Passing of Alain Fuchs, former President of the CNRS
The CNRS learned with great sadness of the passing of Alain Fuchs. By virtue of the responsibilities he held throughout his career, Fuchs, who served as the President of the CNRS from January 2010 to October 2017, was a figure committed to serving higher education and research in France.
Very proud of the CNRS, he was the first president to work under its new management structure, in connection with the reform instituting a president and officers to lead the organisation.
His primary endeavour was to establish the CNRS as a major national actor in transforming the French research and higher education landscape, by implementing a policy of shared scientific sites, notably through strong CNRS involvement in the construction of Idex and iSites. He also put into place the CNRS Institutes, in addition to the Scientific Director and Site Referent system.
Striving to ensure that the CNRS maintains its place among the leading ranks of global research organisations, one of his priorities was, within an already difficult budgetary context, to support the organisation’s overall level of recruitment. Under his impetus, special emphasis was placed on mathematics, humanities and the social sciences, ecology and the environment, computer science, and interdisciplinarity, with the creation in 2011 of the Mission for Interdisciplinarity (MI). In late 2015, Fuchs also launched a call for scientific proposals entitled “Terrorist Attacks and Research,” which amid painful current events helped to structure an academic community, and to place it in the service of decision making and scientific expertise connected to these sensitives topics. He also provided the initiative for the scientific effort supporting Notre-Dame Cathedral in 2019. He defended a policy of open communication toward society, notably through the creation of the website Cnrslejournal.fr in 2014, and the journal Carnets de science in 2016.
Born on 10 April 1953 in Lausanne (Switzerland), Fuchs was initially a student at the Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne. A chemical engineer, he earned his PhD at l'université Paris-Sud-Orsay in 1983, before becoming a Professor of chemistry in 1995 at l'Université Paris-Sud (today Université Paris Saclay). His research field involved the modelling and molecular simulation of confined fluid behaviour, and led to numerous collaborations with industry. From 2004 to 2007, Fuchs was president of section 13 of the National Committee for Scientific Research, assigned to the CNRS. A former member of the Scientific Committee for the CNRS’s “Science and Citizens” meetings (from 1997 to 1999), Fuchs was also a “computing” project leader at the CNRS Department of Chemical Sciences (1997-2003). He directed multiple research laboratories at Paris-Sud, before becoming the Director of the Chimie ParisTech school in 2006. After serving as CNRS President, he joined l’Université PSL (Paris Sciences & Lettres), which he directed until June 2024.
The CNRS conveys its most sincere condolences to the family of Alain Fuchs, his loved ones, colleagues, collaborators, and friends, and joins them in the pain of his loss.
