"More than ever, the CNRS stands as a major stakeholder and driver of worldwide research"

The CNRS has 11 representative offices worldwide. This network was recently reorganised through the relocation of the South America office to São Paulo (Brazil) and the opening of a new one in Nairobi (Kenya). What is the main reason for these changes? 

The global cooperation network of the CNRS is rather unique, with a significant presence abroad: 11 representative offices; nearly 80 international research laboratories (IRLs), 25 of which are run in partnership with the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (UMIFREs1 ); labs located in French overseas sites and in recent years, International Research Centres (IRCs). This global presence makes the CNRS a flagship of both French and European research abroad. 

In order to support our researchers who make up these networks in an ever-changing world, the CNRS European and International Affairs Department develops both a strategic and operational approach. 

While only 15% of the world's scientific publications were produced by upper-middle-income countries in the late 1990s, this figure now reaches nearly 40%, reflecting how much the global research landscape has evolved over the past two decades. China and India have emerged as scientific powerhouses, reshuffling the global dynamics of scientific production. This is a major evolution considering that 25 years ago, only three countries - the United States, Japan and the UK - shared half of the world's scientific publications.

The relocation of our Brazilian office to São Paulo and the recent opening of a new one in Nairobi, in Kenya, reflect our strategy to adapt to evolving international contexts. We are committed to building sustainable collaborations with partners that are bound to become important scientific powerhouses in the years to come. 

The election of President Donald Trump and the arrival of the 'tech' sector in the White House marks a turning point for the United States, with the stated intention to ramp up the adoption of cutting-edge technologies. What is your take on this?

Just like the launch of the Apollo programme by President Kennedy in the early 1960s, Elon Musk and Donald Trump set going to Mars as a national objective. This illustrates the determination of the US to lead the worldwide technological and scientific race. However, the comparison ends here. Our partners in the US express deep concern about federal funding for research in crucial scientific fields such as the climate, environment and health. They are also worried about the impact of immigration policy measures that could threaten the business model of American universities which host a large number of foreign students. Finally, there is serious concern about the poor consideration that science is expected to be given in the politically-driven decision-making process.

It is within this context that a new head of the CNRS office in Washington DC was recently appointed2 . Our US office will play a key role in monitoring these changes and maintaining dialogue with US research agencies - a dialogue that we are keen to strengthen. Despite these uncertainties, CNRS remains determined to capitalise on its many partnerships of excellence and trust with the US in order to address the major scientific questions that underpin the technological and societal challenges of our time.

In response to such fierce technological competition, the French President Emmanuel Macron recently called for an ambitious European industrial policy for artificial intelligence. How is the CNRS positioning itself to support this objective? Which levers can be used to strengthen Europe's role in the AI race?

In this global competition around AI, where the US and China account for 45% of worldwide publications, CNRS is committed to bolstering European research. Considering the massive investments and computing capacities associated with AI, there is no other alternative than boosting the EU scientific capabilities if we want to compete with these two giants. As a major European AI research stakeholder, the CNRS intends to take part, alongside its European partners, in ongoing discussions on the creation of a European Council for AI research, an idea promoted by the President of the European Commission. Within this perspective, our Brussels office and CNRS Informatics are co-chairing a dedicated G6 working group to promote the role of basic research in this new council. 

The involvement of the CNRS in advocating solid investment in AI research with decision-makers extends beyond the borders of the European Union. Last May, the CNRS CEO Antoine Petit co-signed a statement from the R7+3  (a high-level group uniting the leaders of nine world-class research organisations) aimed at raising awareness among G7 political leaders of the crucial role of research in developing trusted AI for the benefit of society4 . The R7+ called on political decision-makers to reinforce cooperation between all research players, including the private sector, on a worldwide scale, in order to address the many societal, economic, ethical and sustainability challenges posed by AI technologies. The declaration also underlined the need to develop basic research at the interface between AI and all fields of science with a view to accelerating scientific discoveries. In this respect, the AISSAI Centre is a good illustration of the CNRS capacity, as a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research institution, to combine 'AI for Science and Science for AI'. 

