With the Académie des Sciences in 2013-2014

With the Académie des Sciences in

2013 - 2014

The Académie des Sciences and Key Opinion Leaders

The Académie in the media

2013 and 2014 saw the media reflect the positions of the

Académie on recurrent social issues - the climate, energy,

GMOs, research financing - and on some of its fields of

expertise, such as the teaching of computer science or new

business models of scientific publishing.

With more than 3,400 releases in 2013, the presence of the

Académie des Sciences in the media has been 60% wider

than in 2012 and has remained wide in 2014, with near

3,000 releases. The main media driving this presence remains the written press (47.7% of media visibility), with the Internet

following closely behind (46%) - digital versions of newspapers and all-online news websites. The relative shares of the whole

written press and Internet media has increased during these two years, compared to broadcasting (6% to 8%). In this sector,

the Académie and members of the Académie are often on the radio, while television mostly reports, for its regional channels, on

the official ceremonies that take place under the cupola of the Institut de France (presentations of awards and greetings of new

members). Finally, the Académie des Sciences increases its visibility in the consumer press, compared to the trade press, now

sharing 75%/25%.

Several events occurring in 2013-2014 have specially received media coverage:

• advice notes or reports being published:

Children and Screens

(January 2013),

Teaching Computer Science in France:

Tomorrow Can’t Wait!

(May 2013),

Elements to Clarify the Shale

Gas Debate

(November 2013),

Inquiétudes dans les laboratoires

de recherche

(October 2014), which revived

A Clarion Call on

Research Funding from the Académie des Sciences

(December

2013);

The challenges Facing Scientific Edition

(October 2014);

• colloquia:

Hypotheses on the Origins of Life

(September 2013),

Genetically Modified Plants

(November 2013);

• the statutory session held in Brittany (May 2014);

• the election of 17 new members, greeted under the cupola of

the Institut (June 2014), including a clear focus on the youngest

member of the Académie, the mathematician Laure Saint-

Raymond;

• events that honour members of the Académie, such as Alim-Louis Benabid, the Lasker–deBakey Award winner (September

2014) and 2015 Life Sciences Breakthrough Prize (November 2014), Gérard Berry, who received the Gold Medal of the CNRS

(September 2014), Alain Aspect and Pascale Cossart, the 2013 Balzan Award;

• the presentation of the great prizes of the Académie des sciences, especially the Grande Médaille awarded to the American Joel

Lebowitz (October 2014);

• eulogies for deceased great men of science, also members of the Académie, who left their mark on their times, such as François

Jacob (1920-2013), Maurice Tubiana (1920-2013) or Jacques Friedel (1921-2014).

Finally, the newspaper

Le Figaro

and the Académie des Sciences have agreed on a new partnership according to which five members

of the Académie have each presented to the readers of this daily newspaper, on the five last days of December 2014, an

assessment of the past year and their vision of the near future in their research area.