Ioan Negrutiu is professor of Biology at Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS), Lyon, and director of the Michel Serres Institute for Resources and Public Goods at ENS-Lyon, where he coordinates the work of students and colleagues from life sciences, economics, and legal sciences towards an integrated approach to the problems associated with natural resources at conceptual, methodological, and operational levels. He teaches molecular genetics and epigenetics, integrative plant biology, plant development and evolution, biodiversity and biological resources, history of sciences, and contemporary problems of science and society, and supports projects that show biological sciences as key to the transition to a new eco-society and civilization. Presently, he is head of the prospective commission in biology and a member of the Institut Universitaire de France. After his studies of agriculture and biological sciences in Romania and Belgium, he developed his research field—plant developmental genetics and evolution—in Belgium, Switzerland, France, and the United States. He has participated at ad-hoc commissions evaluating research programs to the benefit of international and national institutions (including the International Atomic Energy Agency, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CYMMIT), the US Department of Agriculture, the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), and in European Council projects on environmental aspects of agricultural and rural development and local democracy.