Knowledge is a weapon: Innovation Medal 2016 – Acceptance Speech
Knowledge is a weapon
Innovation Medal 2016 – Acceptance Speech
Your Honours
the Minister,
the Chairman of the CNRS,
the Presidents and Vice-Presidents,
the Directors of Institutes,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Receiving the Innovation Medal 2016 is, in my eyes, so much more than a personal accolade.
Most of all, it marks the coming-of-age of what is now a twenty-year-old movement, but which has long remained on the sidelines: the open access movement, that is to say digital publishing stripped of any technical, legal or commercial barrier to the reader.
It is also about recognising the crucial role that the humanities and social sciences play in our understanding of the world. Understanding the world in its immense complexity: that is a noble and necessary ambition – both for the mind and for action. Because understanding the world is the first step towards changing it. In these troubled times, more than ever before, knowledge is a weapon – the most noble and pacific of weapons. And OpenEdition is our canon of common ideas.
