Disciplinary Barriers between the Social Sciences and Humanities

Interdisciplinary Research Policies and Practices: Case Studies from France

March 2006

Milka Metso & Nicky Le Feuvre

Equipe Simone-SAGESSEMaison de la Recherche

Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail5, allée Antonio Machado31058 Toulouse Cedex 9

France

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CONTENTS

Glossary of Abbreviations.......................................................................................................... 31. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 4

1.1. Research Methods ........................................................................................................... 42. The Role of Interdisciplinarity in French Research Policy .................................................... 5

2.2. The French National Research Agency........................................................................... 52.2.1. The ANR Action Plan .............................................................................................. 62.2.2. The ANR Interdisciplinary Research Programmes................................................ 102.2.3. First Results of the ANR Funding Process............................................................. 13

3. The Ministry of Research Interdisciplinary Programmes .................................................... 153.1. The ACI Programme ..................................................................................................... 15

3.1.1. ACI Organisation and Activities ............................................................................ 163.1.2. Projects Funded under the 2004 ACI Programme ................................................. 16

3.2. The ACI Interdisciplinary Programme on “Education and Training” .......................... 183.2.1. The Organisation and Funding of the ACI “Education and Training” Programme193.2.2. The ACI Calls for Tender and Priority Research Themes ..................................... 203.2.3. The Research Projects Funded under the “Education and Training” ACI Programme ....................................................................................................................... 21

4. The CNRS Interdisciplinary Research Programmes............................................................ 244.1. The Current CNRS Interdisciplinary Research Programs............................................. 254.2. Interdisciplinary Thematic Networks (RTP)................................................................. 294.3. The CNRS “European Identity in Question” Interdisciplinary Programme ................. 30

4.3.1 The Organisation and Funding of the Programme .................................................. 314.3.2. Thematic Priorities and Objectives ........................................................................ 324.3.3. Research Projects and Activities Funded ............................................................... 34

5. Project Case Studies ............................................................................................................. 375.1. Disciplinary Composition of the Research Teams........................................................ 385.2. Interdisciplinarity in Practice ........................................................................................ 405.3. Outcomes and Evaluation.............................................................................................. 425.4. Positive and Negative Aspects of Interdisciplinary Work ............................................ 46

6. Conclusions .......................................................................................................................... 48Appendix 1. The Organisational Structure of the ANR ........................................................... 51Appendix 2.a List of Research Projects Funded Under the CNRS “European Identity in Question” Interdisciplinary Programme................................................................................... 52Appendix 2.b List of Seminars Funded Under the CNRS “European Identity in Question” Interdisciplinary Programme.................................................................................................... 56Appendix 3. Sections of the CNRS National Committee of Scientific Research (CN)........... 58Appendix 4. Projects Funded Under the “Education and Training” ACI in 2004 ................... 59Appendix 5. Composition of the « Education and Training » ACI Scientific Council............ 60Appendix 6. The Ministry of Research ACI Programmes and the CNRS PIR Programmes... 61Appendix 7. List of Interviews................................................................................................. 62Bibliography............................................................................................................................. 63

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Glossary of Abbreviations

ACI: Concerted Incentive Action Programmes (Actions concertées incitatives)ANRT: National Association of Technical Research (Association Nationale de la Recherche Technique) CNRS: National Scientific Research Centre (Centre national de la recherche scientifique)CPU: Conference of University Presidents (Conférence des Présidents d’Université)EPIC: Public Sector Industrial and Commercial Establishments (Etablissements publics à caractère industriel et commercial)EPST: Public Sector Scientific and Technological Establishments (Etablissements publics à caractère scientifique et technologique)FNS: National Funds of Science (Fonds National de la Science)GIP-ANR: Group(ing) of Public Interest - National Agency of Research (Groupement d’Intérêt Public- Agence Nationale de Recherche)INRA: National Agronomics Research Institute (Institut national de la recherche agronome)INRIA: National Informatics and Automatics Research Institute (Institut national de la recherche en informatique et automatique)INSERM: National Medical and Health Research Institute (Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale) PIR : Interdisciplinary Research Programmes - CNRS (Programmes Interdisciplinaires de Recherche)RTP : Pluridisciplinary Thematic Network – CNRS (Réseau Thématique Pluridisciplinaire)

CNRS Scientific Departments:PNC: Nuclear and particle physics (Physique nucléaire et corpusculaire)SC: Chemical sciences (Sciences chimiques)SDU: Sciences of the universe / INSU (Sciences de l’Univers)SDV: Life sciences (Sciences de la vie)SHS: Humanities and social sciences (Sciences de l’homme et de la société)SPI: Engineering sciences (Sciences pour l’ingénieur)SPM: Mathematics and physics (Sciences physiques et mathématiques)STIC: Information and communication science and technology (Sciences et technologies de l’information et de la communication)

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1. Introduction

This report aims to present the policy initiatives and concrete research practices with regard to the promotion and adoption of interdisciplinary research activities in France. We begin with an overview of the most recent policy developments in this field, before going on to present two case studies of interdisciplinary research programmes, one initiated directly by the French Research Ministry, the other by the largest public-sector research body in France, the CNRS. In each case, we present the philosophy behind the research programme, the organisation and funding levels and the thematic priority areas. Once this general background has been described, we present in more detail one of the research projects funded under each of these programmes. In the final section of the report, we systematically compare the two case study programmes and their respective research projects, in order to draw some tentative conclusions as to the policy and practice of interdisciplinary research in this particular national context.

1.1. Research Methods

Several research methods have been adopted in combination in the course of this project. Firstly, we have made extensive use of the research policy documents that are available on the web sites of the main institutional actors in this sector in France. We have analysed public speeches and statements from successive Research Ministers and have shown how these cross-cut (or not) with the organisational aspects of research funding and management in practice.

Secondly, we have studied the content of those research programmes that refer explicitly to the notion of interdisciplinarity. By analysing the research themes developed within these programmes, the disciplinary composition of the scientific bodies, coordinators and research teams involved and the precise nature of the research out-puts, we attempt to provide a better understanding of the nature of the interdisciplinary research programmes and projects that have been developed in France over the past few years.

Finally, we have carried out a series of interviews with national experts and with academics,who have been directly involved, in a variety of capacities, in interdisciplinary research programmes or projects.1 These interviews have enabled us to identify the wide diversity of meanings that are attached to the idea of interdisciplinarity in France.

We have also been sensitized to the hiatus that would seem to exist between the active promotion of interdisciplinarity at the level of national research policy-making bodies and the concrete obstacles and difficulties that arise in the course of the practice of interdisciplinary research in this specific national context. Our conclusions point clearly to the need for more systematic training in interdisciplinary research methods, particularly in the early stages of an academic career, in order to help translate the policy priorities with regard to interdisciplinarity into practice.

1 The list of experts interviewed is presented in Appendix 7. All the interviews were carried out by Milka Metso, on the basis of a common interview guide for all the STREP partners.

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2. The Role of Interdisciplinarity in French Research Policy

In 2000, Roger-Gerard Schwartzenberg, the then Minister of Research, defined the promotion of interdisciplinarity as one of the Ministry’s ten top policy priorities. Furthermore, in her speech on 4th March 2004, Claudie Haigneré, the former Minister of Research, stressed that pluridisciplinary work could be seen as the driving force of the French public research sector. In the same vain, in his speech on January 14th 2005, François d’Aubert, also Research Minister, highlighted the value of interdisciplinarity, stating that this had now become the “desired and even classical approach” in research projects2.

