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The Blaise Pascal Foundation: supporting science communication in mathematics and computer science

Mediation

For the past 10 years, the Blaise Pascal Foundation has been promoting scientific literacy in mathematics and computer science amongst all citizens. Its work focuses in particular on girls and young people from rural areas and neighbourhoods identified as priority areas under urban policy. 

The foundation works on a daily basis to:

  • Encourage people to pursue careers in mathematics and computer science, particularly amongst the groups mentioned above.
  • Promote equal opportunities.
  • Enable everyone to have access to scientific culture.

Founded by the CNRS and the University of Lyon in 2016, the Blaise Pascal Foundation has benefited from the ongoing support of CNRS Mathematics. In recent years, Inria and Paris Saclay University have joined the circle of founding institutions.

In its 10 years of existence, the foundation has supported more than 500 projects across the country, a significant number of which involve members of mathematics laboratories.

“Now more than ever, issues relating to trust in science lie at the heart of our society”, explains Petru Mironescu, Chief Executive of the Foundation. “It is essential that every citizen, whether living in a rural area, a suburb or a city, is able to understand these issues with full knowledge of the facts. This concern lies at the heart of the Foundation’s activities, and we share it with our founding institutions, notably the CNRS ”.

Ottilie Simon, the Foundation’s head of development, points out that the Foundation supports outreach projects which may, for example, be linked to an ANR project: “Please do mention us, particularly during meetings with industrial partners, as this word-of-mouth support is invaluable to us in establishing new partnerships, which are essential to our work. You can, of course, also support us through a direct donation, as every little helps!”.

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