A particular model

The model set up by Ernest Solvay, Walther Nernst and Hendrik Lorentz deserves close attention.

1. The Conferences are held ‘behind closed doors’ and bring together leading experts around a particular question.

2. Each Institute is run by an International Scientific Committee.

These Committees choose the theme of the next Conference and draw up the list of speakers and participants. They select the research projects liable to benefit from a Solvay subsidy, regardless of the origin or reputation of their author.

Committee members are co-opted.

Each outgoing member is replaced by a figure proposed by a colleague and nominated after a majority vote by the Committee members.

3. Each Institute is managed by an Administrative Committee made up of Belgians. These Committees are tasked with handling financial matters. They allocate grants to young Belgian researchers seeking to improve their skills abroad.

Hendrik Lorentz (1853-1928)

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Lettre d'Ernest Solvay à Paul Héger, 26 mars 1912

Ernest Solvay defines the role of the Institute

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Contrat de rente temporaire d'une valeur d'un million de francs belges signé par Ernest Solvay (Projet)

Contract for a terminable annuity worth 1 million Belgian francs, signed by Ernest Solvay.

Paul Langevin (1872-1946)

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Avant-projet de statuts pour l'Institut international de physique Solvay, 1912

‘The task of the Institute is to stimulate progress in physics by allocating subsidies to researchers from around the world.’
Draft statutes of the IIPS.

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Lettre de Marcel Brillouin à Charles Lefébure, 1er juin 1919

Marcel Brillouin expresses his concerns regarding the IIPS’s resumption of its activities after the First World War and raises a more long-term question: the choice of a successor to the president, Hendrik Lorentz.

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Lettre de Marie Curie à Charles Lefébure, 5 mars 1928

Marie Curie (the doyenne of the Scientific Committee of the IIPS) approves the choice of Paul Langevin as president. She endorses the presence of Niels Bohr on the Committee. The Scientific Committee’s members are co-opted.

Marie Curie (1867-1934)

Marie Sklodowska Curie was a Polish chemist and physicist. After her marriage to Pierre Curie, she naturalised as a French citizen. Marie Curie was the first woman to obtain a Nobel Prize (for physics, jointly with her husband and Henri Becquerel). She was awarded a second Nobel Prize, this time for chemistry, in 1911. She is the only woman to have received two Nobel Prizes.

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Lettre de Paul Langevin à William Pope, 30 mai 1929

Paul Langevin communicates the decisions taken during the meeting of the Scientific Committee of the IIPS: the proposal to choose Niels Bohr as the successor to William Henry Bragg, the choice of the theme for the 1930 Conference (magnetism), and the choice of the members invited to the Conference.

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« Note pour Monsieur le Recteur, au sujet des Instituts Internationaux de Physique et de Chimie, fondés par E. Solvay »

According to this note, the Welch Foundation in the US and the Nobel Foundation in Europe were both inspired by the Solvay Conferences.

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Lettre du « Conseil Scientifique International de l'Institut international de Physique Solvay à Ernest Solvay, 9 août 1912

The first action of the IIPS is quite remarkable: the Institute allocates an exceptional subsidy of 8,000 Belgian francs (i.e. about 2,118,160 Belgian francs or 52,560 euros in 2017) to the Pyotr Lebedev Laboratory of Moscow.

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Ernest Solvay (1838-1922)

Ernest Solvay was a Belgian manufacturer and philanthropist, and inventor of the ‘Solvay process’ (for the industrial manufacture of sodium carbonate). He actively supported scientific research.

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Télégramme d'Ernest Solvay à Hendrik Lorentz, 18 août 1912

Ernest Solvay gives his agreement for a subsidy to be sent to the laboratory of Piotr Lebedew.

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Lettre d'Ernest Solvay à Hendrik Lorentz au sujet du télégramme envoyé le 18 août 1912, 20 août 912

Ernest Solvay reiterates his agreement for a sum of 8,000 Belgian francs to be sent to the laboratory of Piotr Lebedew.