Philosophy, sciences and society

Research consists of confronting what is not known or what does not yet exist. We are not starting from scratch, since we already have many individual resources (pre-existing knowledge; skills; models, etc.) but also collectives (e.g. expertise, external skills).

These resources will constitute some steps of the research process, but they will not answer all the problems, especially the general problems: why do we do research? What are we trying to promote? How should we do it? On what subjects? For what objectives?

This course therefore proposes to take on these questions whether it is by addressing research methods (e.g. interdisciplinarity), the condition of contemporary research (e.g. expertise) or even the role and place of values in research (e.g. progress, improvement , development).

This course also offers a cycle of general culture conferences for the R&D engineer.

• 4 lectures on three major themes: interdisciplinarity, the role of values in science and the research in ecologigcal transition.
• 2 tutorials on case studies illustrating the two main themes: Big Science projects and what value we want to promote through research.
• A series of conferences on the means of financing research and the major challenges in terms of energy resources.