Quelque chose est en train de se passer quand partout en France émergent des collectifs de chercheuses et chercheurs qui questionnent leur métier à l’aune des crises que nous traversons. Quelque chose est advenu quand devient viral l’appel des étudiant·e·s d’AgroParisTech et d’ailleurs à déserter pour ne plus cautionner un système reproduisant les mêmes erreurs suicidaires. Quelque chose apparaît quand le souhait de ces étudiant·e·s et chercheur·e·s est avant tout de mêler leurs savoirs avec celui du terrain, des luttes et des associations, pour créer des savoirs engagés et reliés.

Et c’est afin de se relier, entre collectifs et individus que ces premières JESER ont été organisées. Fruit d’une relation que nous avons tissée ensemble lors de nombreux travaux au cours des dernières années, la dynamique collective a réellement débuté en 2021, lors des Universités d’été des Mouvements Sociaux où quelques unes des organisations avaient lancé les « États Généraux des Sciences et Techniques Engagés ». Elle s’est poursuivie tout au long de l’année 2022 avec quelques réunions et événements publiques dans différentes villes, ce que nous avions alors appelé la tournée « Rester, Résister, Déserter, Désherber ». Au printemps, portés par cette dynamique, nous annoncions la création d’un collectif, le Mouvement des Savoirs Engagés et Reliés.

Conscient de la nécessité de faire corps pour être visibles et créer un point de ralliement pour de nombreuses personnes en questionnement sur le rôle des sciences en société, onze organisations* ont proposé ces trois journées de rencontres, à Lyon, les 27-28-29 août 2022, qui ont rassemblé près de 200 personnes (correspondant à notre capacité maximale d’accueil). Ces journées conçues pour favoriser les rencontres et un socle commun de réflexions ont pleinement rempli ces objectifs, grâce notamment à l’expérimentation de bourses aux activités où chacun·e pouvait proposer des ateliers. Non seulement ces ateliers ont crée l’espace nécessaire à l’interconnaissance et la prise de paroles même des plus timides d’entre nous, mais elles ont aussi dévoilé des savoir-faire d’animateurs débutants, ils se reconnaîtront.

Le format table ronde, choisi pour donner à voir à tous la diversité des formes et des thèmes des savoirs engagés et reliés a été jugé plus contraignant, du fait de la chaleur ambiante et de la multiplicité des sujets. Néanmoins, l’ensemble des informations récoltées constituent désormais un héritage commun et procure une force de savoir que tant de choses se font dès aujourd’hui, dans les associations, les laboratoires ou hors de toutes structures. La 1^ère table ronde en faisant intervenir des membres d’associations a pu montrer l’extrême pertinence des savoirs développées par les populations autochtones, les chercheur·e·s indépendant·e·s et militants pour garantir une société vivable. La seconde table ronde a montré la richesse des connaissances produites par le croisement de savoirs d’origine diverses et la force politique des actions en résultant. Le second jour, les deux tables rondes ont exposé une diversité de dispositifs permettant la création de savoirs engagés et reliés, via des modalités différentes et complémentaires, allant de la recherche participative aux collectifs engagés.

Chacun·e·s des témoins de ces journées (Hadrien Clouet, député de la Haute-Garonne, Isabelle Stengers, philosophe des sciences et Chloé Vidal, adjointe à la mairie de Lyon) ont souligné l’intérêt d’échanger autour des ces actions positives et transformatrices, sans perdre davantage de temps à dénoncer les mécanismes délétères arrimant sciences, croissance économique et destruction de la planète.

C’est donc avec un grand étonnement que bon nombre des participants à ces journées entament (pour la première fois ?) la rentrée 2022, car nous nous sommes sentis nombreux et surtout en phase : « quelque chose est en train de se jouer ». Aucune pluie, aucune nouvelle actualité n’enlèvera le plaisir que nous avons eu à nous rencontrer. Ce plaisir est décuplé pour les membres de Sciences Citoyennes, car l’association, qui va fêter ses 20 ans à l’automne, mesure le chemin parcouru depuis les années 2000 où elle naviguait seule pour la défense d’un tiers secteur scientifique « répondant à des besoins sociaux et écologiques croissants et négligés ». Nous sommes déjà plus que 3000 arrivés au port et ce n’est que le début.

