Thomas Tari: Research Area: The emergence and development of bioenergy as a framework for knowledge production

Neither an affiliation with a particular discipline nor access to specialised workspaces and instruments is sufficient on its own to define a scientific culture. What researchers from diverse backgrounds work on shapes a unique way of conceiving their activities, practices and relationship with the world. Their success is inextricably linked to a subject, and to the fortune that subject encounters as an innovation within a social context that both constrains and simultaneously shapes it. How is this (re)orientation towards a new thematic area organised, given that current trends in funding practices now specifically favour this framework? This thesis explores the concept of the ‘field of research’, which we define a priori as the framework for interactions between researchers’ professional activity and society around a shared theme; it argues for its epistemic dimension.

This thesis examines, in parallel, the development of bioenergy—one of the main forms of so-called renewable or sustainable energy derived from biomass—along with its key players and their strategies, against a backdrop of strong incentives to drive a global energy transition, yet also of intense social controversy. The two objectives of this thesis converge: describing the mindset inherent to a particular field of research is necessary to understand, beyond mere rhetoric and promises, the actual modes of innovation development (in this case, the large-scale mobilisation of plants, microorganisms or waste to produce biofuels) and, ultimately, to enable everyone to assess its relevance.

Members of the jury

• Marc Barbier, Research Director at INRA, PhD supervisor
• Céline Granjou, Research Director at IRSTEA, Rapporteur
• Bruno Latour, Professor at Sciences Po, Examiner
• Catherine Paradeise, Professor at the University of Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, PhD supervisor
• David Pontille, Research Director at the CNRS, Examiner
• François Vatin, Professor at the University of Paris-Ouest Nanterre La Défense, Rapporteur