PUBLIC LECTURE

CONFERRING OF AWARDS FROM FRENCH GOVERNMENT FOR BILATERAL COLLABORATIONS
The Shine Dome, Canberra, 21 July 2009

Welcome
by Professor Kurt Lambeck AO, PresAA, FRS

Good evening and welcome to the Australian Academy of Science. As President of the Academy I am delighted that the immediate past Executive Secretary of the Academy, Professor Sue Serjeantson, and the Manager for International Programs, Nancy Pritchard, will be recognised today by the French Government for their services in promoting bilateral collaborations between Australia and France.

Professor Michel Thibier, Scientific Counsellor at the French Embassy in Canberra, will address us shortly in relation to this.

Before handing over to Michel I would like to make a few comments about the Academy’s links with France, and with the French Academy of Sciences. France first appeared in a significant way on the Academy’s radar in the 1970s over nuclear testing in the Pacific but the Australia–France relationship survived this largely because of the strength of individual connections and because of common and complementary interests in science between Australian and French scientists. A particularly strong relationship between the academies developed in the mid 1980s when both organisations signed an MOU and began fruitful links instigated in great part by Professor Bede Morris, a Fellow of the Australian Academy. In recognition of his work in Australia and France the Academy established the Bede Morris Fellowship in 1990 to allow an Australian scientist to travel to France every year to undertake a short-term research project with funds raised by Fellows of the Academy and the support of the French Embassy in Canberra. The success of this exchange was quickly recognised, as was the need to expand it, and this was achieved with the help of the French Embassy who have provided funding for four to five Australian researchers to travel to France under the Academy’s exchange programs and with the support of the Australian Government, currently through the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.

From our side, these fellowships and visits are important not only because they assist Australian scientists to gain access to knowledge and innovative technologies developed in the international environment, but they also provide the opportunity to profile Australian science. Out of this has grown a mutual awareness and respect of each other’s capabilities and from which long-term collaborations have grown that have benefited both countries specifically and science generally.

A number of us here today are the evidence of this, myself included, who have spent lengthy periods of time in France undertaking important research work. There are also four Fellows of this Academy who have been elected to the French Academy of Sciences and most recently, Professor Suzanne Cory, a Fellow of the Academy, received one of France's highest honours, the Légion d'Honneur (Legion of Honour).

This only just touched the surface of the strong links between Australia and France at the professional and personal level and it is very appropriate that today two people who have facilitated many of these links, through the design and management of the programs, are honored by the French Government. It reflects greatly on their personnel contributions, on the Australian Academy of Science, and on the strength and importance of the Australia–France relationship.