The GIS Sociabilités/Sociability is the offspring of an existing pluridisciplinary network named the GRISOL. The Groupe de Recherche sur la Sociabilités des Lumières was set up in 2014, in the wake of a project entitled "La Sociabilité en France et en Grande-Bretagne au Siècle des Lumières : l’émergence d’un nouveau modèle de société", officially labeled and funded by the MSHB (Maison des Sciences de l’Homme en Bretagne) between 2009 and 2012. From 2012 to 2017, a Collaborative Research Agreement between 3 research units HCTI, CECJI (UBO) and PLEIADE (USPN, then Université Paris 13) enabled the continuation of the project and the implementation of the "HIDISOC" scientific programme by the GRISOL.
The GIS Sociabilités was founded in July 2017.
Originally composed of 8 partners, it now counts 17 academic and non-academic institutions and is open to new collaborations.
Its flagship project DIGITENS was funded by a H2020 MSCA RISE scheme from 2019 to 2022, leading to the creation of the Digital Encyclopedia of British Sociability in the Long Eighteenth Century: DIGIT.EN.S
The « Transversales » series (Editions Le Manuscrit, Paris), founded in 2012 by Annick Cossic, its general editor for 10 years, was the first result of this fruitful collaboration, which took diverse forms (workshops, seminars, cycles of talks study-days, international conferences ; franco-British co-edition of volumes both in French and English, with the contribution of researchers from partner institutions). The series comprises 8 volumes, to date.
From Januray 2019 to December 2022, our flagship project, DIGITENS, was funded by the European Union (H2020 MSCA RISE), allowing for the implementation of secondments between researchers, curators and digital experts, all members of the DIGITENS consortium, and the promotion of intersectoral collaborations. Such a programme enabled us to create the DIGIT.EN.S platform, the first open-access digital encyclopedia of British sociability in the long eighteenth century.