Tunisian Science in search of Legitimacy

Tunisia's scientific system can be seen as the contradictory confluence of a state discourse prescribing the constitution of a national science to serve socio-economic development and the successful transplantation of the most academic elements of the French system of the 1960s and 1970s. These streams of influences provide a ground of both strengths and weaknesses. Strengths lie in the fact that this process has generated representations held by the researchers constructed around certain values imbued from public sector research, inter national collaboration and excellence. The scientific community in Tunisia in a large measure sees itself as being invested with a mission: the reliable production and transmission of knowledge, whose continuity in the long term must be ensured. These representations have no doubt helped Tunisian research overcome the many trials and tribulations of its short history. However, on the other hand, the state policies from the mid-1990s have set to reorganise the research system to make it more responsive to the economic and practical demands of the society. The combination of these influences which have historically shaped Tunisian science, will be explored in this paper.