However, none of these ministers clearly defined what they actually meant by the terms “pluridisciplinary approaches” or by “interdisciplinarity”, nor did they give any clear indication as to how these objectives should be reached. Moreover, their discourses focused on interdisciplinarity in research, with almost no mention of interdisciplinarity in teaching and research training. Closer analysis of this public policy discourse reveals that the promotion of interdisciplinarity is seen primarily as a means to foster the international mobility of academic staff and doctoral students and, secondly, as a means to develop more “creative” research activities. This last point generally refers to cooperation between the natural sciences and private sector industrial companies, based on the notion of technological transfer.

Public policy discourses on this theme evolve somewhat over time. For example, there is no explicit reference to the promotion of interdisciplinarity in the French government’s new national “research pact” (pacte pour la recherche), which was presented by Gilles de Robien, the current Minister of Education and Research, and François Goulard, the Deputy Minister for Research, in December 2005. However, a closer look at the five priorities of this “pact” reveals an implicit call for more interdisciplinary research work. Indeed, one of the Ministry’s priorities is “to assemble research energies and to facilitate scientific cooperation” by creating large thematic networks and by forming new research and higher education poles (Pôles de recherche et d'enseignement supérieur – PRES). The Ministry also aims to strengthen cooperation between the public and private research sectors and calls for innovative studiescrossing institutional, and potentially, disciplinary boundaries. It is interesting to note that the public rhetoric is currently focusing quite strongly on this last point and private sector research activities are currently at the heart of the policy developments in this field in France.

The creation of a new funding body for public sector research – the Agence Nationale de Recherche (National Research Agency) – has led to the development of interdisciplinary research programs in several thematic fields.

2.2. The French National Research Agency

In February 2005, the government created a new National Research Agency (Agence Nationale de Recherche), which replaces the former national research funding body, the National Science Fund (Fonds National de la Science). The novelty of the ANR lies in its brief to develop large research programs open to both public and private sector research institutions.

2 These speeches are available on the Ministry’s web site www.recherche.gouv.fr/discours.htm, accessed 09/09/2005.

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Its main objective is thus: “to produce new knowledge and to promote collaboration between public research centres and private sector companies, by developing cooperation and partnership between these two sectors”3.

In 2005, the ANR was allocated a budget of 346 million Euros to fund large-scale research programmes, with an additional budget of 696 million Euros for pluri-annual projects. In practice, the ANR spent some 540 million Euros on funding 1400 3-year research projects(Agence Nationale de la Recherche [GIP-ANR] 2005, 5). In section 2.3 below, we present the results of the ANR’s first selection campaign in more detail.

The projects to be funded were selected through the calls for tender addressed to the whole of the French scientific community, including public sector research bodies like the CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique – National scientific research centre) and higher education institutions, as well as the private sector. The projects were evaluated and selected through peer review and were evaluated “for their scientific excellence and innovation, but also for their potential contribution to the national economy”. This last criterion represents a considerable change in the French research funding process, since it opens the way to more explicitly applied research, responsive to market needs, in a country where public sector research funding has traditionally been relatively impervious to economic forces (Le Feuvre and Metso, 2005).

In total, three quarters of the ANR budget is destined to support public sector research and a quarter is reserved for promoting collaboration with private sector R&D.

2.2.1. The ANR Action Plan

The ANR was created in partnership between the French state and the public research institutions. It functions in direct cooperation with eight public research institutions, which form a supportive structure for its actions. The following institutions are partners in the ANR: the National Association of Technical Research – ANRT (Association nationale de la recherche technique), the Atomic Energy Commission (Commissariat à l’energie atomique), the National Scientific Research Centre – CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique), the Conference of University Presidents - CPU (Conférence des présidents d’université), the National Agronomics Research Institute – INRA (Institut national de la recherche agronomique), the National Computing and Automatics Research Institute –INRIA (Institut national de la recherche en informatique et automatique), the National Medical and Health Research Institute – INSERM (Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale) and Oséo-Anvar, a supportive body for innovation and technological transfers.

The introduction of the ANR followed large-scale demonstrations on the part of the public sector research community throughout 2004. The movement “Sauvons la recherche” (SLR -Let’s save research) was particularly successful in mobilising research students and staff in universities and public sector research bodies and it received considerable media attention. The main aim of this movement was to draw public attention to the under-funding of the

3 The citations (our translation) are taken from the ANR web site www.gip-anr.fr accessed 9/9/2005. This web site is also the main source of information for this section of the report.

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public research sector in France and to alert the government and public opinion to the risks associated with the reduction of public sector research funding.

The creation of the ANR came in response to this spontaneous social movement and was generally greeted with hostility by the research community. The ANR’s initial program, published on 8 March 2005, defines three priorities, which obviously reflect the turbulent context of its creation:

1. In response to fears that public sector research funding would be too closely tied to private sector business interests, the ANR programme states that its first priority is to encourage “basic” or “fundamental” research projects, which emanate spontaneouslyfrom within the public sector research community itself. In 2005, 30% of the ANR budget (202 M€) was thus allocated to so-called “open programmes” (programmes blancs), covering a wide range of disciplinary fields. The notion of “openprogrammes” signifies that there are no thematic restrictions on the research projects to be funded. Within these “open programmes”, projects from the social sciences and the humanities were given special attention. Thus, through the ANR, the governmentrecognised that these disciplinary fields might not be in a position to obtain a fair share of the funding allocated to the thematic fields, which reflected its research prioritiesfor the future. Thus, the sum of 25M€ was initially reserved for 3-year projects from the social sciences and humanities. This represents more than half of the research budget allocated to the social sciences and humanities sector by the universities and other public research organisations (47 M€ in 2004, excluding tenured staff costs) and more than double the annual budget previously allocated to these disciplines by the FNS (11,4 M€ in 2004).

2. The second ANR priority refers to the promotion of large-scale interdisciplinaryresearch programs in several thematic fields (health, food and agriculture, energy and sustainable development, nanoscience and nanotechnology, etc.). The provisional budget for these programmes rose to 436M€ over a three-year period.

3. Finally, the ANR intended to allocate a budget of 306 M€ to the promotion of so-called “partnership programmes” (programmes partenariaux). These programmes aim to create new research networks or to improve and strengthen existing networks. Half of the funding (151M€) was to be specifically targeted at public sector research bodies and the other half (155 M€) was meant to finance private sector research activities and networks.

Since the arguments underlying the creation of the ANR rest on the idea of increased efficiency and transparency in the research funding procedure, the ANR itself only employs about 30 staff. The public research bodies and higher education institutions serve as supportstructures for the academic research programs and private companies (or their institutional representatives) also carry out this role under the partnership programs. The public researchinstitutions supervise the programs funded by the ANR and they can also be responsible for their administration and management. In addition, these institutions organise the evaluations and the peer reviews of the projects received in response to the calls for tender. However, the ANR has the final decisional power for the selection of the research projects and for the definition of the calls for tender.

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Table 1. Funding of ANR Activities, 2005

Distribution by the nature of actions 2005 Budget

(M€)Future

commitments (M€)Funding for non-research activities 48 48

Funding for research activities

Open programmes

Thematic programmes

Partnership programmes (public sector), innovation, poles of excellence

Partnership programmes (private sector)

National enterprise prize

298

80

77

69

72

18

648

202

140

151

155

18

Total 346 696Source: http://www.gip-anr.fr accessed 9/9/2005

The ANR is directed by an administrative board (Conseil d’administration) of fourteen members, mostly representatives of diverse ministries and directors of public research bodies.The ministries involved in the ANR are: the Ministry of Research; the Ministry of Solidarity, Health and Family; the Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry and the Ministry of Education, Higher Education and Research. Among the public research bodies represented on the ANR, we find the CNRS, the INSERM, the INRA and ANRT4, as well as a representative of the Conference of University Presidents (Conférence des Présidents d’Université), a body composed of all the Vice-Chancellors of French universities.

