A few lines about the Foundation

The Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation for Human Progress (formerly Fondation pour le Progrès de l’Homme, hence the acronym FPH) is an independent foundation under Swiss law.

It was established in 1982 by Charles Léopold Mayer’s executor, Madeleine Calame, from the estate bequeathed by him. The supervisory authority is the Swiss Canton of Vaud.

Its statutory purpose is very broad: to finance, through donations or loans, research and initiatives that contribute in a significant and innovative way to the progress of humankind through science and social development.

The Foundation is run by a co-opted Foundation Council of 7 to 11 people and has a permanent team of around 15 people to implement its initiatives. Its work is financed by the income from the estate, which provides it with a steady budget of CHF11 million per year.

The Foundation defines itself as a human adventure developed over the long term with public and private partners on the various continents. A review of its 25-year history illustrates the Foundation’s ethos.

Its current priorities, defined in its 2004–2010 guidelines and its 2006–2007 strategy, are:

- to support the emergence of a world community, made indispensable by globalisation;

- to contribute to three major changes that humankind must make in the course of the 21st century:

• a revolution in governance in order to manage the new interdependence between human beings, between societies, and between humanity and the biosphere;
• the search for a universal ethic of responsibility;
• the creation of a sustainable society.