With the Académie des Sciences in 2013-2014

PeRFORminG the ROLe OF An eXPeRt AnD ADViSOR

defending the men of science

The

Comité de défense des hommes de sciences (Standing Committee

for the Defence of Scientists’ Rights

, CODHOS) of the Académie has been

chaired since 2013 by Édouard Brézin et Jean Illiopoulos. It meets about

once every six weeks to address the individual situations that would

come to its knowledge and follow up the situations it would have already

considered. It works in liaison with foreign academies, mainly the U.S.

National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the French Ministry of Foreign

Affairs and, sometimes, Amnesty International.

Every year, 5 to 10 releases or penalty mitigations are observed concerning persons for whom CODHOS has taken action. In 2013

and 2014, CODHOS has thus been most pleased to hear that 8 scientists had been released (in Turkey, Bahrain, South Africa, Canada,

Equatorial Guinea and Tajikistan) and that 20 Bahraini health professionals had been cleared of charges.

CODHOS has also supported the candidacy of the new Turkish academy of sciences

Bilim Akademisi

to join ALLEA (

All European

Academies

). It is composed of scientists who have resigned from the Turkish Academy of Sciences TÜBA, as a reaction to a decree

from the Turkish government changing the election procedures of the members of the academy.

Bilim Akademisi

joined ALLEA as a

Corresponding Member in April 2014.

CODHOS takes part in the International Human Rights Network of Academies and Scholarly Societies, created on the initiative of NAS

in 1993 and whose members meet every two years to improve the coordination of their actions: the last session was held in Halle

(Saale), Germany, from 26 to 29 May 2014, and gathered 29 nationalities.

Finally, in 2014, CODHOS has interviewed Carol Corillon, the Executive Director of the International Human Rights Network of

Academies and Scholarly Societies, and Faouzia Charfi, a physicist and professor emerita at the University of Tunis who is the

author of

La science voilée

[Science behind a veil] (Odile Jacob Ed., May 2013, 224 p) and who campaigns for women’s rights and

promotion and for the separation of religion from the State.

teaching sciences

The whole set of concerns of

the Comité sur l’Enseignement des Sciences (Standing

Committee for Science Education and Training)

which has been chaired by Étienne Ghys

since April 2013, should be understood in the larger framework of the one-day seminar

organized in September 2013, as one of its four sessions was devoted to the following

theme: “l’Académie des Sciences et les Jeunes: Missions, Bilan, Actions” [the Académie

des Sciences and the Youth: Mission, Assessment, Initiatives).

The

Comité sur l’enseignement des sciences

has first focused on the future of the

Internats d’Excellence [Boarding Schools for Excellence], then in danger of disappearing.

It has also questioned the relevance of on-line courses for the particular case of science

teaching. More specifically, through discussions on the various publics and disciplines

that should receive priority attention, it has carefully outlined and explained a cooperation

project it shares with several partners from the university to implement distance education

modules for the use of instructors in francophone Africa.

It has also continued, and has been doing so since its creation, to consider the science

programmes of study in the curriculum, whether from a broad comprehensive perspective

or, more specifically, concerning the programmes of study of the Classes Préparatoires

aux Grandes Ecoles [classes where candidate students prepare for selective exams to higher education schools]. This reflection

was also stimulated by interviews of science teachers from such Classes Préparatoires, or teaching at the end of high school or at

elementary school.