Residency period: August 1, 2015 to July 31, 2016

Resident at IEAT, professor Renan Springer de Freitas graduated in Social Sciences from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (1980), master’s degree in Sociology from the Brazilian Society of Instruction – SBI/IUPERJ (1983) and PhD in Sociology from the same institution (1989). Visiting researcher at the University of Amsterdam, in the period 1990-1992, with a postdoctoral scholarship granted by CAPES and Visiting Professor at Duke University, USA, in September 2006. He is currently a member of the Editorial Board of Philosophy of the Social Sciences. He is also a member of the Advisory Committee of the Chamber of Applied Social Sciences of the Research Support Foundation of the State of Minas Gerais. Full Professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, with a chair at the Institute of Advanced Transdisciplinary Studies (IEAT/UFMG). Subjects on which he teaches and publishes: sociological theory, sociology of knowledge, sociology of science and sociology of religion.


EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS, SCIENTIFIC ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND MODERN ECONOMIC GROWTH: LESSONS FROM 19TH CENTURY ENGLISH INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT.

The industrial production characteristic of our time is so unequivocally linked to scientific knowledge that it even sounds counterintuitive to imagine an industry without ties to science. However, until very recently this was exactly the case: until the beginning of the 20th century. In the 19th century, not only did industry owe nothing to science, but it was also assumed that there could be some kind of link between them. This picture only came to change in the course of the century itself. XIX, starting, as is known, with the English industrial revolution. The objective of this work is to examine what has changed in relation to industry, on the one hand, and in relation to science, on the other, from the first decades of the 20th century onwards. XIX, so that science could become the basis of industrial development. More specifically, it seeks to show the role played by Scottish educational reformers and German scientific entrepreneurs in the process that led to this change.