The aim of the Fyssen Foundation is to "encourage all forms of scientific inquiry into cognitive mechanisms, including thought and reasoning, which underlie animal and human behaviour; their biological and cultural bases, and phylogenetic and ontogenetic development".
For this purpose, the Foundation will award POST-DOCTORAL STUDY GRANTS.
These study grants are meant for the training and support of post-doctoral researchers working in disciplines relevant to the aims of the Foundation such as ethology, paleontology, archaeology, anthropology, psychology, epistemology, logic and the neurosciences.The Foundation wishes to support, more particularly, research in such fields as :
ETHOLOGY - PSYCHOLOGY: Nature and development of the cognitive processes in man and animals, both ontogenetic and phylogenetic.
NEUROBIOLOGY: Neurobiological bases of cognitive processes, their embryonic and post-natal development, and their elementary mechanisms.
ANTHROPOLOGY - ETHNOLOGY:
a) Cognitive aspects of the representations of both natural and cultural environments. An analysis of their construction principles and transfer mechanisms.
b) An analysis of the forms of social organization and their technological systems (knowledge, know-how, transfer mechanisms).
HUMAN PALEONTOLOGY - ARCHAEOLOGY : Origin and evolution of the human brain and human artefacts.