january 21, 2021
In 2020, the Jean-François and Marie-Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre Foundation signed a sponsorship agreement with the Collège de France to support the creation of the annual Biodiversity and Ecosystems Chair for an initial three-year period.
The annual Biodiversity and Ecosystems Chair aims to advance research and inform debate on the living world, the environment and biodiversity, by inviting to the Collège de France leading figures whose scientific work is intended to be widely disseminated, including to the general public. This dissemination takes the form of free lectures, open to all, given by the guest professor, who changes every year.
In 2020-2021, the Chair will be held by Chris Bowler, Director of the Plant and Algal Genomics Laboratory at the Institut de biologie de l'École normale supérieure in Paris, who will give lectures on Biodiversity and Ecosystems through time and space.
According to Prof. Thomas Römer, Administrator of the Collège de France, the creation of this annual chair is " the mark of the Collège de France's commitment to one of the most pressing issues of our time, one that is of great concern to the younger generations, and one in which the voices of outstanding researchers need to be heard in public debate. The Collège de France had no chair devoted to ecology and biodiversity. The creation of this annual chair, made possible thanks to the generous support of the Fondation Jean-François et Marie-Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, fills this gap, and will give a prominent voice to the work of the researchers invited each year to occupy it".
For Jean-François and Marie-Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, support for this chair is in line with the objectives of the Clermont-Tonnerre Foundation, " tocontinue the work initiated by François de Clermont-Tonnerre (Jean-François de Clermont-Tonnerre's grandfather) and Prof. Marois when the Institut de la Vie was created in 1965. For them, the Institut de la vie is "the expression of a fervor: if it is true that the supreme acquisition of life is freedom, then the problem arises for everyone of the proper use of this freedom, the corollary of which is responsibility". With this in mind, it was an obvious choice to join forces with the Collège de France in the creation of this Biodiversity and Ecosystems Chair.
About the Fondation Jean-François et Marie-Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre
The Fondation Jean-François et Marie-Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre was created in 2009. The initial impetus was inspired by the work of François de Clermont-Tonnerre, Jean-François de Clermont-Tonnerre's grandfather, who co-founded the International Life Institute in the 1960s with Prof. Maurice Marois, with the aim of reconciling the ethics of knowledge with the demands of life. The Foundation's aim is to foster initiatives born of man's capacity to understand, create and invent. The heart of our approach is to encourage creativity, whether artistic or scientific. It also promotes access to it by awarding annual scholarships in the fields of artistic education and scientific research.
The Foundation is financed exclusively by the personal resources of its founders, with no recourse to donations, which gives it total freedom and engages its human and civic responsibility in documented, considered and assumed choices.
To create is to live twice - A. Camus.
