17. 3. 2023
Inaugural lecture by Dr Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, Honorary Doctor of UP
At the 20th Ceremonial Academy of the University of Primorska (Thursday, 16 March 2023), UP conferred the award of Honorary Doctor on Dr Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, a mathematician and distinguished academic, who delivered his inaugural lecture entitled "Scientific Knowledge: a Metaphor or Reality?" at the InnoRenew CoE on 17 March 2003, on the very day of UP's birthday, thus becoming the 20th Honorary Doctor of the University of Primorska.
On the proposal of the UP Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies and the UP Andrej Marušič Institute, the title of Honorary Doctor of the University of Primorska is awarded to Academic Professor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon for his outstanding achievements in science and his significant contribution towards developing the University of Primorska and enhancing its reputation.
Award justification
Professor Bourguignon is a distinguished academic – his research area is differential geometry and his work focuses on the Ricci curvature. He is also the co-author of the monographs A Spinorial Approach to Riemannian and Conformal Geometry (EMS, 2015) and Mathematics, A Beautiful Elsewhere (Thames and Hudson, 2012). For most of his career, he was associated with the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), which provided him great freedom to continue his research.
Until 2013, he was Director of the prestigious international research institute Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES). Under his leadership, no fewer than three IHES members were awarded the Fields Medal, which, together with the Abel Prize, is the most prestigious award in mathematics. His research and teaching received continuous support by the École polytechnique, where he taught from 1986 to 2013. As President of the Société mathématique de France (1990–92), Professor Bourguignon was instrumental in establishing the European Mathematical Society (EMS), founded in 1990, which he chaired from 1995 to 1998. The most notable achievements of his tenure include the launch of the Journal of the European Mathematical Society (JEMS), the increased visibility of the EMS and his strong support for young mathematicians.
Professor Bourguignon received the Prix Paul Langevin in 1987 and the Prix du Rayonnement Français in Mathematical Sciences and Physics from the French Académie des Sciences in 1997. He has received several honorary titles over the course of his career: he is an honorary member of the London Mathematical Society (LMS) and the German Mathematical Society (DMV). In 2008, he was made honorary doctor of Keio University, Japan, and, in 2011, honorary doctor of Nankai University, China.
Professor Bourguignon has been collaborating with the mathematicians from our University for many years. He first visited our University in December 2016, and after we succeeded in our bid to organise the 8th European Congress of Mathematics in June 2021, our ties were strengthened even further. In addition to his invaluable advice and assistance in providing content for the Congress, he contributed to its smooth organisation and thus to the promotion of the University within the global university network through his active role at the Congress. The presentation of the title Honorary Doctor of the University of Primorska is thus a special honour for both the recipient and the University.
