Posted on 05 October 2018
The European Science Foundation (ESF) and the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) are pleased to announce that a significant amount of the Foundation’s archival files are now open to the public at the HAEU in Florence.
These files cover the period since the creation of the ESF in 1974 until 2005. Transferred from Strasbourg to the HAEU in October 2015, the archives are currently being processed and inventoried.
After the presentation of the first part of the fonds to the public in February 2018, a new group of 330 files have been described and are now available for research. These documents were created by the Standing Committee for the Humanities, the Standing Committee for the Social Sciences, by the Committee of European Science Research Councils (ESRC) as well as the two new Standing Committees which succeeded them in January 1995, known as the Committee for Life and Environmental Sciences and the Standing Committee for Physical and Engineering Sciences (PESC).
The committees‘ mission is to identify the scientific priorities, establish research programmes and to initiate new activities. Furthermore, these files bear witness to the work projects and diverse activities which the workshops, seminars, conferences and summer schools organised within the framework of scientific programmes. They contain the minutes and reports of meetings of the standing committees and working groups, as well as working documents, scientific papers and correspondence.
Through these archival documents the research community can delve into the variety of scientific projects in which eminent European experts cooperated and have an overview of the main activities, by type and by theme of research carried out within the EU in the sphere of the social sciences, human sciences, life and environment sciences and physical and engineering sciences. The documents provide the opportunity to study the development of science and scientific cooperation between the principal partners involved in European research and to enhance knowledge on the link between European integration and scientific research within the EU.
Access to the inventory of the ESF fonds.