Les liaisons fructueuses - RUIG-GIAN

for funding by other programmes in that RUIG funds
collaborative research between academics and international
organizations. It is this collaborative research
which is the added value of RUIG and which
enriches the scientific landscape of the Geneva region
with researchers from international organizations.
One can of course make the case that funding for
higher education in Switzerland should be used otherwise.
None of us who toiled for the GIAN thought
that such a structure should serve as the sole mechanism
for the funding of academic research projects
in Geneva, or anywhere else. The GIAN was a specific
tool for a specific purpose in a city endowed
with extraordinary, but underexploited, potential.
Why then eliminate the GIAN after only seven years
of operational activity ? I don’t have the full story,
and several of the main protagonists declined our
invitation to tell theirs. I believe that the essential explanation
lies in the reason behind the GIAN’s creation.
For some major players, the GIAN’s principal
objective was to provoke synergies among academic
partners – GIIS and GIDS, in particular – and secondarily
among IOs and academia. The GIIS/GIDS
fusion eliminated in large part the GIAN’s raison
d’être. Moreover, from the very beginning, the GI-
AN’s resources and headquarters were coveted by influential
actors for projects and initiatives that they
considered important. The Foundation Board had
established a bedrock principle, however, that all
projects be evaluated by the Scientific Committee
and that its recommendations should be approved.
In order to maintain the GIAN’s credibility and out
of fairness to those who laboured so hard to compete
for very limited funds, the Foundation Board
refused “political” proposals or those below the Scientific
Committee’s cut-off line. The GIAN upheld
its principales but gained some detractors.
in high esteem and cared for deeply. Citing Pascal
in her eulogy, Martine Brunschwig Graf qualified
him as an “honnête homme”. That he was. A committed
internationalist and an adept of the CERN
model, he strongly believed in the redemptive potential
of multilateralism and the European Union,
in particular. In his world, Rousseau’s contrat social
clearly trumped Hobbes’ Leviathan. Among Jean-
Marie Dufour’s many qualities, those that top my
list are his integrity, commitment to justice, intelligence,
diplomacy, and until late 2006, his vigour. At
69 he could cross-country ski circles around most
20-year olds and arrived regularly at the Villa Rigot
by bicycle from neighbouring France, primp and
prime as if leaving the piano after improvising over
“In a Sentimental Mood.” An aficionado of Teddy
Wilson and Bill Evans’ polyrhythmic melody lines,
he was much less keen on the “heavy-handed” Keith
Jarrett. He loved Margherita pizzas from Da Giorgio’s,
smothered in pure olive oil, followed by Marcella’s
“mic-mak”: un tout petit peu de café avec un
grand verre d’eau chaude. Jean-Marie Dufour was
an extremely decent, witty, cultured and charming
fellow. He liked people and they reciprocated. I
consider it an enormous privilege to have shared so
much with him.
Adieu cher ami
Collaborating with Jean-Marie Dufour was for me
one of the most enriching aspects of the GIAN experience.
He was a friend and a mentor whom I held
Nothing quite like a Margherita pizza and a mic-mak
served-up by these seasoned professionals. Thinking of
Jean-Marie Dufour one year on. From left to right,
Mario, Marcella and Georges, July 2008.
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