Author manuscript, published in "Minerva 49 (2011) 191-214" Materials Research in France: A Short-lived National Initiative (1982-1994).

This paper describes the French initiative in materials research against both a national and an international background, in an attempt to disentangle the local circumstances, which prompted this governmental initiative, and to characterize the specific profile of materials research in France. In presenting a biography of the interdisciplinary program in materials research (PIRMAT), we argue that: i) the PIRMAT denotes a failure of the French science policy in materials research; ii) the leadership of the CNRS led to a specific style of research, quite different from the engineering approach of Materials Science and Engineering, and characteristic of a French style in materials research. Materials Science emerged as a new entity embracing all kinds of materials – from wood, to metals, ceramics, semiconductors and composites – in many industrialised countries over the second half of the twentieth century. Such a field of research required interdisciplinary structures, which were implemented through national science policies. In France, an interdisciplinary program, the PIRMAT (interdisciplinary program in materials research) was launched in 1982. Like the US program of interdisciplinary laboratories initiated in the early 1960s, the PIRMAT resulted both from a combination of the inner dynamics of a number of scientific communities, and from a political decision. In the French case, an impulse was given, in 1982, by the newly formed socialist government. However, unlike the US program which created Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), the French initiative was rather short-lived, and did not result in the creation of materials science centres in universities. Based on institutional archives crossed with oral testimonies, this paper tells the biography of the short-lived PIRMAT. It describes the French initiative in materials research against both a national and an international background, in an attempt to disentangle the local circumstances, which prompted a governmental initiative in the field, and to characterize the specific profile of materials research in France. This case study raises a broader historiographical issue: How are we to evaluate the success or failure of the French program? It is tempting to use its American counterpart as the standard for success, since Materials science emerged while the USA were supporting the reconstruction of European research following World War 2, and played a key role in shaping national science policies (Krige 2006). NATO meetings were organized to spread the US model in Europe (NATO 1963). Unsurprisingly, issues of national differences came up again and again over the course of …