WFSW

• is an international non-governmental organization in an official partnership of UNESCO,
• was founded in 1946, at the initiative of leading scientists and a British trade union, the British Association of Scientific Workers.

The existence of the WFSW is above all a call to the entire scientific community to get involved in putting science and technology at the service of the well-being of humanity. This is why the WFSW is a gathering of professional or trade union organizations and individual scientific personalities.

By working with its affiliated organizations to obtain a UNESCO Recommendation on the Status of Scientific Researchers in 1974, the WFSW has helped to provide scientists with opportunities for emancipated professional practice.

Today, scientific knowledge has become a determining factor in most human activities.

Scientific workers, men and women, whether researchers, professors, engineers or technicians, are increasingly being questioned about their responsibility regarding the impact of their knowledge and research on the future of society, on the sustainability of its development.

Faced with the feeling of an all-powerful science in both the positive and negative sense, we affirm that the direction of the development of society is not a purely scientific matter.

Science alone is powerless to combat poverty, inequality, hunger, war, the destruction of natural resources, threats to the environment. The most important thing is the will of the people, the political will of the powers that be.

Science, scientific research, the use of discoveries and innovation are, like the rest of the economy, under the domination of the market and particularly the global financial market.

Scientific workers aspire to be freed from this burden, while wanting to respond to the needs and questions of humanity. 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, citizens should be involved in the definition of priorities. This is a democratic requirement.

This is the meaning that the WFSW gives to the idea of social responsibility. It is in this capacity that it is committed to the fight for peace and disarmament, solidarity between peoples, social and sustainable development, and a new world economic order.

The WFSW maintains relations with all NGOs concerned with the social role of science.