The French Institute of Pondicherry () is a public institution under the joint supervision of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Center for Scientific Research (UMIFRE 21 CNRS-MEAE). Together with the Centre de Sciences humaines (CSH) in New Delhi, it forms the CNRS's âÂÂSavoirs et Mondes indiensâ Research Support Unit (USR 3330). Under the terms of Article 24 of the Treaty of Cession of the French Settlements of Pondicherry, Karaikal, Mahé, and Yanaon signed on May 28, 1956, âÂÂthe French Institute of Pondicherry, created by agreement between the two governments since the agreement of October 21, 1954, and inaugurated on March 21, 1955, shall be maintained as an institution of researchâÂÂ. As a tool of French scientific diplomacy, it contributes to the study of Indian society and the preservation of India's cultural and natural heritage: in 2005, the IFP's collection of was included in UNESCO's âÂÂMemory of the Worldâ program. It consists of four departments (Indology, Ecology, Social Sciences, and Geomatics) and a library, and houses several scientific collections.
Established under the terms of the Treaty of Cession of French Territories in India, the French Institute of Pondicherry was inaugurated on 21 March, 1955 under the name "Institut Français d'Indologie".) It was engaged, under the leadership of its first director (Jean Filliozat), in the study of Indian civilization and culture, and more particularly in the history and the religions of South India.
This culture had to be replaced in its natural environment â at least that was what Nehru encouraged the IFP to implement. Hence a department of Ecology was created to collect information on the conditions and evolution of the environment in South India (vegetation, soils, climate changes, etc.) with its focus on the Western Ghats, one of the world's 34 hotspots for biodiversity.
With the setting up of the department of Social Sciences in 1988, the institute extended its interest to the evolution and dynamics of the Indian society.
The Laboratory of Applied Informatics and Geomatics (LAIG) was set up in the 1990s. In 2017 it became the department GeoSMIT (GeoSpatial Monitoring and Information Technology).
The institute has a library with 70,000 books and more than 120 journals currently received. It is open to the public (catalogue on line).
RESEARCH: field work and data collection, organization of scientific events, response to calls for projects, publication of books and academic articles... TRAINING: receiving students on internship, master, doctoral and post-doctoral students from France and other countries.
EXPERTISE: manuscript analysis, pollen study for archaeology, Smart Cities project of the Government of Puducherry, collaboration with the Agence Française de Développement... This last mission is growing. More generally, IFP is open to any partnership with companies, foundations and other organizations: sponsorship, research collaborations or expertise - financing projects, PhDs, chairs, etc.
The IFP's research results are circulated in publications:
. In international peer-reviewed journals;
. By the institute itself: book series (Indology, jointly with EFEO) and multimedia CD-ROMs....
. The IFP is developing portals (Biodiversity India Portal) and apps for a large audience (Pondicherry Past and Present). They are often based on the principle of interactive "citizen science".
. The institute publishes a news bulletin Pattrika in collaboration with the CSH in Delhi and the EFEO (two issues per year). Its Newsletter appears bimonthly.
. The institute organizes events that are of international academic level but are also suitable for the general public (Pondicherry Heritage Festival).
With respect to its branch of research in Indology, the French Institute of Pondicherry has a collection of 8,600 Hindu religious manuscripts and similar records, forming part of India's National Mission for Manuscripts. Comprising 8,187 ancient palm-leaf bundles, 360 paper codices and 1,144 recent paper transcripts, it is the largest collection of manuscripts primarily transmitting texts of the Saiva Siddhanta tradition of Hinduism.
The collection was started in 1955 by the institute's founder-director, Jean Filliozat, who desired to explain the Hindu temple and what happens in it. The manuscripts were gathered from collections of temples, priests and monasteries across South India and brought to the institute with the intention of preserving, transcribing and translating them. Four volumes of a catalogue describing in detail the contents of 4,000 texts transmitted in 475 of the palm-leaf bundles were published in 1986, 1987, 1990 and 2002. Cataloguing has continued using flatbed scanning and digital photography technology in conjunction with a computerized database.
The collection was registered in UNESCO's World Memories in July 2005 and has been declared a national treasure of India by the Indian government. The institute was declared a "Manuscript Resource Centre" in 2004.
The personnel of the IFP consists of about 70 staff:
The institute welcomes researchers and research assistants on project contract and financed by outside sources, as well as experienced researchers and students of all nationalities associated with the projects of the institute and carrying out resident study.
Half of the budget comes from grants from the IFP's supervisory authorities. The rest comes from external sources: European and French public funds, international funds (British Library, National Gallery of Australia, etc.), but also Indian sources (Rashtriya Samskrit Sansthan, MoEF...). Private funding is also increasing (e.g. Jain and Chettiar foundations).