The ANR has five thematic departments responsible for research programs in one specific field of study and these departments are in turn supervised by the general directorate (see Appendix 1). The social sciences and humanities are grouped together to form a singledepartment.

Each specific research program has at least one strategic committee in charge of defining the program’s content and an evaluation committee, responsible for selecting research proposals. The composition of each committee is published on the ANR web site.

In general, members are selected from the national or international research community concerned by the programme topic. The strategic committees also include non-academic members (representatives of private sector business or of civil society) and representatives from the relevant ministries. The committees are responsible for defining the specific objectives of the programme and for writing the calls for tender. They also define the evaluation criteria to be used in the peer review process.

4 The complete list of members (including their institutional status) is available on the ANR web site www.gip-anr.fr accessed 9/9/2005.

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Table 2. The Structure of the ANR Programme Committees

Type of program Academic researchResearch networks and

technological innovation

First level committee : evaluation committee

Scientific Council Thematic Commission

Second level committee : strategic committee

Piloting Committee Steering Council

In 2005, 35 different calls for tender were launched by the ANR and approximately 5300 research projects were submitted by the scientific community in response to these calls. As mentioned above, the selection process is based on peer review within the diverse committees. Each project submitted is first assessed by two French or foreign experts who make reports for the programme evaluation committee. This committee, composed of academics nominated intuitu personae5

, examines all the submitted projects and their expert evaluations and ranks them in order of merit. The strategic committee then elaborates a list of eligible projects for funding on the basis of the evaluation committee’s proposals and on the basis of its own selection criteria (Table 2). The strategic committee can therefore modify the ranking established by the evaluation committee according to its own priorities.

The final list of funded projects is validated by the ANR directorate and the fortunatecandidates are then informed of the funding decision (Table 3). As with most EU-funded projects, the initial budgets are renegotiated before the final contract is signed. The ANR projects receive a lump-sum budget and it is up to their scientific director to allocate resources within the project (staff, equipment, etc.). The ANR can cease funding if it thinks that the research is not carried out in accordance with the initial project, but there is no procedure defined for paying back the sums already allocated (Agence Nationale de la Recherche [GIP-ANR] 2005, p. 4).

5 In the case of Partnership programs, the evaluation committee is formed by academics and representatives of private sector business.

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Table 3. The ANR Selection Process

Source: http://www.gip-anr.fr accessed 9/9/2005

2.2.2. The ANR Interdisciplinary Research Programmes

In coordination with the public research institutions, the ANR plans to fund 26 large-scale interdisciplinary research programs which cover four main thematic fields: “Sustainable energy and environment” (Energie durable & Environnement), “Material and information” (Matière & Information), “Biology and Health” (Biologie & Santé) and “Ecosystems and sustainable development” (Ecosystèmes & Développement durable). In addition to these fields, the ANR also has a “non-thematic” field for spontaneous research projects which might not correspond to one of the research priorities defined by its thematic programs.

1st PHASE 2nd PHASE 3rd PHASE 4th PHASE

Calls for tender

Evaluation

Selection and budget decisions

April-July

Launch of the 34 calls for tender and reception of the proposed research projects

June-September

Evaluation of the 5300 projects submitted by the Evaluation Committee.

Selected projects ranked by the Strategic Orientation Committee.

September-October

Final list of funded projectsapproved by the ANR Director.

Results of the selection procedure transmitted to candidates.

Funds sent to the research units

From October to December 2005

TRANSVERSAL PHASE

Preparation of the research priorities for 2006 From August to November 2005

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Table 4. ANR Interdisciplinary Research Programmes in 2005

Source: http://www.gip-anr.fr accessed 9/9/2005

The thematic field “Energy and environment” includes eight interdisciplinary research programmes mainly focusing on the “hard” natural sciences, although two of the programmes do mention the possibility of integrating elements from the social sciences and humanities. The tender for the “Eco-technology” programme, for example, cites somewhat vaguely “human sciences” among the disciplines included and the “Climatology” programme callencourages “associations of historians, archaeologists and engineers”.

The six programs under the “Materials and information (ICT)” thematic heading also remain quite exclusively based on natural sciences. Only the “RNRT” program on telecommunications calls for interdisciplinary approaches including social sciences, such as sociology, psychology and ergonomics. There is no mention of the humanities in this thematic field.

The thematic fields “Biology and health” and “Ecosystems and sustainable development” focus less on the natural sciences and they therefore leave more space for interdisciplinary projects including some input from the social sciences and humanities. Four research programs under the thematic field “Biology and health” and three programs under the “Ecosystem and sustainable development” theme propose at least some connexions with thesocial sciences and humanities. For example, the program “Health and the environment and Health at work” is intended for “different disciplines from the humanities and social sciences, natural sciences, physics, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, etc.”, whereas the

Sustainable Energy &

Environment

Material & Information

(ICT)

Biology & Health

Ecosystems & Sustainable

Development

Non ThematicPrograms

PREDIT (transport)

PREBAT (energy in construction)

PAN H (hydrogen)

Interception and storing of CO2

Bio-energies

Solar energy

Eco-technologies

Climatology, natural environment and prevision of natural disasters

RNRT (tele-communications)

RNTL (software)

RIAM (multimedia)

Intensive calculus

Nanosciences and nanotechnologies

Materials and processes

Diabetes, obesity and heart diseases

Neurosciences, mental and neurological diseases

Microbiology, infections and immunity

Rare diseases

Health and the environment and Health at work

RIB (biotechnologies)

RNTS (technologies for health)

Agriculture and sustainable development

GenAgro (Genoplante, Agenae)

Food

Biodiversity

GMO

Chairs of Excellence

Young researchers

Open projects

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“Biodiversity” program explicitly calls for “projects at the interface of ecology and social sciences necessary for gauging the economic and social consequences of the transformations in biodiversity”6.

Since the first ANR final selection process is still underway, it is impossible for us to say exactly how many of the funded projects will include the social sciences and humanities. However, some indication can be drawn from those programmes which have finished theirfirst recruitment campaign. Thus, for example, the “Agriculture and sustainable development” programme is due to fund 15 projects to the tune of 4.8 M€. Eleven of these projects mentioncontributions from the social sciences disciplines (economics, sociology, anthropology,geography and political science, for example), but none of them include disciplines from thehumanities7.

The non-thematic programme covers three different kinds of funding. Firstly, “Chairs of excellence” are reserved for foreign academics who wish to work in France over a limited period of time (two to three years). In 2005, the ANR offered ten “junior” chairs of excellence (for candidates aged below 38 years of age8) and five “senior” chairs. The candidates, from any disciplinary background, are eligible if they already have a tenured job in the higher education or research sector in their home country. They are required to submit their own individual research projects for a three-year period. Finally, the “open” programme covers all the disciplinary fields and targets spontaneous projects emanating from the research community itself. The projects are selected on the bases of five main criteria: the ambition and originality of the project; the scientific quality of the research team; the interdisciplinary nature of the project and its international collaborations and the coherence between the project’s ambitions and the requested level of funding. In 2005, within the “open” programme, projects in social sciences and humanities were given special attention and a part of the program’s budget was initially reserved for these subject areas (see Table 5).

Table 5. Anticipated Funding of ANR Research Programmes, 2005

Distribution thematic/non thematic field Budget 2005 (M€)

Future commitments (M€)

Non thematic funding

Provision for the social sciences and humanities

139

10

260

25

Thematic funding

Energy and sustainable development

Health, agriculture, food

ICT, nanosciences and nanotechnologies

207

42

101

64

436

106

202

128

Total 346 696Source : http://www.gip-anr.fr accessed 9/9/2005

6 Citations are taken from the programme calls for tender, published on the ANR web site (our translations). 7 For further information, see http://www.gip-anr.fr (accessed 5/10/2005)8 An additional year can be obtained by candidates who have taken maternal or parental leave or have accomplished their national service.

