Rethinking Research in the Chemical Industry: Organizational History of Centre de Recherches d’Aubervilliers (1953‒2020)

Marcin  Krasnodębski

Rethinking Research in the Chemical Industry: Organizational History of Centre de Recherches d’Aubervilliers (1953‒2020)

Publication date: 26.08.2022

Studia Historiae Scientiarum, 2022, 21 (2022), pp. 703 - 737

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543702XSHS.22.020.15986

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Rethinking Research in the Chemical Industry: Organizational History of Centre de Recherches d’Aubervilliers (1953‒2020)

Abstract

Solvay’s Centre de Recherches d’Aubervilliers (CRA) is one of the oldest active private-sector research centers in industrial chemistry in France. During the seventy years of its existence it collaborated with some of the most significant French and European chemical companies. Established in 1953, the center’s research and development organization around huge discipline-oriented laboratories proved itself remarkably resilient. Not merely reflecting the R&D policy of the company that owned it at a given moment, the evolution of the center’s research organization followed its own particular path. The research priorities in any given moment were always a place of encounter between top-down requirements of the company’s directorship, and bottom-up thematic trajectories. The CRA’s organizational history gives us unique insights into broader tendencies in chemical research in the second half of the 20th century, such as specialization of laboratories, introduction of market-driven research as well as decentralization and multiplication of hierarchies. The case study can be of interest to historians of science, due to the fact that the history of private research centers remains largely understudied, and to science policy scholars who want to understand the interconnectedness of factors that influence the organization of R&D structures in an institution.

Keywords

R&D management, chemical industry, industrial chemistry, science policy, history of science in France, market-driven research

References

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ARCHIVE SOURCES

Archives de l’Institut pour l’histoire de l’aluminium [Institute for History of Aluminum Archives] (Clichy):

Allocution prononcée par M. Fréjacques à l’occasion de l’inauguration du Centre de Recherches d’Aubervilliers. Dossier 00_13_19938 (Centre de recherches d’Aubervilliers).

CRA Archives (Aubervilliers):

CRA’s activity report for 1954.

Physics laboratory activity report 1956.

Présentation de la société Rhône-Poulenc, dossier 119, box C16.

Projet de nouvelle organisation du Centre de Recherches d’Aubervilliers, mai 1994, HSE 170/249.

CRA/Revêtements activity report for 1995.

CRA/DI activity report for 1995.

CRA/STP activity report for 1996.

CRA’s organizational charts.

Rhodia, Research and Innovation, box C25.

INTERVIEWS

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Interview with Thierry Le Mercier, 27 July 2020.

STUDIES

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Information

Information: Studia Historiae Scientiarum, 2022, 21 (2022), pp. 703 - 737

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4467/2543702XSHS.22.020.15986

Article type: Original article

Titles:

Polish:

Rethinking Research in the Chemical Industry: Organizational History of Centre de Recherches d’Aubervilliers (1953‒2020)

English:

Rethinking Research in the Chemical Industry: Organizational History of Centre de Recherches d’Aubervilliers (1953‒2020)

Authors

Marcin Krasnodębski

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6551-3374

Research Team for the History of Cartography, Institute for the History of Science, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warszawa, Poland

Published at: 26.08.2022

Article status: Open

Licence: CC BY

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Marcin Krasnodębski (Author) - 100%

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