Acfas (previously: Association francophone pour le savoir from 2001 to May 2019 and before, Association canadienne-française pour l'avancement des sciences from 1923 to 2001 "ACFAS" or "Acfas") is the principal French-language

learned society A learned society (; also learned academy, scholarly society, or academic association) is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline, profession, or a group of related disciplines such as the arts and science. Membership m ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and, particularly,

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

. The Acfas was founded in 1923 as the Association canadienne-française pour l'avancement des sciences (French-Canadian Association for the Advancement of Science). Its name was changed in 2001 to the Association francophone pour le savoir. Despite the name change, Acfas retained the acronym by which it has become known. Since May 2019, the Association has simply been called Acfas. The first president was Léo Pariseau. The current president (2021-23) is Jean-Pierre Perreault. The association played an important role in building Francophone Quebec's scholarly community, supporting the growth of an intellectual milieu outside the formal boundaries of the Catholic Church. Among its founders were prominent French-Canadian intellectual such as Brother

Marie-Victorin Brother Marie-Victorin, F.S.C. (April 3, 1885 – July 15, 1944), was a Canadian member of Brothers of the Christian Schools and a noted botanist in Quebec, Canada. He is known as the father of the Botanical Garden of Montreal. Biograph ...

, the father of biology in francophone Quebec, and the radiologist . Today Acfas is best known for the scholarly prizes it awards annually and for its yearly conference of French-language learned societies in Canada, which is hosted by a different university each year, usually in Quebec. The Jacques Rousseau Award is an award given by ACFAS to an individual or group who develop bridges between scientific disciplines. The award is named for Jacques Rousseau who was both a botanist and an anthropologist. He was a former secretary of Acfas. The Georges-Henri Lévesque Award is an award given every year by Acfas to the Canadian students who have written the best French-language master's thesis in anthropology and sociology.

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* {{authority control Learned societies of Canada Organizations based in Montreal