UNESCO’s Natural Sciences Department and Latin American scientists in the end of the 1940s

• Main Author: Patrick Petitjean
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi 2009-12-01
• Series: Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Ciências Humanas
• Subjects: UNESCO; Joseph Needham; History; Scientific Co-operation; Latin America
• Online Access: http://www.museu-goeldi.br/editora/bh/artigos/chv4n3_2009/departement(petitjean).pdf

When United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was established by the end of 1945, Joseph Needham (1900-1995) and some progressive scientists were recruited to build the Natural Sciences Department. Needham was supported by Julian Huxley (1887-1975), the first Director general, also issued from the social relations of Science Movement of the 1930s. Needham’s agenda was a complete re-foundation of the international scientific relations, applying in particular a ‘Periphery Principle’, according to which UNESCO’s priority was to be turned towards the countries which needed the most a scientific development. Such a principle opened a space within UNESCO’s Secretariat for scientists coming from Latin America, India or China, a conscious political geographically-oriented action. This principle also lead UNESCO to attempt the creation of an international research institute in the Amazon Region; to establish a Field Scientific Co-operation Office (firstly in Rio, afterwards in Montevideo); and finally to organize in Montevideo (September 1948) the first Latin American Conference for the Development and the Organization of Science (LACDOS).