Solvay Institute of Sociology


The Solvay Institute of Sociology assumed its first “definitive form” on November 16, 1902, when its founder Ernest Solvay, a wealthy Belgian chemist, industrialist, and philanthropist, inaugurated the original edifice of SIS in Parc Léopold. Under the guidance of its first director, Emile Waxweiler, SIS expressed a “conception of a sociology open to all of the disciplines of the human sciences: ethnology, of course, but also economics and psycho-physiology, contact with which was facilitated by the proximity of the Institute of Physiology”. While SIS is now part of the Université Libre de Bruxelles and known more simply as that university's Institute of Sociology , the approach instigated by Solvay and Waxweiler still serves as methodological framework: a synergy between basic and applied research involving interdisciplinary studies firmly anchored in social life.

Institutional history

In 1894, Solvay established ISS. In addition, in 1897, Solvay gave to “the School of Political and Social Sciences annexed to the Université de Bruxelles, a sum sufficient to assure its existence over three years”. However, in 1901, as a reflection of his views about the “close links which unite sociological phenomena to the biological phenomena from which they immediately derive”, Solvay disbanded ISS in order to organize SIS along lines more directly and intimately attached to those of the Solvay Institute of Physiology he had created in 1891. SIS was due to become property of the Université Libre de Bruxelles twenty-five years after its creation ; this transfer actually occurred only twenty-one years later, in 1923.
Designed by Belgian architects :fr:Constant Bosmans et Henri Vandeveld|Constant Bosmans and Henri Vandeveld, SIS was built on a hillside in Leopold Park not far from its sister, SIP, which latter had been designed by :fr:Jules-Jacques Van Ysendijck|Jules-Jacques Van Ysendijck and completed between 1892–1894.
From its inauguration in 1902, Émile Waxweiler, “one of Belgium’s leading thinkers”, was installed as the first director of SIS. Waxweiler retained this post until his sudden and accidental death in 1916.
According to George Sarton, SIS “soon became one of the most hospitable places in Belgium: if a stranger applied for admission, nobody ever inquired into his religious or political ideas; all willing workers, big or small, were welcome. Waxweiler had taken great pains to organize this institute, to make of its library, catalogue, and collections an almost perfect instrument, to give to it that atmosphere of freedom and scholarship which is in itself an inspiration”.
Sarton furthermore states that the point of view guiding SIS during Waxweiler's time was “essentially functional,” involving “the consideration of social facts, not under their formal, external, descriptive aspect, but rather under their genetic, internal, explanatory aspect.”
The ambitious course of research which SIS had embarked upon under Waxweiler's guidance may readily be summarized by the rubrics under which his Archives Sociologiques arrayed and reviewed new works contributing either to the progress of human sociology or to its introduction :
In addition, thanks to Solvay's largesse, Waxweiler's expansive vision, and its implantation in an architectural space of its own, SIS — utilizing modern methodologies from its very beginning — was never enthralled by any particular school of thought, such as that cast by Durkheim on the bulk of Francophone sociology, and functioned as “a true ‘laboratory,’ conducting in-depth inquiries, often involving statistical instrumentation, on the conditions of urban life, labor organisation, economic development, or even the ethnography of the Belgian Congo”.
Following Waxweiler's death in 1916, SIS was run jointly by Maurice Anciaux and Georges Barnich until 1920, thence by Barnich and :fr:Georges Hostelet|Georges Hostelet until 1923, when the institute, in accordance with Solvay's original plan, was ceded to the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
It seems that during the time Barnich and Hostelet served as directors, SIS was not immune to the eugenical movement that was inflaming minds the world over throughout the 1920s. In early October 1922, for example, The International Commission of Eugenics met in Brussels, where the commission's chairman, Major Leonard Darwin, gave an address entitled “L’Eugénique” at SIS, as did a Professor Doctor Winner of Copenhagen, on “Mental Heredity”. On Tuesday, October 10, a meeting in the “large hall” of SIS inaugurated the institute's “eugenics room”. In early 1923, apparently, this “small room” became the Belgian National Office of Eugenics.
Following its incorporation into the Université Libre de Bruxelles, the directors of the Institute of Sociology have been eight in number: Ernest Mahaim, Georges Smets, Henri Janne, Arthur Doucy, Nicole Delruelle-Vosswinkel, Jacques Nagels, :fr:Alain Eraly|Alain Eraly, and currently, since 2003, Firouzeh Nahavandi.

Publication history

''Études sociales''

In addition to the large-format Notes et Mémoires begun in 1906, SIS had earlier begun publication of two smaller series, Études sociales in-8° and Actualités sociales in-16°.
In 1906, the list of publications in the Social Studies series comprised:
  1. Les syndicats industriels en Belgique, par G. De Leener, 2e édition, revue et augmentée, 1904.
  2. De l’esprit du gouvernement démocratique: Essai de science politique, par A. Prins, 1906.
  3. Les concessions et les régies communales en Belgique, par E. Brees, 1906.

    ''Actualités sociales''

The object of this in-16° series was to make available, in language accessible to the layman, works pertaining to the growth of human productivity. By February 1906, the following works had been published in this series :
  1. Principes d’orientation sociale, résumé des études de M. Ernest Solvay sur le Productivisme et le Comptabilisme, 2e édition, 1904.
  2. Que faut-il faire de nos industries à domicile? par M. Ansiaux, 1904.
  3. Le charbon dans le nord de la Belgique. Le point de vue technique, G. De Leener. Le point de vue juridique, L. Wodon. Le point de vue économique et social, par E. Waxweiler, 1904.
  4. Le procès du libre-échange en Angleterre, par D. Crick, 1904.
  5. Entraînement et fatigue au point de vue militaire, par J. Joteyko, 1905.
  6. L’augmentation du rendement de la machine humaine, par L. Querton, 1905.
  7. Assurance et assistance mutuelles au point de vue médical, par le même, 1905.
  8. Les sociétés anonymes : abus et remèdes, par T. Théate, 1905.
  9. La lutte contre la dégénérescence en Angleterre, par M. Boulenger et N. Ensch, 1905.

    ''Bulletin Mensuel'' and ''Archives sociologiques''

In January 1910, Waxweiler, as editor the institute's Bulletin Mensuel , began overseeing reviews of the works he was acquiring for the institute's Archives sociologiques , which had been started in order “to apply the new sociological point of view introduced by him to as many topics as possible, in order to test it, to fix a new orientation, and also to render the new way of thinking more subtle and fruitful”. The institute's Bulletin Mensuel was “in the strictest sense a scientific periodical, being devoted to the review of all articles and books which contribute in any way to the explanation of the phenomena of the social life, whether they are published under the titles of biology, physiology, psychology, or those of the several social sciences, history, law, political economy, science of religions, ethnography and sociology”. The first, more substantial half of the Bulletin published extensive critical reviews and discussions of recent additions — whether books or articles — to the Archives, while the second half consisted simply of lists of works and shorter reviews.
For instance, the first part of the February 1911 issue of the Bulletin contained the following articles :
While the issue published in April of the same year contained the following critical reviews and discussions :