World Federation of Scientific Workers

The World Federation of Scientific Workers (WFSW) is a non-governmental international organization, an official partner of UNESCO. It was founded in 1946 at the initiative of very high level scientific personalities and a British Trade Union, the British Association of Scientific Workers.

The existence of the WFSW constitutes above all a call to the entire scientific community to contribute to placing science and technology at the service of the well-being of mankind. This is why the WFSW is a group of either professional or trade unionist organizations and of individual scientific personalities. The WFSW became more a group of organizations of this type than one of individual scientific personalities. By acting together with its affiliated organizations to obtain a Recommendation by UNESCO in 1974 on Science and Scientific Researchers, updated on Novembers 2017, the WFSW helped enable scientists to conduct emancipated professional activity.

Today scientific knowledge has become decisive in most human activities. Scientific workers, men and women, whether they are researchers, teachers, engineers or technicians, are increasingly challenged about their responsibility for the impact of their knowledge and research on the future of society and sustainability of its development. Faced with the feeling that science is all-powerful in both a positive and negative sense, we assert that the orientation of the development of society is not a purely scientific matter. Science alone is powerless to fight against poverty, inequalities, hunger, wars, the destruction of natural resources, threats to the environment. The most vital factor is the will of the peoples, the political will of the established powers.

Science, scientific research, the use of discoveries, innovation are all placed, like the rest of the economy, under the domination of the market, in particular the world financial market. Scientific workers aspire to be freed from this burden while at the same time wishing to respond to the needs and questions of mankind. They feel the need to act in accordance with their ethics. While respecting academic freedom and individual responsibility, the scientific community, civil society, and more broadly all citizens should participate in defining priorities. This is a democratic demand.

This is the meaning that the WFSW gives to the idea of social responsibility. It is in this framework that the WFSW engages in struggles for peace and disarmament, solidarity between peoples, social and sustainable development, and for a world economic order.

The WFSW maintains relations with all the NGOs concerned by the social role of science. (https://fmts-wfsw.org/aboutus/?lang=en)