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It is interesting to note that, although interdisciplinarity forms one of the main selection criteria within this programme, the funded projects are nevertheless evaluated and selected by disciplinary scientific councils. The ANR has nine “disciplinary” councils and each one of them evaluates “open” projects within its own field of expertise. The project coordinators are asked to choose the disciplinary council under which they want to be assessed. The projects can also be evaluated by two councils if they are “strongly interdisciplinary”9.

The ANR disciplinary councils focus on the following subject areas: Information and communication technology (STIC), Engineering, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Universe Sciences and geo-environment, Agronomy and ecology, Biology and health, Humanities and social sciences. These councils are not exactly based on a single discipline; they tend to be based on disciplinary groups between “neighbouring” disciplines. The humanities and social sciences council has 20 members from the following disciplines; Philosophy (2 members), History (3), Social History (1), Palaeontology (1), Art studies (1), Linguistics (1), French literature (1), English (1), Translation studies (1), Geography (1), Political science (2), Sociology (2), Anthropology (1), Economy (1) and Law (1).

2.2.3. First Results of the ANR Funding Process

It is important to note that the results presented here correspond to the situation in January 2006 and they only concern the research projects selected but not yet financed, since the final funding process is still underway.

In all, the ANR allocated 540 million Euros to 1400 research projects in 200510. Over 4500 research groups were involved in these projects, out of which 800 were located in private companies. Altogether, more than 5400 propositions were submitted to different thematic and non thematic programmes and the general rate of success was 26% and the global funding rate was 22%11. The largest part of the credits was distributed to CNRS research laboratories (30%) followed by private enterprises (19%) and higher education institutions (15%). In 2005, the average funding per project was 380 000 Euros and the project covered an average of 3.2 partners (individuals or research centres). However, there were quite important differences between the public and private sectors, since the average funding for projects carried out in public institutions was 260 000 euros for 2.5 partners, whereas the “partnership programmes” including private and public actors got on average 690 000 euros for 4.9 partners. About 30% of the total funding went to non-thematic projects, 25% to projects under the “Material and Information (ICT)” heading and 19% to “Biology and Health”.

The three programmes of the non-thematic field (chairs of excellence, young researchers andthe “open theme” call) distributed in all 170 million euros to 670 projects, involving some 1200 different research units. Most (98%) of this funding was attributed to the public sectorand to CNRS research teams, which received 57% of the global budget. The “open” projects were evaluated within nine “disciplinary groups”, as mentioned above, and these disciplinary commissions received quite different levels of response to their calls for tender.

9 Citation from the “non thematic” programme call for tender (http://www.gip-anr.fr accessed 9/9/2005) 10 The information used in this section is drawn from the ANR report: Agence Nationale de la Recherche [GIP-ANR]. 2005. "Appels à projets 2005: premier bilan du processus de sélection." Pp. 22. Paris: GIP-ANR.11 Ratio of the funding allocated compared to the funding initially requested.

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The “Biology and Health” was the most successful group with 31% of the total of 2200 projects submitted, whereas the “Humanities and social sciences” commission received only 280 project proposals, including both the “open” and the young researcher projects. Indeed, the ANR call received fewer responses from the humanities and social sciences than in previous years under the FNS system (such as the ACI programmes described below). This is probably explained at least in part by the short submission procedure under the ANR. However, according to the Ministry of Research, the novelty of these programs might also have decreased the number of submitted projects. The Ministry believes that researchers in the humanities and social sciences have difficulty formulating “spontaneous” researchprojects and it therefore intends to set up thematic programs specifically targeting these fields in the next ANR funding campaign12 (Agence Nationale de la Recherche [GIP-ANR] 2005, p. 11).

The humanities and social sciences “disciplinary group” funded a total of 58 “open” and 37 “young researchers” projects. There is no information available on the interdisciplinary or disciplinary nature of these projects. However, only three “open” and two young researcher projects mentioned the interdisciplinary nature of the research in their title13. The average funding for projects in humanities and social sciences was 140 000 Euros, while the funding for projects within the other disciplinary groups ranged from 220 000 to 300 000 Euros (except in Mathematics with an average of 120 000 Euros per project) (Agence Nationale de la Recherche [GIP-ANR] 2005, p. 11).

In all, the different thematic programmes allocated 387 million Euros as follows: the “Material and information ICT” program attributed 130 million Euros to 220 projects, mainly in nanosciences/nanotechnologies and communication sciences (STIC); the “Sustainable energy and environment” programme accredited 150 projects with 100 million Euros; the “Biology and Health” programme funded 270 projects with a global budget of 110 million euros, and the “Ecosystems and sustainable development” programme allocated 47 millionEuros to 120 research projects (Agence Nationale de la Recherche [GIP-ANR] 2005, p. 12-21).

Unfortunately, since the projects funded under the ANR programme are only just starting, it was impossible for us to take one of these as our case study materiel. In the absence of information on the research and dissemination practices of these projects, we decided to focus on the previous national research programme funded by the Ministry of Research – the so-called Integrated Concerted Action (Action concertée intégrée - ACI) programme.

12 These thematic programs are not yet published on the ANR web site (January 2006).13 For the full list of funded projects see the ANR web site www.gip-anr.fr/resultats/index.htm accessed 4/1/2006.

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3. The Ministry of Research Interdisciplinary Programmes

Before the creation of the ANR, in May 2005, the Ministry of Research allocated research funding through the former National Science Fund (Fonds National de la Science - FNS). In accordance with the priority objectives defined by the government and by Parliament, the FNS financed several types of research activities, including: Concerted Thematic Action Programmes (Actions concertées thématiques - ATC), Federations of Research Institutions (Instituts fédératifs de recherché - IFR), as well as a series of Concerted Incentive Action Programmes (Actions concertées incitatives – ACI).

Through these initiatives, the FNS aimed to “support new research themes, especially in the strategic fields of study, requiring pluridisciplinary approaches and widespread cooperation between research teams and institutions”14. The FNS thus had a dual mission. On the one hand, it was supposed to promote research in areas that were defined as priority themes by the Ministry of Research. At the same time, it was supposed to foster cooperation between partners in the public research sector. In this context, interdisciplinary research teams and/or research methods were acknowledged as a major channel for enabling new research themes (or even new disciplines) to emerge and develop, and thus for regenerating scientific enquiry. They were also seen as a key to solving increasingly complex social problems.

Contrary to the ANR, the FNS did not contribute directly to private-sector research activities. However, the FNS could occasionally fund R&D activities in non-commercial institutions or associations (NGOs, private foundations, etc.), usually in partnership with public-sector research organisations.

3.1. The ACI Programme

The Ministry of Research ACI programme was first launched in 1999, with the explicit aim of developing interdisciplinary research initiatives. It came to a somewhat brutal close in 2004, with the launch of the new ANR. In 2001, 122M€ were allocated to the ACI programme for funding diverse research projects in a number of trans-disciplinary fields: health, information technology, engineering, astronomy and the humanities and social sciences.

The ACI programme aimed at supporting university-based and other public sector research bodies in developing multi-disciplinary and collaborative research projects. In addition to the interdisciplinary research projects, the FNS paid special attention to “young researchers” and some parts of the ACI programmes were reserved for this specific group of academic staff (usually aged below 35, although this age limit could be extended to 40 in the life and social sciences), who submitted their own individual research projects under each of the programme headings. The ACI programme also provided funding for doctoral training (PhD grants and post-doctoral stipends). According to a recent research evaluation report, support for “young researchers” represented about 10% of the ACI budget and about 1% of the CNRS programme budget (Comité national d'évaluation de la recherche [CNER] 2003, p.43).

