French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France
The French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) is an interdisciplinary public research organisation under the administrative supervision of the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research. Created in 1939, the CNRS now has ~33,000 researchers and 1,144 research laboratories in France and abroad.
CNRS and Imperial established a strategic partnership in 2018. Since then, collaboration has developed into 4 formal CNRS collaboration mechanisms: the Abraham de Moivre International Research Lab in Mathematics; the Imperial Theoretical Physics group as the UK lead in the Quantum Fields and Strings International Research Project; the International Research Project in Integrative Metabolism; the joint PhD programme.
Imperial and CNRS researchers have co-authored almost 2,800 publications in the past 5 years and worked together on 56 joint Horizon 2020 research consortia. Both institutions are currently exploring opportunities to increase the collaboration further.
Find out more about the College's partnership with CNRS
Student experiences:
My international research placement at the University of Grenoble Alpes was kindly supported by the Turing Scheme. The experience helped enhance my research skills, access unique methods and build my international research network. All this while being surrounded by the amazing mountainous landscape of Grenoble with a supportive research environment. I would thoroughly recommend all PhD students to conduct a research placement abroad if possible.
Angus Pedersen, CNRS
As part of this experience, I had the pleasure of visiting a well-known orthopedic knee surgery center, Aix-Marseille University, under the supervision of Professor Argenson and Professor Ollivier. During my stay, I managed to prepare two research papers.
Our discussion covered a variety of topics in orthopedic research, including osteotomies, bicompartmental knee arthroplasties, soft tissue knees, and trochlea dysplasia.The research experience also provided me with an opportunity to learn about the logistical setup of their operating theatres, combining both research and theatre efficiency at once.
The center holds a weekly Monday meeting at 1700 during which all orthopaedic consultants in the department, residents, and fellows discuss orthopaedic cases and a research topic. The ability to speak French is an asset, although both of my supervisors were extremely proficient in English. In my opinion, speaking the language of the host country is polite and respectful.
The centre hosted several other international fellows from Turin, Japan, Turkey and Germany.
I also had the opportunity to visit Prof Dejour at the Lyon School of Knee Surgery who has set up many research collaborations with Imperial College London. A professor known as the expert in patellofemoral joint surgery which is what my PhD is focused on.
Apart from work, I managed to spend some time hiking, swimming and freediving in the turquoise blue waters in the Calanques, Marseille.
Martinique Vella-Baldachino, CNRS