Patrice Bret

Patrice Bret (born 1949)

Bret has served as director of research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), He also served as director of research at CNRS. Bret continues to be an honorary researcher at the Centre Alexandre-Koyré.

From 2003-2009, he served as scientific head of the Centre des hautes études de l'Armement (CHEAr).

Bret has been a member of the French National Committee of History and Philosophy of Sciences (Comité National Francais d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences, CNFHPS) since 1996, and served as its Secretary General. He has been a member of the Comité Lavoisier of the French Academy of Sciences since 1987, and served as its Secretary General since 1993.

On 22 May 2018 a research symposium was held in honor of Patrice Bret, at the Alexandre Koyré Center, on the role of science and technology in societies of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Publications Patrice Bret has published extensively. His books include L'expedition d'Egypte, une enterprise des Lumieres, 1798-1801 (1998), L'État, l'armée, la science. L'invention de la recherche publique en France (1763-1830) (2002), Savants et inventeurs entre la gloire et l’oubli (2014), Madame d'Arconville, 1720-1805 une femme de lettres et de sciences au siècle des Lumières (2011, with Brigitte Van Tiggelen) and Femmes de sciences de l'Antiquité au XIXe siècle réalités et représentations (2014, with Adeline Gargam).

He has edited several volumes of the published correspondence of Antoine Lavoisier. He has been involved in publishing the correspondence of Guyton de Morveau, and is researching translator Claudine Picardet. A Scientific Correspondence during the Chemical Revolution: Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau and Richard Kirwan, 1782-1802, has been described as "a splendidly executed work of its sort.

Bret has served on the editorial boards of a number of journals, including Artefact. Techniques, histoire et sciences humaines (Paris, 2012-) and Vulcan. Journal for the Social History of Military Technology (Washington, 2009-).

Awards 2018, Franklin-Lavoisier Prize, received by Patrice Bret as general secretary of the Comité Lavoisier on behalf of the Comité Lavoisier, from the Science History Institute and the Fondation de la Maison de la Chimie 2007, Chevalier dans l’Ordre national des Palmes académiques 1997, Le Prix Jean-Édouard Goby, Institut de France (Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres & Académie des sciences morales et politiques)