In January 2014, the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, the École normale supérieure de Paris and the Collège de France joined forces to create a new research unit: "La République des savoirs: Lettres, sciences, philosophie" (USR, now UAR 3608). The unit comprises researchers in literature, history and philosophy of science and the arts, as well as in philosophy, who are grouped into six teams focused on the study and transmission of the works and currents of thought that make up the intellectual history of Europe, over a historical period extending from the late Middle Ages to the present day. The six teams have formed three interlocking clusters: the Lettres cluster (Respublica literaria and Centre de recherches sur les relations entre littérature, philosophie et morale); a Sciences cluster (Centre Cavaillès and Mathesis); and a Philosophy cluster (Philosophie morale et normative and CIEPFC/PhilOfr). From 2014 to 2019, the unit was headed by Antoine Compagnon, Professor at the Collège de France.
Some examples of joint research projects concern scientific and literary controversies in the classical and contemporary age, ornament in the same period, intellectual and scientific Europe and the First World War. The UAR's trans-disciplinary approach is particularly well suited to questions relating to the living world, as is the study of the upheaval of knowledge linked to the transformation of the biological sciences over the last sixty years, and the relationship between medicine and the human sciences. Or the study of moral categories, around issues such as war and peace, humanism, moral standards, problems relating to the ethics and politics of the living today, and the role played by aesthetics, writing and literature.
The La République des savoirs research program extends the ambitions of the association created in 2008 by Marc Fumaroli, Respublica literaria, the current name of one of the six UAR teams, which houses the research program "Passage des disciplines: histoire globale du Collège de France, XIXe et XXe siècles", directed by Antoine Compagnon, in collaboration with Céline Surprenant. Today, the Collège de France also participates in this unit through the work of the Centre de recherches sur les relations entre littérature, philosophie et morale.
