Go to content

Go to content | Navigation | Direct access | Connection

You are here : PRINTEMPSPresentation

About us



The Printemps research group – Professions, Institutions, Temporalities – was created in 1995, and affiliated to the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in 1998. It has been regularly renewed as a CNRS “unité mixte de recherche” (UMR) ever since.

Since July 2013, the lab is headed by Laurent Willemez. Former directors were Claude Dubar (1995-2000), Didier Demazière (2001-2008), Charles Gadéa (2009-2010) and Jérôme Pélisse (2011-2013).


Lastingly strong scientific dynamics

Despite a certain number of departures and arrivals that have considerably rejuvenated our staff, the lab has succeeded in mastering its evolution and remained loyal to the spirit that has always united its members around shared principles:
commitment to team work,
equality,
inhouse democracy,
and around a shared conception of research, reflected in our productions and confirmed by our collective undertakings.

Our conception of research is not predetermined by an analytical model or a specific school of thought; rather, it implies a style, or spirit, with several conditions. The first of these is that sociological practice must be empirically grounded in fieldwork and at the same time strive to contribute to theoretical debates through exacting and thoughtful hypothesizing.
 
Printemps’ special research style transpires in its productions: it is a blend of a particular sensitivity to the use of language, of taking gender into account, being oriented towards international cooperation and focused on methodological questions.

Renewing the forms of scientific stimulation

Printemps’ style is apparent in the multifaceted series of projects it has set up – usually with financial support – on the basis of two topical programs:
professional worlds: commitments, knowledge, expertise
careers and temporalities: socialization and itineraries
 
Strongly integrated and interconnected, the two programs are implemented thanks to new forms of scientific stimulation, which currently hinges on several types of seminars:
The Printemps seminar, for working out the lab’s key issues at the intersection of the two topical programs;
Collective research workshops bringing together those who wish to further explore a specific aspect of the programs;
The PhD seminar that accompanies the young scholars during the crucial phases of their research;
The doctoral seminar, organized by the future doctors themselves.
 

A new scientific environment

Perfectly implanted in the University of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ), Printemps keeps a watchful eye on what is at stake in the ongoing reorganization of the scientific landscape, while actively participating in the IDEX Paris-Saclay (Initiative d’Excellence Paris-Saclay), which associates ten social science labs and seven institutions within the Saclay perimeter (UVSQ; ENS Cachan; LSQ – CREST / ENSAE; Université Paris Sud; Polytechnique; Télécom ParisTech; HEC).
Printemps is a driving force behind the ISIS project (Interactions entre Science, Innovation and Société), which in April 2013 was awarded considerable funding to build up the human and social sciences on the Saclay campus. Along with other research groups in this immense undertaking, the themes defended by Printemps are the sociology of science, the sociology of quantification and the interconnection between the sciences and the law.