14 Citations and information used in this section are taken from the Ministry of Research’s web site http://www.recherche.gouv.fr/recherche/fns/index1.htm accessed 11/10/2005.

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3.1.1. ACI Organisation and Activities

The ACI programme was coordinated by the Ministry of Research and the public research bodies (Higher Education Institutions or other Public Sector Scientific and Technological Establishments [EPST] or Public Sector Industrial and Commercial Establishments [EPIC]). The public research bodies, such as the CNRS, also contributed to the ACI budget.

Each specific sub-programme of the general ACI programme was supervised by a director and an academic scientific council. The research projects were selected through successive calls for tender addressed to the whole scientific community. These calls were usually published on an annual basis and the selected research projects obtained financial support for three or four years.

The ACI selection process was quite similar to the ANR procedure outlined above. The project submissions were first assessed by the members of the sub-programme’s scientific council (usually external experts in the specific field of study covered by the programme), who evaluated the projects according to the precise programme objectives. Their evaluationreports were then passed on to the ACI programme director and scientific council who ranked the eligible projects in order of merit. This list was validated by the Ministry of Research. The scientific council could also request an additional expert appraisal from the Scientific, Technical and Pedagogical Mission (Mission scientifique, technique et pédagogique du ministère – MSTP) of the Ministry.

In contrast to the ANR, the scientific councils of the ACI programme were mostly made up of French nationals and there was less stress on the opinion of foreign academics. Another difference between these two programmes concerns the size of the research teams. As we have seen, the ANR programme laid great importance on the development of large-scale networks composed of several research teams or units, thus favouring large-scale research projects, whereas the former ACI programme also funded small-scale projects, often carried out by isolated individual academics and/or a single research centre.

Projects funded under the ACI programme were submitted to a dual evaluation procedure: at mid-term and at the end of the project. In the course of each programme, the Ministry of Research organised a series of research seminars,15 which were dedicated both to presentingthe results of the on-going projects and to formulating recommendations for future actions. In some cases, the priority research themes were thus maintained and developed over several ACI programme campaigns.

3.1.2. Projects Funded under the 2004 ACI Programme

As shown in the Table 6, the ACI programme in 2004 covered four interdisciplinary thematic fields, including 30 different research programmes. It also included funding for visiting scholars and young researchers. In 2004, the « young researcher » programme received a total of 1314 project submissions, 106 of which were funded, sharing a budget of 7,25 M€.16

15 These conferences were called “Bilans et perspectives”.16 For further information, see the results of the “young researcher” call for tender on the Ministry web site http://www.recherche.gouv.fr/appel/resultats.htm accessed 11/10/2005.

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Interdisciplinary research projects were actively encouraged under almost all the thematic fields of the ACI programme, although the precise disciplinary combinations varied from one programme to another. The thematic fields “Biomedical and life science research” and “Information and communication technology” called for collaboration between the natural sciences and engineering, whereas the thematic field on “Sustainable development and theenvironment” also encouraged research projects from the humanities and social sciences. Some of the programmes within this field (such as the “Global changes” and the “Society and cultures for sustainable development” programmes) explicitly called for interdisciplinary research involving the humanities and social sciences. Other programmes, such as “Sustainable urban development” and “Environment and health”, invited projects combining the natural and social sciences and the humanities or called for projects that could integrate “geographical, historical, sociological, economic, cultural and organisational dimensions”.

The 2004 campaign also included an important thematic field which targeted projects from the humanities and social science disciplines. This field covered a total of eleven research programmes, some of which were open to projects from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds and others targeting a more restricted audience. The following seven programmes called for interdisciplinary research across a wide variety of social sciences and humanities disciplines:

“Fieldwork, methods and theories”;

“Complex systems in the social sciences and humanities”;

“Road safety and society”;

“Practical norms and public policy regulations”;

“Space and territories”;

“Education and training”;

“Piref”.17

Thus, the “Fieldwork, methods and theories” and “Road security and society” programmes targeted quite broadly interdisciplinary work from all the social sciences and humanities and “Practical norms and public policy regulations” programme listed disciplines like “political science, economics, management, law, philosophy, history, geography, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, social psychology” as potential contributors. On the other hand, the “Scientific culture” programme focused mainly on projects from history, archaeology and art studies. The “Chorus” programme only funded Franco-Japanese collaborative projects (fromall the disciplinary fields), whilst the “Prosodie” programme also aimed to fund mono-disciplinary projects, as long as they were submitted by research teams that had already attained a recognised level of “excellence” in their specific field of study. Finally, the objective of the “Internationalisation of the humanities and social sciences” programme was to develop new interdisciplinary and international thematic networks (or to reinforce the already existing ones) in all the social sciences and humanities, although the projects from law were (for some reason) given special attention.

17 As we shall see in detail in the next section, these last two programmes were interconnected and mutually supported each other.

18

The ACI web site provides no information about the funding levels for projects selected under the 2004 call for tender and our informant at the Ministry of Research was also unable to provide this information.

Table 6.The Interdisciplinary ACI Programmes by Major Subject Area in 2004

Source: http://www.recherche.gouv.fr/recherche/fns/index1.htm accessed 11/10/2005

3.2. The ACI Interdisciplinary Programme on “Education and Training”

Because of the explicit attention it pays to interdisciplinary links between the humanities and the social sciences, we decided to select the “Education and Training” (Education et formation) ACI research programme as our first case study.

The “Education and Training” programme was launched in the spring of 2004 and it was initially due to run for four years. At the time of our field-work, the programme was only just starting, but we were able to pursue our analysis because this programme is actually a follow-up to a previous ACI programme entitled “Education and Cognitive Sciences” (Ecole et sciences cognitives), which ran from April 2000 to early 2004. It also functions in tandem with the two-year PIREF ACI programme, which was initiated in March 2002 and disbanded in 2004 (due to the creation of the ANR). These partially overlapping programmes are all aimed at reinforcing the national research potential on questions relating to education and

Attraction of France

Information and communication

science and technology

Humanities and Social sciences

Sustainabledevelopment, environment

Biomedical research and science of life

« Initiative post-doc »

Chairs of excellence

Globalisation of information ressources

Masses des données

New interfaces in mathematics

Security and information

Nano-sciences

Scientific culture

Education and Training

Spaces and territories

Internationalisation of the humanities and social sciences

Practical norms and public policy regulations

PIREF

Chorus

Prosodie

Road safety and society

Complex systems in the social sciences and humanities

Fieldwork, methods and theories

Global changes

Economical models and sustainable development

Sustainable urban development

Energy, sustainable conception

Environment and health

Continental ecosphere (ECCO)

Impact GMO

Society and cultures for sustainable development

Cell, molecule and structural biology (BCMS)

Poles of cancer

Interdisciplinarity of living

Neurosciences

Research Centres in life science

Puces Affymetrix

Young researchers

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training. They often involve the same individual researchers, although they each address this question from a different angle.

The previous “Education and Cognitive Sciences” ACI programme aimed to promote studies focusing on childhood learning practices and their socio-cultural and genetic determinants, whilst also building bridges between cognitive science research activities and their practical application, notably in teacher-training institutions. It supported projects on various aspects ofthe learning process, combining contributions from disciplines such as psychology, the natural sciences (mostly neurology), engineering, communication and information technologies of / and didactics.

