“Extremely Successful”: Soviet-French and Soviet-German Cooperation in the Field of Molecular Biology in 1979 (Based on the Materials of the Port-Cros and Munich Symposia)

Abstract

Soviet-French cooperation in the field of molecular biology is associated with the names of the prominent Russian and French scientists. The pioneers of this cooperation were Academicians A. A. Baev, Yu. A. Ovchinnikov, A. S. Spirin, L. L. Kiselev, and other Soviet scientists, and Marianne Grunberg-Manago, François Gros, and Jean-Pierre Ebel, on the French side. Soviet-French scientific cooperation involved numerous research centers on both sides, and manifested most vividly in the ten Soviet-French symposia devoted to “Physico-chemical origin of life” and conducted from 1974 to 1990, and its distinctive feature was the fact that it developed regardless of the international political context. The fifth Soviet-French symposium conducted in Port-Cros (France) in 1979 is analyzed, based on the archival documents and statistical data. The authors compare it with a Soviet-German symposium on molecular biology, held in Munich at the same time. These two symposia differed in their scope and format but, in both cases, the attempts were made to involve scientists from other countries. The Soviet-French symposium was characterized by its high scientific level but, at the same time, was more official and, to a large extent, organized on the initiative of superior science-management structures. In contrast to it, the Soviet-German symposium appears to be a typical researchers’ symposium, initiated by the scientists themselves.