Science, State and Society

Abstract

This paper centers on the history of the development of science and scientific research in Spain in the mid-twentieth century, by reading José María Albareda's Considerations on Scientific Research. The book blends anecdotes about his personal life and personal references to scientists from abroad, with whom Albareda was associated, thoughts on the nature of science and the situation of research in Spain after the Civil War (1936 – 1939), and proposals about the relation between the State and the University. Albareda was a professor of the Faculty of Pharmacy at the Universidad Central, and, from 1939, General Secretary of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Higher Council for Scientific Research) and Director of the Institute of Edaphology. Reading Albareda's autobiography allows us to use biographical data from one of the protagonists of scientific policy in Spain in the second half of the twentieth century to illuminate a scientist's reflections on intellectual life and its relationship with existing institutions.