The Exchange Program of the Belgian American Educational Foundation 1920-1940: An Institutional Perspective on Persona Formation (1920-1940)

In this article we propose an institutional perspective on persona formation. Not unlike individual scientists, institutions such as funding bodies took an active interest in shaping the scientific persona. As a case in point, we discuss the Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF) that sent hundreds of aspiring Belgian scientists to the United States during the Interwar period. The BAEF went to great lengths to optimise its selection procedure and formulated conditions pertaining to both the mental and physical fitness of its grantees. In this way, the BAEF cut off some repertoires of being a scientist and encouraged its fellows to demonstrate certain qualities when in front of the funding body. This, we argue, points to the performative and occasional character of scientific personae.