Professor Fox's main research interests are in the history of the physical sciences since 1700, with special reference to France, and more generally in the relations between technology, science, and industry in modern Europe. Since his bookThe Savant and the State. Science and Cultural Politics in Nineteenth-Century France (Johns Hopkins University Press) appeared in 2012, he has been working on internationalism in the practices and culture of science in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
His book on the subject, Science without Frontiers. Cosmopolitanism and National interests in the World of Learning, 1870-1940, was published in 2016 by Oregon State University Press. In 2016 he received the George Sarton medal of the History of Science Society and the Alexandre Koyré medal of the International Academy of the History of Science