Former President Leonel Fernandez was in Paris yesterday, Monday 13 May where he formally opened the new office of the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (Funglode) at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. For the occasion, a roundtable “From Social Sciences Research to Implementing Public Policies” made up of prominent sociologists and politicians discussed how social sciences could feed and guide public policies. The participants included Fernandez, Alain Touraine, founder of the Center for Studies on Social Movements (EHESS) and director of Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Michel Wieviorka, director of the Foundation House of Human Sciences, director of Studies at the EHESS, and Jean-Michel Blanquer, president of the Institute of the Americas (IdA)?? dimensions of global environmental change. An NGO, Funglode signed a partnership agreement with UNESCO in 2009. Funglode is dedicated to training and research in social sciences and human, in particular through its Global Institute of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, the university level branch of Funglode.