Imperial and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) recognise that collaborative international activities enable cross-border pooling of research capabilities and sharing of expertise and facilities, the opportunity to appreciate different perspectives, outputs that are typically more highly cited, as well as access to new environments for impact and exploitation of research outcomes.

CNRS and Imperial are launching a fifth joint call for collaborative PhD proposals between the two institutions. The theme for this year’s call is Transformational Science and Technology.  The call is intended to be open to all areas of science, technology, engineering and medicine. The aim is to develop collaborative PhD projects that can train and network the next generation of researchers and innovators, offering them expertise not available at just one institution, and to also seed Imperial-CNRS collaborations that can lead to Horizon Europe and other funding opportunities.

Imperial and CNRS now have 41 PhD students registered with the collaborative PhD programme working on high-impact UK-France projects.

This call invites Principal Investigators at CNRS and Imperial to jointly put forward a research project to be underpinned by x1 PhD at CNRS and x1 PhD at Imperial, which includes joint supervision plans and a built-in mobility programme.  Support for CNRS-Imperial cohort-building activities and relevant training will also be provided each year.

Strategic rationale

Imperial College London and CNRS researchers have co-authored 2,753 publications in the past 5.5 years (2018-2023) and worked together on 43 joint Horizon 2020 research consortia, with 15 additional projects started under Horizon Europe.

The CNRS-Imperial International Research Centre (IRC) for Transformational Science and Technology launched in April 2022, aims to deepen and expand connections between our two institutions to address UN Sustainable Development Goals. CNRS and Imperial have an additional three formal collaborations in place under the larger IRC: CNRS and Imperial have a joint International Research Laboratory (IRL) in Mathematics – the IRL Abraham De Moivre; Imperial is the UK lead for the CNRS International Research Network in Quantum Fields and Strings; and Imperial and CNRS have an International Research Project in Integrative Metabolism in collaboration with the University of Lille.

The €95.5 billion Horizon Europe budget, which runs from 2021-2027, provides continued impetus for joint scientific discovery and innovation.

The UK agreed a deal to associate to Horizon Europe on 7 September 2023.  UK researchers can now apply for Horizon Europe funding, certain that all successful UK applicants will be covered through the UK’s association (or through the UKRI guarantee) for the remainder of the programme.

All calls in Work Programme 2024 will be covered by association, and the UK guarantee scheme will be extended to cover all calls under Work Programme 2023.