A new scientific field which also serves all disciplines

The calculation and modelling methods linked to the development of computer technologies have helped encourage the emergence of a fully-fledged scientific field with its own concepts and methods. Beyond the fields covered by CNRS Informatics, the theoretical and methodological contributions made by information science apply to all scientific and technical disciplines and profoundly influence their development.

Supporting the advent of the digital society

Digital tools and services are changing the way we work with, communicate, produce and create connected objects, data sharing, telemedicine or artificial intelligence. The innovations developed in the CNRS Informatics laboratories in computer science, control, signal and image processing, robotics or system-on-chip design all contribute to the digital transformation of society.

CNRS Informatics has an international presence thanks to:

Since 2010, the Institute has enabled the creation of:

In laboratories linked to CNRS Informatics, there are:

Since its creation in 2009, CNRS Informatics has constantly consolidated and developed its research structures by restructuring its joint research units to better adapt them to site policies, creating new research networks to ensure better coverage of the discipline's themes and establishing strong and close links between the Institute's management and those responsible for the steering of these structures. The objective of all this is to build an agile governance and research ecosystem which is capable of rapidly adapting to changes in the environment, responding to emerging scientific challenges and mobilizing support resources. For example, recent years have seen the creation of several research federations which merged their component units and of research networks working on data science, AI, computer security and automatic language processing.

The CNRS Informatics's laboratories (in the CNRS directory)

The Research networks (GdR)

The Research federations (FR)

The CNRS Informatics's policy

The CNRS Informatics's gender equality policy is an integral part of the more general framework of CNRS policy on parity. In this context, the Institute aims to work in interaction with laboratories to remove obstacles to gender equality in research.

• The first axis of the parity policy is to communicate with laboratories about the work of the CNRS Mission for Women's Integration along with the recommendations made by the CNRS Scientific Board and those formulated by the CNRS parity/equality committee.
• The second line of action is the Institute's commitment to increasing long-term awareness through the implementation of detailed indicators and the definition of equality roadmaps in laboratories. This also involves providing support for the parity contact people in the Institute's laboratories. To achieve this, laboratories have been encouraged to exchange best practices through the creation of a mailing list and communication resources (best practices, hall of fame/"femme", etc.).
• The third line of action focuses on female researchers' careers in four ways - improving the return to work from career breaks, helping them obtain authorisations to supervise research (HDR), enhancing and promoting the visibility of their research and finally increasing the number of women in posts of responsibility.

Finally in the medium term, our priority is actually to no longer require a parity policy by developing and promoting the concept of inclusiveness within CNRS Informatics laboratories.

Key figures

The scope of this work includes all units whose main supervisory authority is CNRS Informatics (March 2022 figures).

The male advantage index can be defined as the ratio between the proportion of male senior researchers among male researchers/academics and the proportion of female senior researchers among female researchers/academics. A male advantage index greater than 1 means that the relative proportion of men promoted to senior researchers' posts is higher than the proportion of women.

Portraits of female researchers

Comic book portraits of women:

• Anne-Cécile Orgerie, pour une informatique plus verte
• Magalie Ochs, pour une IA plus humaniste

These are spotlight articles about women scientists in our communities written to help people discover the diversity of their research themes and profiles.

Best practices developed within the community

The CNRS Informatics's parity/equality unit also regularly enriches a list of the numerous initiatives and best practices in the field of equality between women and men within the community. A network of parity/equal interlocutors has been set up in the laboratories, enabling the Institute to circulate this file freely to the scientific community

This document particularly concerns the laboratories' policies on the subject while aiming to dispel preconceptions about women scientists, support the careers of young women researchers, prevent sexual harassment in the workplace, make recommendations about the organisation of conferences and so forth.

The parity/equality unit

Head: Anne Siegel

Members: Patrick Baillot, Pierre Chainais, Margot Durand, Estelle Hutschka, Olivier Serre

The information initiatives involve the following:

• the distribution of an ERC guide for candidates which is updated with each call to highlight new developments;
• the distribution of an interview guide with explanations on how to best prepare for an interview and also feedback from previous candidates;
• the distribution of a guide for reviewers for people who wish to help candidates by reviewing and commenting on their projects in the same way as an ERC reviewer might;
• organising information meetings for both (1) potential candidates to provide with them with all necessary elements to consider making an ERC application and how to integrate this into their career plans, and (2) unit directors, team leaders and any scientists who may need to help candidates prepare their project.

The direct support initiatives for setting up an ERC project mostly involve:

• proofreading and scientific patronage for each project by two experts from the unit. One is an "expert" and the other an "outside observer" who respectively work very closely to and more distantly from the project's chosen field;
• interview rehearsals in conditions as close as possible to the actual ERC interview involving a group of experts from the unit to provide a simulation of the likely skills and diversity of ERC juries.

CNRS Informatics support for ERC projects is aimed at any researchers and academics working in fields covered by the CNRS Informatics's defined scientific scope regardless of their employer. Applicants from CNRS units under the Institute's supervisory authority whose scientific activities are nonetheless outside this scientific scope are invited to contact Delia Kesner who will put them in touch with another CNRS institute's ERC correspondent.

To benefit from this support, please contact Delia Kesner when you have decided to make an actual application.

The CNRS Informatics's ERC grant winners

Resources:

• More informations about the ERC Work Programme
• Watch the series of videos produced by the ERC, that explain in an entertaining, practical way all you need to know about the application and evaluation process

Timeframe

 The National Committee for Scientific Research

The National Committee for Scientific Research (CoNRS) is made up of over 1000 national and international experts. It is a collective body which plays an essential role in French scientific life. Independence, competence, representativeness, sustainability, collegiality and transparency are the CoNRS's shared values, the aim of which is to guarantee the relevance and coherency of its evaluations.

The INS2I works under two Committee sections dedicated to information science as well as an interdisciplinary commission (CID):

• section 6 - Foundations of Computer Science, Computation, Algorithms, Data and Knowledge Representation, Information Processing

Here you can consult the list of members of section 6

• section 7 - Image and signal processing, computer graphics and vision, embedded systems and systems on chips, robotics, automatic control, human machine interaction, speech and language processing

Here you can consult the list of members of section 7

• CID 51 - Modelling and analysis of biological data and systems: approaches through computer science, mathematics, and physics

Here you can consult the list of members of CID

The Institute's Scientific Council

The Institutes' Scientific Councils advise and provide assistance by giving Institute directors their opinions and recommendations from a prospective standpoint on relevance and potential of their Institutes' projects.

They are made up of 24 members representing the full diversity of research: research directors, researchers, engineers, technicians, CNRS personnel and others.

Here you can consult the list of the members of the CNRS Informatics Scientific Council

The Alliance of Digital Sciences And Technologies (Allistene)

In 2009 CNRS Informatics set up the Alliance of Digital Sciences And Technologies (Allistene) with its academic and institutional partners (CEA, CDEFI, CPU, Inria, ITM). The Institute co-leads several working groups in this network which coordinates different actors in the field including a working group on Cybersecurity. It also participates in the Allistene Commission on the Ethics of Research in Digital Sciences and Technologies (Cerna).

The Allistene website

Find out more about the Cybersecurity working group

Find out more about the Cerna

The Computer Society of France (SIF)

The Institute supports the work of the Computer Society of France (SIF). Every year this association awards the Prix Gilles Kahn for theses to promote the work of the most promising computing researchers.

The SIF website

Find out more about the Prix Gilles Kahn for theses