The present “Education and Training” ACI programme continues to support the research priorities defined above, but also extends its brief into such themes as life-long learning and adult training. The objective of “Education and Training” ACI programme is thus to mobilise a wide range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences around this broad theme and to reinforce the disciplinary and interdisciplinary research carried out within this field. To a certain extent, both of these ACI programmes owe their existence to the creation of a so-called “incentive programme” on education and training (Programme incitatif de recherche sur l’éducation et la formation - PIREF) that was funded by Ministry in the early 2000s.

This incentive programme brought together research teams, individual researchers, Ministry experts and professionals from the primary and secondary education sectors, in an effort to develop innovative and collaborative research activities centred on the most burning questions or social problems facing the national education system. As its title suggests, the PIREF was thus defined as an essentially applied research programme, with active intervention from the State to incite national research teams to contribute to solving particular problems or to making expert recommendations for future policy initiatives.

As the scientific Director of the current ACI explained, the PIREF was initially more than a simple research programme. It was created by law (i.e. had statutory status) by a previous Research Minister with a particular interest in questions relating to education policy and was immediately allocated office space and two full-time support staff. Although the PIREF still exists (since no law has been passed to disband it), its resources were cut off when the new Research Minister decided to initiate the ANR. In order to maintain the networking already achieved, the Ministry provided funds to continue part of the activities of the PIREF in the form of an ACI. The “Education and Training” ACI programme is presented by its directors as a continuation of the PIREF activities.

All of these ACI programmes thus aspire to promoting new forms of cooperation between research teams and to re-organise / rationalise the research carried out in the field of education and training in France.

3.2.1. The Organisation and Funding of the ACI “Education and Training”Programme

The “Education and Training” ACI programme is directed by a scientific council of 22 members, most of whom were previously involved in the PIREF programme18. All of the

18 For further details see the programme’s web site http://www.recherche.gouv.fr/recherche/fns/acief.htm

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members have a tenured academic background, either at a university or in a public research institution. The council includes 15 university professors, 1 senior lecturer, 5 research directors and 1 researcher. Four of the members come from the humanities (History of education, Linguistics and French didactics); the others have a disciplinary background in the social sciences (six in Education Studies, four in Psychology, four in Sociology, two in Economics, one in Information and Communication Studies and one in Health). The programme has a shared directorship with a female programme director (Professor ofEducation Studies), and a male president of the Scientific council (CNRS Research Director in Economics). In all, the council comprises 14 male members and 8 female members (see Appendix 5). None of the Council members and neither of the programme directors are paid for their contribution to running the ACI, which is often quite time-consuming. However, since the creation of an ACI is often seen as a form of official (ministerial) recognition of a particular existing network or thematic field of study, taking part in the administrative management of the programme is often viewed as a personal contribution to the field. On a less altruistic front, the ACI Council members also define the research agenda for the coming years; acquire first-hand knowledge about the research projects currently being planned or undertaken in their own field of expertise; decide on the allocation of resources between research units and individual colleagues; achieve recognition as experts from their peers, etc.

In addition to funding from the Ministry of Research, the “Education and Training” ACI programme also receives financial support from the French government Technology directorate (Direction de la technologie) and from the Humanities and social sciences (SHS)Department of the CNRS. According to the person in charge of the “Education and Training” ACI at the Research Ministry, the programme benefits from a total budget of approximately 800 000 Euros, including 50 000 Euros paid by the CNRS.

The programme also benefits from contributions “in kind” from the evaluation and prospective Directorate at the Ministry of Education and Research and has been able to offer several 3 year targeted research grants to PhD students who undertake doctoral research within the programme.

3.2.2. The ACI Calls for Tender and Priority Research Themes

To date, the “Education and Training” ACI programme has published two separate calls for tender. The first one, published in the spring 2004, focused on the consequences of the material organisation of the learning context for knowledge acquisition. The second call, launched during the summer 2004, targeted projects on information and communication technologies and their various applications (ICT learning, for example).

The first call for tender was open to all the social science and humanities disciplines, but it explicitly mentioned disciplines such as economics, sociology of education, political science, psychology and social psychology, as well as linguistics. It also mentioned that contributions from disciplines such as didactics, information technology and history would be welcome. According to this first call for tender, priority would be given to research projects:“combining several disciplines from the humanities and social sciences and/or associating several French and foreign research teams”. Furthermore, the scientific council specifically invited research projects involving some kind of field work that would produce new empiricalmaterial for analysis.

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The first call for tender set quite clear research priorities and formulated some “key research questions”. It also provided a number of examples for potential research areas and analytical frameworks. From the call, we can identify three main research themes. The first focuses on learning situations and calls for projects comparing the effects of different learning contexts (general versus vocational education, or initial formation versus life long learning, etc.) onpupils / students. The second theme centres on the time dimension and the dynamics of thelearning processes. Projects under this heading could focus, for example, on life long learning, on the competencies gained on-the-job and on the influence of unemployment on individuals’ learning skills. Finally, the third theme called for studies framed in terms of class and social groups, focusing on social reproduction and the consequences of education on individual values and behaviour.

As mentioned above, the second call for tender addressed the use and application of ICT in educational practices. It concerned all the levels of educational system (from primary school to higher education) and all communications technologies and/or audiovisual learning materials. The interdisciplinary nature of the projects was explicitly mentioned amongst the selection criteria and projects bridging education studies and information and communicationstudies (STIC) were particularly encouraged. However, other disciplines were also cited, suchas anthropology and ethnology, economics and management, history, psychology, sociology and cognitive sciences.

3.2.3. The Research Projects Funded under the “Education and Training” ACI Programme

The first campaign funded a total of 10 research projects, as did the second (see Appendix 4). According to the president of the scientific council, the success rate was around 20%, given that the first call received approximately 41 applications. The first call was funded to a total of 421 000 Euros, which was distributed to projects which the Director clearly identified by their discipline (1 from Education sciences, 4 from Sociology, 3 from Economics and 2 from Psychology). The budget for the second call was slightly lower (340 000 Euros), although the same number of project submissions was received (42). Unfortunately, only 5 out of the 10 projects funded under the second call are currently presented on the ACI web site.

Table 7. Disciplinary Origin of Projects Submitted under the “Education & Training” ACIDisciplines / N° of submissions Received

EducationStudies

Sociology Psychology EconomicsSports Studies

DidacticsCommuni-

cationStudies

« Hard »Sciences

Total

1st call 19 11 5 6 - - - - 41% 46% 27% 12% 15% 0% 0% 0% 0% 100%2nd call 11 - 6 1 1 3 15 5 42% 26% 0% 14% 2% 2% 7% 36% 12% 100%Source: Interview President of the ACI Scientific Council.

Identifying the disciplines represented amongst the projects funded was not a straightforward task, since this type of information is not available on the ACI programme web site. However, according to the program director and the president of the scientific council, the applications and the funded projects were principally from the social sciences. As the program director put it, the “Education and Training” ACI programme was interdisciplinary in the sense that it

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covered “the diversity of the social sciences” (Interview, Programme director: p.6). For the president of the scientific council, the interdisciplinary nature of the programme principally meant that there was a “balance between the disciplines”. In other words, the programme had succeeded in attracting projects from different disciplines and in spreading the funding between them as equally as possible (Interview, President of Scientific Council: p. 4).

This (rather restrictive) conception of “interdisciplinarity” reflected to a certain extent the experiences of the programme director. As she explained: “Personally, I work in a research centre where there are economists and sociologists. On the floor below, there are also psychologists that I often discuss things with, so I was quite sensitive to the pluridisciplinary side of things and right from the outset, both for the PIREF and for the ACI, I made sure that the main disciplines were represented on the Scientific Council” (Interview, ACI Programme director: p. 4).

