Raoul Heinrich Francé (May 20, 1874, in Vienna, Austria – October 3, 1943, in Budapest, Hungary) was an Austro-Hungarian botanist, microbiologist as well as a natural and cultural philosopher and popularizer of science.

Francé (birth name: Rudolf Heinrich Franze[1]) was born on 20 May 1874 in Altlerchenfeld (Vienna) and studied as a self-taught very early in analytical chemistry and "Mikrotechnik" (microscopy).

In 1906 Francé initiated the eight-volume monumental work Das Leben der Pflanze ("The Life of Plants"), whose first four volumes (1906–1910) are from his own pen.

As a renowned graphic artist Francé developed the technique of "feather stitch" (Federstich), which is rooted in the copper engraving (Kupferstich).

[4] In 1898, botanist Ernst Lemmermann published Franceia, which is a genus of green algae belonging to the family Oocystaceae and named in Francé's honour.

[5] Organic farming is based in part on the findings by Francé, which were published in his books "Das Edaphon" (wikt:edaphon, any animal or plant found in soil), 1913, and "Das Leben im Ackerboden", 1922, (Life in the soil) and a series of articles in the journal Mikrokosmos made available for a broad public.