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After 1944, the face of the physical sciences changed completely in France: these were the first disciplines to be confronted by the exponential rise of a higher education and research system for the masses, which restructured many academic fields, with profound consequences on relationships between actors and their craft. By studying the thesis reports written by the examiners for the doctorate in physical sciences awarded by the faculty of sciences of Paris, this article analyses the transformation of the norms that structured access to research careers. Furthermore, it illustrates how the scientific habitus, hitherto profoundly structured by the old ideal type of the scholar during the 1940s, was then progressively reconfigured into the new ideal of the researcher.