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QUÉRÉ, Yves

France
     
  As a Solid-State physicist, Yves Quéré specialized in crystal defects of solids, including radiation effects in solids and the interaction of heavy particles with crystals where he discovered the effect of dechanneling of particles by lattice defects. Having started his career at the French Atomic Energy Commisssion (CEA, Saclay), he moved to Ecole Polytechnique (Paris-Palaiseau) where he was elected Professor of Physics, President of the Department of Physics and President of the Senate of Professors.
A member of the Académie des sciences since 1991, he has been for 10 years its Foreign Secretary, and was elected, in year 2000, co-Chair of the InterAcademy panel (IAP), the assembly of science Academies worldwide.
In 1996, YQ joined Georges Charpak, Nobel Prize winner, and Pierre Léna to launch La main à la pâte, a renovation of science teaching in French schools, actively endorsed by the Académie. This lead the three of them to a high number of interactions with foreign countries in all continents. In the meantime, he proposed the IAP to include Science education of children among its scientific programme, provoking an implication of quite a number of science Academies in the field of children’s Inquiry Based Education.
YQ wrote several books, including Physics of materials, Gordon and Breach, 1998 ; La science institutrice, Odile Jacob, 2002 ; La sagesse du physicien, L’oeil neuf, 2005 ; and – cosigned with Georges Charpak and Pierre Léna – L’enfant et la science, Odile Jacob, 2005 (also published in Spanish).

Abstract

Developing the capacities of Academies of Sciences

Y. Quéré ,IAP co-Chair The Academies of sciences have an essential role to play for the development of Science and Technology worlwide. This is true, in particular, in the Arab World. The importance of the Academies proceeds from their triple character : 1/ they are prestigious, due to the scientific excellence which they reveal in a country ; 2/ they have (or should have), from history, a complete independence vis à vis the various powers (political, economical, religious...) in presence ; 3/ they enjoy a stability, in time, which most institutions (parliaments, boards of directors...)
do not have. An increasing international networking of Academies still reinforces their potential power. It is to be hoped that they play fully the role in question, overcoming their frequent timidity and lack of self-confidence. Cases will be presented where Academies of sciences have had a definite influence on the scientific policy or on the development of human resources of their country.