There is a widely shared idea that the 21st century could be Africa's. What role do you believe the CNRS can play in this dynamic? 

In 2017, President Emmanuel Macron called for renewed cooperation with Africa, considering that the African continent will significantly contribute to ‘a global shift’. With an estimated population in 2027 of 1.7 billion, of which 75% under the age of 35, the African continent enjoys huge scientific potential. More and more African countries – sub-Saharan in particular – are stepping up their investments in research and higher education. This is the case of Kenya, which earmarked science as a lever for its economic transformation through the launch of its 'Vision 2030' roadmap, and plans to allocate up to 2% of its GDP to R&D by 2030.

Nonetheless, scientific production in Africa remains modest. Considerable challenges need to be overcome in terms of research training and university education, since the number of researchers per capita and university enrolment rates are well below the world average. 

France is fully committed to supporting Africa's scientific development and will draw on several assets in doing so. Our country is the number one destination for students from sub-Saharan Africa, ahead of the United States and South Africa. It's also Africa's second-largest partner for co-publications, after the United States. CNRS stands as the leading French institution involved in joint publications with African partners, as it usually is with other parts of the world.

We are convinced that there are unique opportunities for cooperation with the African continent and that the CNRS can also be a 'talent scout' for the next generation of African researchers. This is why we launched a multi-year cooperation plan with Africa in 2022. This long-term strategy includes dedicated cooperation tools designed to meet the specificities and expectations of our African partners. 

In this framework, the CNRS opened a second representative office in Africa last October, this time in Nairobi (Kenya), in addition to our Southern African office in Pretoria. Based in an English-speaking part of the continent, it will also cover Central and West Africa. This new office is somewhat a new frontier for the CNRS. This reflects our strong commitment to explore further scientific horizons in a rapidly-changing landscape. We intend to work with both our European – including French – and international partners, to support the upscaling of local capacities and develop co-constructed, balanced and mutually beneficial collaborations. 

Today's world is no longer made up of fixed blocs – but of shifting, opportunistic alliances deriving from individual issues. This is clearly the case in military conflicts, trade and also environmental diplomacy. How is the CNRS adapting its international partnership strategy to this context?  

The world is continuously changing and the CNRS is consequently adapting to these changes. For example, the Covid-19 pandemic profoundly impacted international scientific cooperation, reducing the number of CNRS scientists’ visits abroad from 60,000 to 40,000 annually. We also have to deal with geopolitical upheavals, like the invasion of Ukraine by Russia which weakened institutional cooperation with our Russian colleagues. We had to close our Moscow-based Centre for Franco-Russian Studies, a joint lab between the CNRS and the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs that is due to reopen soon in Warsaw (Poland). More broadly, rivalries between superpowers in an increasingly polarised world require greater adaptability for the CNRS to maintain its role as a major stakeholder in worldwide research.

The European Union is going through a critical period, with internal divisions and external pressures threatening its unity. In these conditions, the recommendations set out in Mario Draghi's report seem more and more difficult to put into practice. 

A strong, cohesive and attractive European research area is a must to assert the position of the CNRS, and of French science at large, on the international scene. The quantity, and most importantly now the quality of Chinese science has bloomed over the past two decades, competing with the US and the EU powerhouses. It is therefore essential to bolster the European research area. As the long-standing largest beneficiary of European framework programmes, the CNRS must stay on course by continuing to roll out its European roadmap and consolidating its bilateral relations within the EU.

Three years after its launch, this roadmap is starting to pay off. Nearly 80 staff members (European project engineers and European project managers) have been recruited over the past 3 years, which considerably expands support to researchers who engage in European projects. The AMORCE call which aims at supporting applications to Horizon Europe collaborative projects is another important initiative of the CNRS Europe roadmap. We will pursue our efforts to increase our participation in European programmes.