Pour rejoindre la dynamique en cours et être tenu au courant des suites, vous pouvez vous consulter le site du Mouvement des Savoirs Engagés et Reliés, vous inscrire sur la lettre d’information de ce Mouvement naissant https://framalistes.org/sympa/subscribe/mser et bien sûr adhérer à Sciences Citoyennes pour participer à son projet associatif : https://sciencescitoyennes.org/l_association/adherer

* les 11 organisations sont Atécopol, Coexiscience, Écopolien, la Fabrique des Questions Simples, Ingénieur.e.s Sans Frontières, Ingénieur.e.s Engagé.e.s Lyon, Klask, La Myne, PiNG, RogueESR, Sciences Citoyennes

Crédit photo : Baptiste Soubra, Fabien Piasecki

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Our background and our objectives

Our main issue is to critically question the role of science and technology in the construction of a society and to put science into democracy so that it serves the common good.

Science and technology are major factors in how we are shaping our societies today – at the economic, social, environmental and legal levels but also in our larger understanding of values, responsibilities and meaningful action.

We are experiencing a transformation in the nature of risks, inequalities, and hazards, created by the prevailing modes of production and consumption. Free-market globalisation exacerbates these threats and entails the subjection of research and technical development to the demands of the balance sheet. In recent years a growing number of crises (Chernobyl, asbestos, contaminated blood, BSE, GMOs…) has shown the need to take account of other interests and risks than those defined by the techno-scientific industries themselves. These interests (social justice, environmental justice, protection of biodiversity, etc.) question the existing system of expertise and science and have provoked a revival of social mobilizations and numerous initiatives for the involvement of laypersons in research, expertise or vigilance. This process has led to a modest degree of opening-up of science and its institutions.

Faced with the commercialisation of knowledge and living matter (scientific research and innovation are more and more led by the market, profit and corporate interests), these mobilizations and initiatives are embarking upon a democratic development and a new social pact for responsible and collective science. Far from amounting to « a rise in irrational beliefs », a lack of information or a question of popularisation of research results, they claim that science for all must be built with everyone and in coordination with previously cheapened knowledge. (e.g. local, professional, traditional knowledge).

Acting as an engine for emancipation for several centuries, science and now techno-science, is tremendously powerful today. In order to serve the well-being of the entire humanity on our planet, this power must be driven by other motives than merely the quest for knowledge, the desire for power or the logic of profit. Hence, after the era of the « control of nature » must come the one of « control of science » : the era of citizen science.

On this ground, FSC is questioning dominant paradigms that underlay current science policies. What science for what society? What science would we need to build a socially and ecologically more just society? What science do we need for the ecological transition? What should be the mission of public research today? What innovation strategies would help populations and the planet and not big industry?

In this frame we have defined three main goals on which FSC works:

• the development of civil society expertise and research capacities of a non profit research sector. We support the establishment of a “scientific third sector” (or “third sector of knowledge production”) that is better able to meet the growing social and ecological demands, which are neglected by the major scientific orientations whether they be defined by the state or by private industry;
• the promotion of freedom of speech, of debate and controversy within the scientific community; support to scientific whistleblowers, and to cross-cutting approaches on major scientific issues. In sharp contrast with the fear of public intervention and with technocratic thinking, pluralism and controversy are the source not only of a better exploration of possible worlds and, therefore, of better decisions, but also of an active appropriation of scientific knowledge by the citizens.
• the creation and the implementation of democratic mechanisms and processes that will enable citizens to have a real weigh in the scientific and technical choices.

Our action is based on an engaged approach combined with in-depth analyses, concrete propositions and advocacy.

