History
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.
In the 1960s, 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 the 1980s, the Institute also 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.
The institute has a Centre for Documentary Resources (CDR), which came into being as the result of a major restructuration of three research libraries in Pondicherry. The centre holds data of the research conducted at the IFP, which is augmented every year through an acquisition policy. The CDR is open to the public.
“From Tradition to Modernity”, a document released on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the IFP, traces the history of the institute from its inception to the present.
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