Professor D. Favrat admitted to the French Academy of Technologies
Daniel Favrat speaking
Professor Daniel Favrat, director of the industrial energy system laboratory, has been officially admitted at the French Academy of Technologies on January 31 in a welcome ceremony at the « Palais de la découverte » in Paris. He received the medal of this prestigious academy at the same time as a group of well-known personalities from the scientific and technical world like the president of Caltech Jean-Lou Chameau or the former European commissioner for research M. Philippe Busquin. He is the first Swiss scientist who has been admitted to this academy.
During this ceremony Prof Favrat said in substance:
It is a great pleasure for me to accept the invitation to join your prestigious academy. My sincere thanks to all of you.
This unexpected offer came as a happy surprise as I do not have the French nationality. But once the surprise was over, I realized the truly symbolic nature of such an opening. Such open-mindedness should be a characteristic of our academies as well as of our academic and industrial worlds. Our challenges are the same ones, particularly in the vast domain of energy, which is the prime mover of our societies. But the latter could also, if we are not cautious enough, be at the source of major instabilities and conflicts.
On this crucial theme, therefore, the activities of the committee dealing with energy and the environment will retain most of my interests. I am also ready to contribute to the equally important activities in “energy and cities” or “mobility and transportation” which are key sectors in energy consumption.
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Moreover, I will enjoy sharing the present discussion themes and conclusions with those done at the Swiss academy of engineering sciences as well as in the frame of the energy committee of the World Federation of Engineering Associations in my role of vice-chair.
For reasoned, chosen and shared progress.
This adage is more than ever essential to our societies, in particular in the domain of energy which implies time constants, particularly for investments, that are much higher than average. It is in fact a key challenge for our democracies and only a constructive dialogue will allow us to meet it.
It is clear, that, beyond the activities cited above, the deliberations of the Academy on the broader questions of ethics, research, innovation et education will also be of a very high interest and I hope to be able to contribute to these as well.
Thanking you all again for my election I am looking forward to dialogue with you on all these themes of a high societal interest.
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