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Abstract

This article is the transcript of the acceptance speech given by the author at the French Academy of Sciences upon his receipt of the French-German Science prize named after Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac and Alexander von Humboldt. After a very brief summary of his own achievements in the areas of organometallic catalysis and natural product synthesis, he went on to advocate for a more liberal and less top-down science policy that allows for more curiosity-driven research. The fact that it is exceedingly difficult for anyone – be they scientists or politicians – to predict what might eventually become really important is illlustrated by a few historical examples, where seemingly exotic results ultimately turned out to be real scientific beakthroughs and economic success stories at the same time.