In fact, despite the pluridisciplinary composition of the Scientific Council, the projects selected under the first call were either mono-disciplinary or bi-disciplinary. Among the disciplines included in the projects were: psychology, economics, education studies, sociology, social psychology and linguistics. The projects that combined two disciplines included, for example, education studies and psychology or sociology; psychology and linguistics or economics and psychology. According to the president of the scientific council, the first ten projects funded included: “two from sociology, sociology of education and perhaps the sociology of work, two or three projects from psychology, one or two from economics, economics of education and one or two projects from education studies, that was about it”(Interview, President ACI Scientific Council: p. 3).

The projects funded under the second call were more likely to associate contributions fromthe social sciences with the hard natural sciences (like physics) and engineering. However, in the words of the director of the programme: “At the end of the day, the projects were not that interdisciplinary. I never received any wide-ranging projects in terms of disciplines, covering psychology, history and economics. There was nothing revolutionary. It was more a case of tandems of disciplines that went together well” (Interview, ACI Programme director: p. 8).

Furthermore, the projects were selected by the members of the scientific council who usually evaluated projects in their own disciplinary field, although each project was also evaluated by another member or by an external expert from another disciplinary background. According to the programme director the evaluation procedure “remained relatively disciplinary”. She also acknowledged that the interdisciplinary nature of the projects was just one of the evaluation criteria: “It was a positive point, but no more or less than the criterion of international collaboration, for example” (Interview, ACI Programme director: pp. 5-6).

The lack of projects from the Humanities was explained by the nature of the call, clearly focussed on projects that would contribute to the public policy decision-making process. As the programme director explained: “We were really interested in projects that would shed some light on education policies rather than what one could call ’aesthetic research’ as such. I think that’s probably why we didn’t select the Humanities, as you call them, because we had a very practical objective, to provide policy recommendations, which is also an important outcome for research too” (Interview, ACI Programme director: pp. 6-7).

In conclusion to this section, we can thus observe that the explicitly interdisciplinary research programmes funded by the Ministry of Research generally produced rather modest levels of

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cross-disciplinary collaboration. Those projects that did include specialists from more than one discipline tended to be based on a “disciplinary tandem” principle and to foster collaboration between specialists from neighbouring disciplines. The programme itself could legitimately be termed “interdisciplinary”, in so far as it was open to specialists from a relatively wide range of disciplinary backgrounds and that care was taken to spread the funding as widely as possible across the disciplinary spectrum. However, as we will see in more detail in the concluding section of this report, the individual research projects carried out within the interdisciplinary programme were very often mono-disciplinary. They were essentially based on the standard research methodologies of a single discipline and addressed relatively narrow sub-themes within the call for tenders.

Furthermore, precisely in order to demonstrate an equal share of the ACI resources between the disciplines, this particular ACI programme actually ended up presenting the projects funded according to their “disciplinary origin”.

A constant reference to the disciplines, even when the interdisciplinary principle is at the heart of the research programme, can also be identified as one of the main characteristics of the interdisciplinary research programmes funded by the CNRS, which we present in more detail in the following section.

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4. The CNRS Interdisciplinary Research Programmes

In much the same vein as the Ministry of Research, the largest public sector research institution in France, the National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS), has also made the development of interdisciplinary research one of its top priorities. In the 2002 policy document (projet d’établissement), the CNRS claimed that strengthening interdisciplinary research was one of its three main priorities for the four following years. In order to meet this objective, the CNRS intended to “remove the existing obstacles to the development of different forms of interdisciplinarity” (Centre national de la recherche scientifique [CNRS] 2002, p. 26), notably by giving strategic priority to interdisciplinary research projects, by adapting its evaluation process to the specific requirements of interdisciplinary research and by creating innovative and more flexible structures for this type of research.

The CNRS also recognised that interdisciplinary research work is particularly time-consuming and therefore stated that the evaluation criteria of individual researchers would take these added constraints into account. The CNRS suggested that researchers engaged in interdisciplinary projects should be able to publish less than their colleagues working on mono-disciplinary projects without suffering any negative consequences for their career advancement (Centre national de la recherche scientifique [CNRS] 2002, p. 26). The CNRSalso encouraged the formation of local networks bringing together research teams working in the same thematic field and within the same geographical area, as a way of optimising the use of material and human resources (Centre national de la recherche scientifique [CNRS] 2002, p. 27). These recommendations are still quite recent and it is thus difficult to say whether this strategy will prove to be effective in breaking down the strong disciplinary boundaries that have been so endemic to the French public research sector to date.

Since 1997, the CNRS has developed some twenty interdisciplinary research programmes (PIR) among its priority programmes. These programmes are divided into several main streams and their objective is to develop interdisciplinary research in all fields of study and between all the disciplines (Centre national de la recherche scientifique [CNRS] 2000, p. 3). According to the official public discourse of the CNRS19, the major objectives of the interdisciplinary research programs are as follows: improving knowledge production, ensuring economic and technological development and solving complex social problems.

By actively supporting interdisciplinary research programmes, the CNRS hopes to promotethe emergence of new scientific fields on the frontier of different disciplinary-based research traditions and also to respond to economic and social problems. In practise, however, most of the topics covered by the PIR are very clearly oriented towards the “hard” natural sciencesand, consequently, have little impact on interdisciplinary projects within or between the humanities and social sciences.

Within the CNRS, the decision to create a new interdisciplinary programme is taken by the general director, after consultation with the Scientific Council. The decision has to be approved by the Administrative Board (Centre national de la recherche scientifique [CNRS] 2004a, p. 1). The themes for new programmes can either be suggested by the board of the CNRS or initiated by the research community. In practise, the programmes are generally defined in collaboration and also include suggestions from external decision-making bodies,

19 Available on the CNRS web site www.cnrs.fr/strategie/presentation.html accessed 5/9/2005.

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such as the State or labour market representatives20. The definition of these priority research programmes has important consequences as far as the allocation of tenured research jobs and recruitment possibilities within the CNRS are concerned. Each of these programmes also enables CNRS research units (including the “mixed” research units located within universities) to apply for targeted funding for PhD and postdoctoral students.

The interdisciplinary programmes are generally coordinated by the CNRS Research Programmes Department (Direction des études et des programmes - DEP) and they usually run for three or four years. Some are renewable. Each program is managed by a program director, who works under the supervision of a scientific director, who is frequently in charge of several programmes (Centre national de la recherche scientifique [CNRS] 2001a).

The current funding for the CNRS interdisciplinary research programs is approximately 20M€ per year, which represents less than 10% of the total CNRS budget. However, the CNRS has increased its support for interdisciplinary research over recent years. In 2000-2001, less than 8% of its budget was spent on such programmes (110 million Francs) (Centre national de la recherche scientifique [CNRS] 2001b, 2003).

The programmes are generally based on calls for tender (appel d’offres) open to the academic community, even beyond the CNRS. These calls for tender are seen as the best tools to promote partnership with other public organisations, like universities and other higher education institutions, as well as with private companies. The calls for tender are also seen as a useful instrument within the CNRS since they help to identify active research centres and tostrengthen collaboration between them (in the form of seminars, doctoral training activities, joint publications, conferences, etc.). The CNRS sees this as an important step towards promoting networking.

