How Switzerland invented rankings and became a nation of science

Since the 18th century, the international success of natural science research has played a significant role in shaping the international image of Switzerland. Bernhard Schär and Lea Pfäffli, two historians at ETH Zurich, have investigated its history.

Enlarged view: Swiss polar researcher Alfred de Quervain on the Greenland ice cap. (Photo: image archive, ETH Bibliothek)
Swiss polar researcher Alfred de Quervain with his team in1912 at the highest point on the Greenland ice cap. (Photo: image archive, ETH Bibliothek)

ETH News: In your book «Die Naturforschenden» [The Natural Scientists], you write that Switzerland has been regarded as one of the most successful science nations since the 18th century. What are the historical bases of that success?
Schär: That's a difficult question for historians to answer, because it depends on how "success" is defined. These definitions are subject to the vicissitudes of historical change. As historians we can say this: the history of scientific definitions of success and scientific rankings is, to an astonishing degree, associated with the history of Swiss science.

What do you mean?
Schär: It was a botanist from Geneva who, in 1873, published the first scientific rankings in history. In his "Histoire des Sciences", Alphonse de Candolle asked how scientific success could be determined objectively. To answer that question, he looked at who had been named as honorary members by the leading science academies such as the French Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society. From this list he compiled a database that extended from the founding of the Royal Society in 1660 to the year 1870.

And what did his work reveal?
Schär: Since the 17th century, the academies had named a disproportionate number of Swiss scientists as honorary members. Switzerland, which at that time comprised only about one percent of the European population, accounted for roughly ten percent of the honorary members. So proportionate to population size, Switzerland was indisputably at the top of the rankings.

Were Alphonse de Candolle's contemporaries aware of the international significance of the natural sciences?
Schär: No, he was the first person to empirically establish how well represented Switzerland was in the international sciences. Although the rise of nationalism did also play a role in that. Other countries created other rankings using different criteria, in which they came out on top.

Pfäffli: Talk of Switzerland as a highly successful science nation took off in the 19th century and has persisted to the present day. In the Cold War era, the neutrality idea was also a compelling motif. Swiss natural scientists regarded themselves as objective, neutral researchers who kept out of politics and were dedicated solely to science. Neutrality was a selling point and also opened doors for Swiss scientists.

Can you give an example?
Pfäffli: Robert Haefeli, Professor of Glaciology at ETH Zurich, initiated the "International Greenland Expedition" in the 1950s. Some 70 scientists and technicians conducted research on the island for three years. Haefeli's writings indicate that he felt it was his calling to lead this major international expedition. He viewed Swiss neutrality as an ideal precondition for bringing the former enemies from Germany and France together on the ice cap. He simply ignored the fact that Greenland was a laboratory of the Cold War. The Americans and Russians had positioned defensive missiles in the Arctic. The "neutral" Swiss scientists used the US Army's infrastructure, and the Americans relied on the glaciological expertise of the Swiss in building city-like, subterranean facilities in Greenland.

The ETH library image archive has a photo showing another polar researcher, Alfred de Quervain, and his team with a Swiss flag blowing in the wind...
Pfäffli: That photo shows the crossing of Greenland led by Swiss geophysicist and Arctic researcher Alfred de Quervain in 1912. The expedition came at the time of the colonialist race to the Polar regions. While de Quervain also conducted his research in the global context, he did symbolically plant the Swiss flag in the areas he travelled to. He even named an entire area in Greenland "Schweizerland". Swiss scientists also made similar colonialist gestures in Asia or Africa. As adventure stories, the tales were very well received back home in Switzerland.

Such mechanisms of international collaboration mixed with competition are still at play today: with ERC grants, for example, one still compares how many are won by Switzerland in relation to other countries.
Schär: The criteria that define what makes a successful science nation have naturally changed since the 19th century. But what has remained is the simultaneous cooperation and competition within the international scientific system. The Swiss natural sciences are still very much active in the international networks – not least in numerous projects in the southern hemisphere.

Bernhard C. Schär is a post-doctoral fellow with the Chair for History of the Modern World at ETH Zurich. His research focusses on the history of the sciences and colonial history and the global history of Switzerland. Most recently he published work on Swiss natural scientists during the period of Dutch colonial imperialism in South-east Asia around the turn of the 20th century.

Lea Pfäffli is a doctoral student with the Chair for History of Technology. Her research concentrates on the history of polar exploration, its material culture and global circulation. Most recently she worked on an exhibition on the history of knowledge in German studies.

Enlarged view: Bernhard Schär and Lea Pfäffli from the Institute of History at ETH Zurich. (Photo: ETH Zurich/Florian Meyer
Bernhard Schär and Lea Pfäffli from the Institute of History at ETH Zurich have investigated the history of Swiss natural scientists. (Photo: ETH Zurich/Florian Meyer

Die Naturforschenden
[The Natural Scientists]

Enlarged view: Die Naturforschenden. (Photo: ETH Bibliothek / Hier + Jetzt)
Die Natur- forschenden. (Photo: ETH- Bibliothek / Hier + Jetzt)

Over the past 200 years, Swiss natural scientists have explored the world and contributed to the global interconnectedness of Switzerland as a centre of scientific research.

In a new book, 15 historians have now compiled biographies that shed light on the little-known history of the Swiss natural sciences. Based on a research project of the Chair for History of Technology at ETH Zurich, the book was published to mark the external pageanniversary of the Swiss Academy of Sciences.

Patrick Kupper & Bernhard C. Schär (Ed.). Die Naturforschenden. Auf der Suche nach Wissen über die Schweiz und die Welt, 1800–2015. Hier und Jetzt, Verlag für Kultur und Geschichte, Baden, 2015, 308 pages.

The natural sciences up close

Enlarged view: Insights into time and change. (Photo: SCNAT)
Insights into time and change. (Photo: SCNAT)

The Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) is celebrating its 200th anniversary under the motto «The natural sciences up close»: through Saturday 15 August 2015, installations, guided tours and lectures on the world of the natural sciences will be open to the public at locations throughout Zurich.

The external pageprogramme also includes tours and lectures at ETH Zurich, for example in the Entomological Collection, at focusTerra, about the earthquakes in Switzerland, in the image archive of the ETH Bibliothek, or about quarks, Higgs and leptons.

For a personal experience of the world of science, there is also the external pageScienceGuide, the downloadable app for science activities in Switzerland.

 

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