Each year, every faculty at Ghent University can award the Sarton Medal to a person whom they consider to have made a laudable contribution to the history of the sciences. The Sarton Committee subsequently proclaims one of the nominated medallists as the symbolic Sarton Chairholder. Click here for a list of all the previous chairholders. Click here for a list of all the previous medallists.
Awardees 2025-2026
Chairholder
At the suggestion of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, the 41st Chair of History of Science was appointed to Prof. Dr. Frédéric Keck (CNRS).
On the occasion of his appointment as symbolical chairholder, he will deliver the following lecture: Collecting and Freezing Birds and Viruses: From "Cynegetic Power" to "Cryopolitics".
Medallists
In the present academic year, the Sarton Committee elected six medallists. Each of them will deliver a lecture on a topic from the history of science.
- Prof. Lucien Bély (Université Paris-Sorbonne): Les femmes dans la diplomatie aux temps modernes
- Prof. Marc Antrop (Universiteit Gent): TBA
- Prof. Jan De Houwer (Universiteit Gent): On the relevance of B. F. Skinner for the future of behavioral science
- Prof. Thomas Mettenleiter (Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut): Tracing the roots of modern infectiology – Koch, Loeffler and the discovery of viruses
- Prof. Carl Nightingale (University at Buffalo): Building Our Urban Planet: Terraformation in History, Theory, and Practice
- Prof. Yves Segers (KU Leuven): Who Knows Best? Authority, Mediation and Resistance in Agrarian Knowledge Production and Circulation in Europe, 1800s-2000s
Agenda
Click here for more information about the dates, times, and locations of the lectures.