Examples of our work in short

We have been working with peasants from small organic farms to support their work with scientists from public research laboratories in order to maintain, protect and develop locally adapted farmers’ varieties (participatory plant breeding, agroecology, organic agriculture, farmers rights). We have been investigating, with informal alliances of NGOs, European research policies (ex. the European programme for research and innovation Horizon 2020) and French research policies (national law on research and higher education). We promote the creation of programs and funding schemes supporting participatory research (e.g. in French regions, at the European level, science shops), and we question the current functioning of scientific expertise (ex. actions towards the European Food Safety Agency EFSA on transparency, conflicts of interests, and actions to protect whistleblowers notably in the fields of environment and public health). We elaborated two law proposals, the first on the protection of whistle blowers (which was voted by the French parliament in Spring 2013), the second on the use of citizen conventions as a democratic tool to inform political decisions on techno-scientific innovations with a strong societal dimension. We also organise a yearly film festival. We are co-funder of the World forum on science and democracy, a space for exchange between different actors.

For the future we intend to continue the work in these diverse fields. Furthermore, we are engaging right now into a new work on the interaction between scientific research and fundamental rights and freedoms. Potential or proven negative consequences of the accelerated development and exploitation of scientific and technological advances are exerted not only on our bodies and on nature as revealed by numerous public health and environmental scandals, but also on human rights.

Perspectives

Rethinking research and research policies: – the organisation and direction of academic research (public and private), – scientific expertise and whistle blowing, – the relation between research, democracy and the necessary ecological reorientation of public policies (- the consequences for the world arising from research and innovation are now most often structural (organization of social life), overall, ambiguous and contradictory (they solve and create problems).

Keep watching emerging technologies: , – analysis of official discourses, – usefulness, – benefits and risks, – to whom do they profit, – to which problems do they respond.

Promote alternative approaches: – “orphan” research domains that support the transition to a post carbon society (e.g. organic agriculture, renewable energies), – participatory and action research, – law proposals (ex. whistle blower protection), – support to networks of engaged scientists.

Participation in networks

FSC is member of several international and national networks. We do a lot of advocacy work through them, and we are involved in various initiatives at national, European and international levels.

In France:

CRID – Centre de recherche et d’information pour le développement

CAC – Collectif des associations citoyennes

RES – Réseau environnement santé

At European and international level:

Living knowledge – International network of science shops

ENSSER – European network of scientists for social and environmental responsibility

WFSD- World forum on science and democracy

Alter-EU – Alliance for lobbying transparency and ethics regulation

Furthermore we have been engaged in temporary informal alliances of NGO, such as the alliance on the European Research program Horizon 2020, and the one on the reform of the regulation of the European Food Safety Agency.

How we are organised:

FSC is a non-profit organisation (in France “association loi 1901) with a charitable purpose that can offer a tax deduction on memberships and donations.

The executive board is led by its honourable president Jacques Testart, a renown French biologist and a former senior researcher at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM). Jacques Testart is known as the pioneer in France of medical assisted human reproduction but also as an innovative and critical thinker on the subject of science and society and as a prolific writer. The board of almost thirty persons includes, among other members, some of the scientific whistleblowers that FSC supported in the recent years.

A permanent team of five paid staff backed occasionally by fixed term contract employees, interns and volunteers implements the programmes and the decisions of the board.

FSC has an average of 200 paying members.

Financial support:

Created on a basis of voluntary engagement, FSC, soon after its creation, has been supported by the Swiss Foundation Charles Léopold Mayer pour le Progrès de l’Homme. Other private funding sources include foundations such as Fondation de France, Un Monde par Tous, and membership fees and donators. In regard to public money sources, FSC receives funding from the French government, e.g. through subsidies from Ministry (Ecology, Research), a few French local governments and the European Union. So far, FSC has succeeded in maintaining a balance between public and private funding. Over the last three years, our annual budget counted between 250 000 and 270 000 €.

