A living memory A forum for European issues
The Foundation was created in 1978 by Jean Monnet, the designer of the first European Community and the first honorary citizen of Europe. He entrusted all his archives to the Foundation. An independent institution serving the public interest, a non-partisan and a non-militant structure, the Foundation receives support from the State of Vaud, the Swiss Confederation and the City of Lausanne. It operates out of the Dorigny Farm, located in the heart of the campus of the University of Lausanne, its main partner. Today the Foundation houses and exhibits many other private archives, notably those of Robert Marjolin and the European papers of Robert Schuman and Jacques Delors, as well as iconographic and audio-visual documents. It includes a specialized library and a European documentation centre. The Foundation collects testimony from key actors and witnesses as a part of its filmed interview programme. It thus provides users, and especially researchers, with a coherent corpus of documentary resources on the origins and development of European construction and on Switzerland-Europe relations. Each year, the Foundation awards its Henri Rieben Scholarship to several advanced PhD students. Thanks to the internationally recognised importance of these collections and to the collaboration between Jean Monnet and Professor Henri Rieben, who chaired the Foundation until 2005, the Foundation has become a European intellectual crossroads and an essential venue for meetings, debates, and reflection about major current European issues. It regularly organises conferences, European dialogues, and international symposia, forming partnerships with prestigious institutions. It periodically awards its Gold Medal to prominent political figures who have worked for the common interest of Europeans; among the laureates are José Manuel Barroso, Emilio Colombo, Mario Draghi, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Jean-Claude Juncker, Helmut Kohl, Romano Prodi, Helmut Schmidt, Martin Schulz, Javier Solana, and Herman Van Rompuy. The Foundation also welcomes many visitors and researchers, who are given assistance in their work, in addition to contributing to the training of students. Thanks to support from the State of Vaud, the Foundation created a new activity in 2016, a “think tank” made up of a group of experts, currently working on sustainable mobility in Europe. An editorial mission supplements the range of the Foundation’s activities. The Red Books Collection, which was created by Henri Rieben in 1957, has been co-published with Economica since 2007 and now comprises 218 titles. A new series of shorter publications, the Debates and Documents Collection, was launched in 2014. These publications tend to highlight the Foundation's documentary collections, its public events, or the expertise of its members and partners.
Every year, the General Assembly of the Council of the Foundation − consisting of about 500 members from all walks of life − is held, as well as the Scientific Committee. Pat Cox, former president of the European Parliament and the European Movement International, has been the president of the Foundation since 1st January 2015. His predecessors are José Maria Gil-Robles (2009-2014), a former president of the European Parliament and the European Movement International; Bronisław Geremek (2006-2008), Member of the European Parliament and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland; and Henri Rieben (1978-2005), professor at the University of Lausanne. The institution has been managed since 2012 by Gilles Grin, Doctor in international relations and lecturer at the University of Lausanne.
03.2018
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