Our Brussels office5  also plays a key role in this strategy by facilitating dialogue between the CNRS and decision-makers at the European Commission, as well as with the European Parliament. It is all the more important in this period when important decisions are being made to outline the next European framework programme for research and innovation. In the wake of its position paper on FP10 last summer, the CNRS and its G6 partners intend to promote the interests of European research through clearly identified and secured budgets whatever form the next FP will take. 

While European programmes remain a priority for the CNRS, maintaining bilateral cooperation within the EU to strengthen trust with our European counterparts is equally important. These trust-based relationships are essential for carrying joint projects in Brussels and even more so when it comes to European partners with reduced participation in EU programmes, in particular those from so-called 'widening countries'. In this context, we should make the most of the CNRS cooperation tools such as our International Emerging Actions (IEAs), International Research Projects (IRPs)6  or International Research Networks (IRNs)7  and use them as levers for European projects.

Finally, the strong involvement of the CNRS in European programmes is an asset for developing our collaborations on the international scene. The leading participation of our organisation in European framework programmes reflects both the excellence of its researchers as well as their practice of the European administrative system. According to our British, Canadian and New Zealand partners who have recently been associated with Horizon Europe, this is a real plus. We must take greater advantage of this leadership to support, structure and raise the ambitions of our collaborations with partners outside of Europe, be they well-established scientific powerhouses or lower-income countries. The European Union-African Union Innovation Agenda is an additional opportunity to develop purposeful cooperation with our African partners.

This projection of the CNRS’s European participation in the international arena should help to consolidate the CNRS's presence worldwide – an already strong presence that has recently been enhanced by new cooperation tools such as International Research Centres (IRCs).

Regarding IRC’s, can you tell us a bit more about them since they are quite new ?

In order to remain at the top of international research and to anchor the presence of the CNRS on the international scene, cooperation with top-notch partners with whom we share values and a common vision of science was stepped up. This is the purpose of international research centres.

IRCs were launched in 2021; they provide a structuring framework for institutional cooperation, encompassing a range of multi- and interdisciplinary collaboration projects. They also reflect the commitment we share with our partners to review our cooperation policies by establishing long-term, trust-based collaborations addressing major research challenges. Scientific issues such as climate change, the ocean , the loss of biodiversity, global health or the energy transition (to name but a few) are pressing global issues that require a global approach and a global cooperation. 

IRCs were jointly set up with partners who are on the same page as the CNRS in terms of cooperation ambitions and are recognised as major research players either at the national or at the global level. For instance, the University of Sherbrooke spearheads innovation in Quebec, having obtained strong support from both the Canadian federal government and the province. Similarly, the University of Arizona is a leading stakeholder in environmental, biodiversity and climate research while the University of Chicago is simply one of the world's top-tier universities. The University of São Paulo accounts for a quarter of Brazil's academic output. All these examples illustrate our partners' strengths. Cooperating with trustworthy institutions like these enables us to tackle global issues, while ensuring a two-way flow of researchers, as well as developing and boosting other partnerships.

The CNRS’s IRCs open up new cooperation avenues, to both step up transdisciplinary research and maximise the impact of our international collaborations. In 2025, the CNRS Deparment of European and International affairs will endeavour to build bridges between IRCs to develop and accelerate connections with and between our partners. More than ever, the CNRS is willing to stand as a major stakeholder in as well as a driver of worldwide research.

• 1Joint units with a French institute abroad.
• 2Jan Matas previously directed the CNRS office in Ottawa (Canada) and took up his post on January 1st 2025.
• 3Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC); European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC); the CNRS; Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft; CNR; RIKEN; CSIC; UK Research and Innovation (UKRI); NSF.
• 4An intergovernmental forum made up of seven major advanced economies - the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Japan – with the European Union a permanent guest.
• 5Alain Mermet directed the CNRS's Brussels Office from 2021 to 2024.
• 6IRPs are collaborative research projects set up by one or several CNRS laboratories and laboratories in one or two other countries. They facilitate the consolidation of existing and established collaborations.
• 7 These networks structure an international scientific community consisting of one or more French laboratories, including at least one from the CNRS, and several laboratories in other countries to work on a joint theme or a shared research infrastructure.