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Advisory board

• Jean-Louis Aroui : Academics
• Rémi Barré : Former academics at CNAM
• Bertrand Bocquet : Academics
• Catherine Bourgain : Researcher
• Dominique Cellier : Researcher
• André Cicolella : Researcher
• Mathilde Detcheverry (Colin) : Member of Avicenn association
• Sarah Dubernet : Nurse
• Alain Dubois : Academics MNHN
• Laurent Dianoux : Researcher
• Fabrice Flipo : Philosopher
• Ludovic Fulleringer : Student
• Isabelle Goldringer : Researcher
• Béatrice Janiaud : Academics
• Kévin Jean : Researcher
• Yanick Lasica : Consultant
• Bénédicte Lefèbvre : Researcher
• Jocelyne Mallet : Leader of the association Khéper
• Pierre Mallet : Sailor
• Pascale Moity-Maïzi : Academics
• Elena Pasca : Philosopher et germanist
• Pierre Sartor : Researcher
• Isabelle Stengers : Philosopher
• Jacques Testart : Honorary academics
• Christian Vélot : Academics
• François Warlop : Agronomist

Staff members

Aude Lapprand : General Delegate
Glen Millot : Coordinator
Christophe Morvan : Administration, press, development
Fabien Piasecki : Coordinator
Cyril Fiorini : Project officer

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Postal address
Fondation Sciences Citoyennes
38 rue St Sabin
75011 Paris

Phone
+33 (0) 143 147 365

Fax

+33 (0) 143 147 599

E-mail address
« general » e-mail : contact[at]sciencescitoyennes.org

If you have a specific request for a member of the board of FSC :

President : president[at]sciencescitoyennes.org

Treasurer : tresorier[at]sciencescitoyennes.org

Secretary : secretaire[at]sciencescitoyennes.org

If you want to contact one of the staff member:

Aude Lapprand : aude.lapprand[at]sciencescitoyennes.org

Glen Millot : glen.millot[at]sciencescitoyennes.org

Fabien Piasecki : fabien.piasecki[at]sciencescitoyennes.org

Christophe Morvan : christophe.morvan[at]sciencescitoyennes.org

Cyril Fiorini : cyril.fiorini[at]sciencescitoyennes.org

Other request : equipe[at]sciencescitoyennes.org

Warning : Concerning e-mail sendings, please exchange [at] with @. Please target your request and avoid to send your message to several addresses.

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Commission Européenne

Région Île-de-France

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The Fondation Sciences Citoyennes belongs to several networks or collectives :

The Research and Information Centre for Development

CRID 
Funded in 1976 by 8 associations, the Research and Information Centre for Development aimed to produce a reflexion on development and international cooperation. It gathers now 54 French NGOs for International Solidarity.

International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility
 INES is an independent non-profit organisation committed to influencing the role and the impact that science and technology have on society.

 Knowledge – Improving Science Shop NETworking
 The general objective of the thematic network ‘Improving Science Shop Networking’ (ISSNET) is to give citizens around Europe better access to scientific information and expertise. The demand-driven approach of science shops contributes to this objective and offers citizens a tool to contribute in the science and society debate.

 Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility 
ENSSER forms a joint pool of critical and independent expertise to work in two fields: to assess the ecological, health, and socioeconomic_ effects of the application of existing and future science_ and technologies; and to assess alternative options to main-stream science and_ technologies with the aim to strengthen citizens‘_ interests over vested and corporate interests.

 World Forum on Science and Democracy WFSD aims the implementation of a platform of political dialogue between scientific institutions and social actors. FSC is part of the International Council and of the International Secretariat.

 Environement Health Network 
FSC is co-founder of this network that aims to contribute the policital decisions to focus on the link environment health as a major challenge at the sanitary and environmental levels.

 Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation ALTER-EU is a coalition of about 200 civil society groups, trade unions, academics and public affairs firms concerned with the increasing influence exerted by corporate lobbyists on the political agenda in Europe, the resulting loss of democracy in EU decision-making and the postponement, weakening, or blockage even, of urgently needed progress on social, environmental and consumer-protection reforms.

 Association of citizen watch and civic information on issues on nanosciences and nanotechnologies AVICENN 
leads a citizen watch and proposes a transversal and independent information on societal issues concerning nanotechnologies, through VeillesNanos letters and the websites http://veillenanos.fr and http://wikinanos.fr

 The collective of citizen associations was born in 2010 to fight the instrumental politic reaction and the reduction of the associations to their only commercial aspect, defends the contribution of the association to the general interest and to the construction of a sustainable, participative and of true solidarity society. The coalition reaches now 8000 association leaders and gathers 300 associations, including 35 national networks.

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Version française

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