sanofi aventis
Citroën
CEA 2008
MAIF et EDF 2007
CEA 2007
Total 2007
L'Artisanat SNCF DGA 2007
GDF Eco-
Bull Orange 2006
Citroen 2005
Microsoft 2005
Safran Sagem 2005
CEA 2004
Orange 2004
Peugeot 2004
Total 2004
Pechiney 2003
Fondation EDF 2003
Gaz de France 2003
Fondation EDF 2003
UIC 2003
Janssen Cilag 2002
Bull 2002
SNCF 2002
BioMerieux Essilor 2001
Placed under the aegis of the Fondation de France, the institution is intended to create ties between companies that care about promoting public awareness of innovation, science and technology, especially among youth, and science museums for which this is their primary mission.
Twenty years later, a preliminary assessment shows that what seemed to be a daring undertaking at the time has since been crowned with success. The Foundation now includes 40 companies and federations in French and international industry (some present since the outset), which have produced more than 100 major operations in partnership with the CSI: exhibitions, conferences, social and educational activities, and so on.
Today, this dynamic has not lost its initial momentum - quite the contrary, in fact - and the motivation of partners and members of the Foundation remains remarkably strong: there are some 30 projects programmed at the CSI for the 2007-2009 period, involving 62 companies and federations. Many of these operations concern the project of renovation for the CSI: the New Cité des Enfants, and the permanent exhibitions in the Innovations Gallery: "Energy," "Space," "Mobility," "The Great Story of the Universe," and the Planetarium.
As the President of the Foundation, but also as the head of a major enterprise, the promotion of scientific and technological knowledge amongst youngsters has always had a particular place in my heart.
Indeed, a company owes its performance to its capacity to maintain a constant flow of innovation in a continual search for new products and new methods: it must unceasingly attract new talent and new ideas. It is therefore important to stimulate a passion for research, innovation, and progress in the hearts and minds of the young. This is all the more important at a time when certain European countries, and notably France, are facing a chronic continual drop in the number of students in science and technology: -2% per year over the last ten years in France, according to a recent survey by OCDE.
This is why I can only hope that the FVE will pursue and reinforce its activities in the years to come. These past twenty years have shown that its model - which guarantees clearly defined partnerships between industries and cultural, scientific, and technical institutions - works, and that it can be developed even more, in the specific context of privileged relations with the CSI, of course, but also in France and throughout the world. In this respect, the new joint initiatives of the European ECSITE network, around the "Chemistry for Life" project and the construction of the "Technology for Sustainable Development in China" website, jointly hosted in China on the site of the Ministry of Research and Technology and on the site of the CSI, augur well for the future.
Indeed, the Foundation, accompanying in this way the movement of globalization in research and the economy, works to open new prospects and new fields of action.
