions which found autonomy only recently. The terminology was strongly debated by the participants and, as is frequently suggested in this book, awaits fuller clarification.




Valley of the Queens Assessment Report


Book Description

The Valley of the Queens Project is a collaboration of the Supreme Council of Antiquities and the Getty Conservation Institute from 2006-2011. The project involved comprehensive research, planning and assessment culminating in the development of detailed plans for conservation and management of the site. Volume 2 of the report is the condition summary of the 111 tombs from the 18th,19th, and 20th Dynasties in the Valley of the Queens. This includes a summary of tomb architectural development, the geological and hydrological context, wall painting technique and condition assessment of the paintings and structural stability of the tombs.




Genre in a Changing World


Book Description

Genre studies and genre approaches to literacy instruction continue to develop in many regions and from a widening variety of approaches. Genre has provided a key to understanding the varying literacy cultures of regions, disciplines, professions, and educational settings. GENRE IN A CHANGING WORLD provides a wide-ranging sampler of the remarkable variety of current work. The twenty-four chapters in this volume, reflecting the work of scholars in Europe, Australasia, and North and South America, were selected from the over 400 presentations at SIGET IV (the Fourth International Symposium on Genre Studies) held on the campus of UNISUL in Tubarão, Santa Catarina, Brazil in August 2007—the largest gathering on genre to that date. The chapters also represent a wide variety of approaches, including rhetoric, Systemic Functional Linguistics, media and critical cultural studies, sociology, phenomenology, enunciation theory, the Geneva school of educational sequences, cognitive psychology, relevance theory, sociocultural psychology, activity theory, Gestalt psychology, and schema theory. Sections are devoted to theoretical issues, studies of genres in the professions, studies of genre and media, teaching and learning genre, and writing across the curriculum. The broad selection of material in this volume displays the full range of contemporary genre studies and sets the ground for a next generation of work.




Hierarchy in Natural and Social Sciences


Book Description

Hierarchy is a form of organisation of complex systems that rely on or produce a strong differentiation in capacity (power and size) between the parts of the system. It is frequently observed within the natural living world as well as in social institutions. According to the authors, hierarchy results from random processes, follows an intentional design, or is the result of the organisation which ensures an optimal circulation of energy for information. This book reviews ancient and modern representations and explanations of hierarchies, and compares their relevance in a variety of fields, such as language, societies, cities, and living species. It throws light on concepts and models such as scaling laws, fractals and self-organisation that are fundamental in the dynamics and morphology of complex systems. At a time when networks are celebrated for their efficiency, flexibility and better social acceptance, much can be learned about the persistent universality and adaptability of hierarchies, and from the analogies and differences between biological and social organisation and processes. This book addresses a wide audience of biologists and social scientists, as well as managers and executives in a variety of institutions.




The History of Mathematical Proof in Ancient Traditions


Book Description

This radical, profoundly scholarly book explores the purposes and nature of proof in a range of historical settings. It overturns the view that the first mathematical proofs were in Greek geometry and rested on the logical insights of Aristotle by showing how much of that view is an artefact of nineteenth-century historical scholarship. It documents the existence of proofs in ancient mathematical writings about numbers and shows that practitioners of mathematics in Mesopotamian, Chinese and Indian cultures knew how to prove the correctness of algorithms, which are much more prominent outside the limited range of surviving classical Greek texts that historians have taken as the paradigm of ancient mathematics. It opens the way to providing the first comprehensive, textually based history of proof.




The Postmodern Condition


Book Description

In this book it explores science and technology, makes connections between these epistemic, cultural, and political trends, and develops profound insights into the nature of our postmodernity.