The Geneva philanthropist Maurice Chalumeau bequeathed his fortune to the University of Geneva UNIGE in with the aim of encouraging academic research in the field of human sexuality. An eponymous fund was created in the following year โ and for half a century, this pioneering fund has played a key role in furthering our knowledge about sexuality.
Recent social, cultural and scientific shifts now demand a holistic, transdisciplinary approach to research into sexuality. UNIGE has created the Maurice Chalumeau Centre for the Science of Sexuality as a way of finally bringing together research, teaching and scientific information to stimulate synergies between the disciplines and deepen dialogue with the wider community.
The Chalumeau Fund made a decisive contribution to the foundation of a Geneva School of Sexology, which โ based on the American model โ focuses on sexual functions and dysfunctions, sources of pleasure and the dynamics of the heterosexual couple.
In the FUMC and UNIGE also contributed to the first definition of ยซsexual healthยป within the framework of the WHO , which was rooted in a ยซpositive approach to human sexualityยป and was founded on the idea of ยซsexual well-beingยป. Today, the field of sexuality studies at UNIGE is spread across multiple disciplines: biomedical, cultural, political, legal and social.
The manifold dimensions โ scientific, cultural and social โ encompassed by sexuality demand a holistic approach. Important and rapid changes are taking place regarding not just sexual and reproductive practices but also the way in which sexual identities are represented.
