The Bassetti Foundation at the Centre Culturel International of Cerisy-La -Salle

The Centre Culturel International de Cerisy-la-Salle is an international conference and research centre, animated by a cultural association which dates back to 1952, the Association des Amis de Pontigny-Cerisy la Salle. They regularly host symposia [2] of the highest cultural niveau spanning art, science and literature. The Cerisy colloquia are well known and renowned world wide.

Last year, the Foundation sponsored the colloqium organised by Bruno Latour and Philippe Descola on "L'anthropologie historique de la raison scientifique", (July 12th- 19th 2006). Represented by Cristina Grasseni, the Foundation attended the works of the colloquium which hosted historians of science, philosophers and anthropologists who debated on the birth of the so called "scientific mode of thought" in diverse regional realms. Anthropology and history of science have profoundly changed our understanding of "exact sciences", their social role and their cultural origins rooted in metaphysics.
On that occasion, Cristina Grasseni gathered significant interviews with some of the speakers: historian and sociologists of science, philosophers and anthropologist of international fame such as Peter Galison, Isabelle Stengers and Bruno Latour. These interviews will be shortly available on her blog.

The Bassetti Foundation offered ten grants to young and promising scholars attending the conference from all over the world. Asked to reflect on responsible innovation and its relevance to their research agenda, some of them contributed to the ongoing debate within the Foundation as to how to promote public understanding of responsibility in innovarion. We publish here below the link to the research reports that the bursists sent back to the Foundation.
Frédérique Aït-Touati [3], a doctoral student at the Université Paris IV-Sorbonne, investigates the topic of History of the sciences and politics of science. Christelle Gramaglia [4], as a doctoral student at the Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation dell'Ecole des Mines di Parigi, has researched Responsibility in environmental pollution. Guilherme José da Silva e Sà [5], doctoral student at the Graduate Program in Social Anthropology - National Museum of the Federal University at Rio de Janeiro, reflects on the Cerisy themes in the light of his own research in primatology. Anna Zhelnina [6], a student of the Department of Political Sciences and Sociology of the European University at St. Petersburg also reflects on the Cerisy conference in the light of her own research. Matthieu Nicolas [7], doctoral student in Sociology of Science at the Université Paris IV-Sorbonne, has sent some Notes and remarks on responsible innovation.

This year, the Bassetti Foundation confirms its support to the colloquium which will take place between June 23rd and June 30th, 2007, sponsoring young scholars with five grants to help them meet the costs of participation to the conference in honour of Bruno Latour "Exercises de métaphysique empirique". A formal announcement and details of the grants will follow.

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