Scientists of the World Unite: Socialist Internationalism and the Unity of Science

This chapter focuses on scientists from the Netherlands and their work in international organisations. One of the most striking features of the internationalism of Dutch scientists of the twentieth century is the extent to which they combined it with expressions of nationalism. In 1919 formerly Allied scientists replaced the International Association of Academies (IAA) by the International Research Council (IRC), an organization with the stated aim of excluding the Central Powers from membership. Despite the turbulence created by the Great War then, the internationalism enacted by Dutch scientists was still of the pre-war, Olympic kind. The Social Relations of Science Movement was a grouping of left-leaning scientists who were noisily campaigning for a larger role of science in British society. Gathered in the Royal Institution, scientists from 29 countries met with state officials to discuss how a new society could be built up after the war with the aid of scientific methods and in keeping with scientific values.