France-Research

Research Institutions

CNRS

The CNRS, Centre Nationale pour la Recherche Scientifique, is the National Centre for Scientific Research. It is a public organization overseen by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research. Founded in 1939 by government decree, the CNRS has the following missions:

• To evaluate and carry out all research capable of advancing knowledge and bringing social, cultural, and economic benefits for society.
• To contribute to the application and promotion of research results.
• To develop scientific information.
• To support research training.
• To participate in the analysis of the national and international scientific climate and its potential for development in order to create a national policy.

As the largest research organization in Europe (its annual budget represents a quarter of French public spending on civilian research, its 2013 budget is €3.415 billion, and it employs 25,505 researchers and support staff), the CNRS carries out research in all fields of knowledge through seven institutes, including the INSHS, Institut pour les Sciences Humaines et Sociales, specifically for the social sciences.

Research carried out in the laboratories run by the CNRS Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (INSHS) helps to create the essential theories and analytical tools needed to understand and shed light on the choices made by our societies. Research focuses on humans, considered as the product of their own history, as the creators of speech, language and signs, as the conveyors of knowledge and culture, and as players in complex political, social and economic arenas. The main role of INSHS and its laboratories in the French humanities and social sciences is to ensure the emergence of new experimental and theoretical fields.

INSHS implements CNRS’s policies in its own research areas. It plays a fundamental role in research, in partnership with universities and major organizations. It promotes a multidisciplinary approach in the humanities and social sciences, and encourages interdisciplinarity with the other sciences. It coordinates the networks that organize research at the regional and national level, through the Maisons des Sciences de l’Homme and the creation of research networks, federations and scientific interest groups (GIS).

Collège de France

The Collège de France is a public higher education institution, which is unique in France and has no equivalent abroad. Since the 16th century, the Collège de France has had a two-fold mission: to be a forum for cutting-edge research and teaching. It is committed to fundamental research, in partnership with the CNRS, INSERM and several other major institutions, but what differentiates it is that it teaches “knowledge in the making in every field of literature, science and the arts”.

Collège des Bernardins

The Collège des Bernardins was originally a 13th century Cistercian theological college but offers courses and lectures on ‘Human societies and educational responsibilities’, ‘Economy, human society’, ‘Biomedical ethics’, ‘Society, freedom, peace’ and ‘Judaism and Christianity’.

Paris Sciences et Lettres – Institut des Civilisations

The Paris Sciences et Lettres – Institut des Civilisations has of four main research hubs – Social Anthropology; The Ancient, Medieval and Modern Medieval World; The Ancient Middle East; and East Asia.

Institut des Sources Chrétiennes

In the Bibliothèque des Sources Chrétiennes of the Institut des Sources Chrétiennes there are 18,000 documents, works, periodicals and documentary files specialised on the Church Fathers, ancient and mediaeval church history and mediaeval philosophy and theology.

Le Ruche

Le Riche, Réseau Universitaire de Chercheurs en Histoire Environnementale, is the network for university researchers in environmental history. Its objective is to promote the development of environmental history and to facilitate intellectual exchanges between researchers in environmental history through seminars, study meetings, colloquia, collective publication and research, and to further the circulation of information and awareness of relevant publications. Le RUCHE is the Francophone branch of the ESEH (European Society for Environmental History).

Centre de Recherche d’Histoire Quantitative

The Centre de Recherche d’Histoire Quantitative is the centre for research in quantitative History.

Maison de la Recherche en Sciences Humaines de Caen Basse-Normandie

The mission of the Maison de la Recherche en Sciences Humaines de Caen Basse-Normandie is to contribute to the development of the social sciences. It supports 27 research teams in the legal sciences, economics, and the social sciences.

Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme

The objective of the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme is to “promote studies of human societies that focus on current social realities and contexts” by combining all the disciplines related to the humanities and the social sciences.

Institut de France

The Institut de France is a celebrated and learned society with various purposes, including its support of the development of the sciences and arts by research, publishing, and correspondence with other foreign learned societies, and its production of scientific and literary works of general utility. It also distributes prizes for useful inventions and discoveries, distinguished success in the arts, and the cultivation of domestic as well as social virtues. Finally, it also has a role in administering and preserving numerous sites of heritage and historic importance, notably the Château de Chantilly, the Maison de Louis Pasteur, and the Musée Claude Monet among others.

Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée Jean Pouilloux (La MoM)

Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée Jean Pouilloux (La MoM) unites and houses research units which concentrate mainly on the study of civilisations in the Mediterranean, the Near and Middle East, of both antiquity and the modern age.

Maison Française d’Oxford

The Maison Française d’Oxford is a French research centre in the humanities and social sciences hosting events in a wide variety of fields, research in law and judicial anthropology, history during the 15^th-21^st centuries, literature, and political science and international relations.

Centre de recherché du château de Versailles

The goal of the Research centre for the château de Versailles is to un­der­take re­search and or­gan­ise train­ing ses­sions on the sites and ex­pres­sions of pow­er such as those rep­re­sent­ed at Versailles and in other European courts dur­ing the 17th and 18th cen­turies.

Other institutes dedicated to the Social Sciences throughout France

Institut des Sciences de l’Homme

Maison des sciences de l’homme et de la société, CNRS-Poitiers

Maison des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société de Toulouse

Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Lorraine

Download: France Research Centres and Institutes