4.1. The Current CNRS Interdisciplinary Research Programs

In 2003, six new interdisciplinary programmes were launched by the CNRS, with a further three new programmes planned to start in 2004. At the same time, three programmes reached completion in 2003 (“DNA and cells”, “Molecules and therapeutic targets”, “Environment, life and societies”) and five more in 2004 (“Human origins, the origins of language and the languages”, “Cognition and information treatment”, “Robotics and artificial elements”, “Environment and climate of the past; history and evolution” and “Bio-informatics”)21.The on-going research programmes cover the following thematic areas:

Six programmes under the heading “The social challenges of the life sciences” (basically research on ethics);

Four programmes under the heading “Information, communication and knowledge”;

Six programmes under the heading “Environment, energy and sustainable development”;

Three programmes under the heading “Nano-sciences, nano-technologies, materials”;

One specific programme on “Astro-particles” (see Table 8).

20 For further information see the CNRS–DEP archives http://www.cnrs.fr/DEP/prg/archives/progsc.htmlaccessed 5/9/2005.21 Details of the previous programmes can be found in the DEP archives http://www.cnrs.fr/DEP/prg/archives/progsc.html accessed 6/9/2005.

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As this list shows quite clearly, few of these programmes are open to research projects from the humanities and social sciences.

Table 8. Major Themes of the CNRS Interdisciplinary Programmes

Complexity of living Dynamics and reactivity of biological assemblagesProteomics and protein engineeringSmall animal imagingBio-medical sciences, health and society Fundamental microbiology

Information societyKnowledge processing, Learning and Innovative ITComplex systems in human and social sciencesHistory of knowledge

Downstream electronuclear cycle programme (PACE)The GEOMEX programmeImpact of biotechnology on agro-ecosystemsEnergySustainable urban development program The AMAZONIE programme

Nanoscience – nanotechnologyMaterialsMicrofluidics and fluidic Microsystems

Astroparticles

Source : http://www.cnrs.fr/DEP/prg/programme.html accessed 5/9/2005

The social challenges of the life sciences

Information, communication and

knowledge

Environment, energy and sustainable development

Nanosciences, nanotechnologies,

materials

Astroparticles

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In fact, the six research programmes on “The social challenges of the life sciences” are mainly focused on biology and other natural sciences. These programs call for multidisciplinary approaches using knowledge from the physics-biology and chemistry-biology interface (“Dynamics and reactivity of biological assemblages”, “Fundamental microbiology”, “Complexity of living”), from natural science-engineering synergies (“Proteomics and protein engineering”, “Small animal imaging”) or from life sciences, medical disciplines and the social sciences (“Bio-medical sciences, health and society”). There is no mention of the humanities or any interdisciplinary focus involving the humanities or the social sciences in the descriptions of these research programmes.

However, the four research programmes under the “Information, communication and knowledge” stream explicitly encourage collaboration between the humanities and social sciences. For example, the research programme on “Information society” calls for “linguists, psycholinguists and psychologists, sociologists, economists, geographers, legal scholars, but also archaeologists, historians and literature specialists working on interdisciplinary projects with NICT researchers” (Centre national de la recherche scientifique [CNRS] 2003, p. 17).

In much the same vein, the “Knowledge processing, learning and innovative IT” programme welcomes projects combining approaches from linguistics, computer science, psychology,ergonomics, semiotics; sociology and epistemology. The “Complex systems in human and social sciences” programme also covers a number of areas corresponding to the various disciplines of the human and social sciences, including economics and linguistics, anthropology and sociology. Finally, the “History of knowledge” program encourageshistorians to initiate collaboration with anthropologists, linguists, sociologists as well as with specialists in information and communication technology (STIC). The first projects funded under this programme brought together historians and philosophers, or historians and computer engineers, thus respecting the wish to create a dialogue between these different research communities (Centre national de la recherche scientifique [CNRS] 2003, p. 28).

The third CNRS interdisciplinary theme “Environment, energy and sustainable development” also leaves some space for the humanities and social sciences alongside the “hard” natural sciences. Programs like “Energy”, “Impact of biotechnology on agro-ecosystems”, “Amazone” and “Sustainable urban development programme” target research centres workingin the fields of transport, ecology, biometrics, eco-toxicology, economics and human sciences. Thus, contributions from research centres belonging to the Departments of Life Sciences, Universe Sciences, Engineering, as well as from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences are encouraged. However, the two remaining programmes under this thematic field,“Downstream electronuclear cycle programme (PACE)” and “GEOMEX”, bring together mainly natural scientists such as physicists, biologists, chemists and geologists.

The natural sciences also dominate the two remaining programmes: “Nanosciences, nanotechnologies, materials” and “Astroparticles”. These research programmes aim to form interdisciplinary teams of physicists, chemists, biologists, engineers of different specialities and other natural scientists. None of the four programmes even mention the humanities or social sciences.

The CNRS department of humanities and social sciences (Sciences de l’homme et de la société - SHS) directly coordinates 5 of these interdisciplinary programmes and actively participates in several others. The programmes directed by the SHS Department belong to the

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following three streams: a) “The social challenges of the life sciences”; b) “Information, communication and knowledge”; c)”Environment, energy and sustainable development”.

In the first group, the SHS department co-ordinates the “Biomedical sciences, health and society” programme. In the second group, it manages three programmes: “Information society”, “Complex systems in human and social sciences” and “History of knowledge”. It also participates in the “Knowledge processing, learning and innovative IT” programme. Finally, in the third group, it directs the interdisciplinary project “Sustainable urban development”, and contributes to three others: “Energy”, “Impact of biotechnology on agro-ecosystems” and the science programme entitled “Amazone”.

In 2003-2004, the CNRS interdisciplinary programmes spent 25 625 000€ (Centre national de la recherche scientifique [CNRS] 2004b), although this funding was not necessarily shared equally between the five main themes; “The social challenges of the life sciences” and “Environment, energy and sustainable development” both obtained 30% of the credits, 21% went to the “Nanosciences, nanotechnologies, materials” programme, 17% to the “Information, communication and knowledge” programme and 4% to “Astroparticles”.

Furthermore, the CNRS departments also received an unequal share of the funding. The Life sciences department (Sciences de la vie - SDV) obtained 23.2% of the global budget, mainly for projects in the field of “The social challenges of the life sciences”; the Humanities and social sciences department received 13.6% of the funding, principally for research projects focusing on “Information, communication and knowledge”: the Mathematics and physics department (Sciences physiques et mathématiques - SPM) received 13% of the budget, mainly for projects on “Nanosciences, nanotechnologies, materials” and the Information and communication science and technology department (Sciences et technologies de l’information et de la communication - STIC) obtained 11.9% for projects on “Information, communication and knowledge” as well as on “Nanosciences, nanotechnologies, materials”. The departments of Chemical Science (Sciences chimiques - SC) and Engineering (Sciences pour l’ingénieur -SPI), both received approximately 11% of the total funding and participated in projects from several scientific fields, while the projects initiated within the nuclear and particle physics department (Physique nucléaire et corpusculaire - PNC) and the sciences of the universe department (Sciences de l’Univers - SDU) mainly concentrated in one or two fields (see Table 9).

In all these programmes, interdisciplinarity and methodological innovation are mentioned as required criteria for funding. However, it is often simultaneously recognised that interdisciplinarity is difficult to achieve in practice, since it not only requires a good understanding of the concepts and methodologies used in other disciplines, it also implies a certain degree of familiarity with the individuals involved in the field. It is therefore interesting to look at one of the CNRS interdisciplinary programs in more detail in order to examine exactly how interdisciplinary research is conducted in practice at the concrete research project level. In the following section, we will study an interdisciplinary programmeentitled “European Identity in Question” (L’identité européenne en questions), funded under the 1997-2000 CNRS interdisciplinary programme. We specifically chose a project that had reached completion, since this enabled us to study not only the research content, the methodology and the disciplinary composition of the teams, but also the nature of the dissemination activities that followed the project. However, before analysing this programme in more detail, we would also like to mention another aspect of the CNRS interdisciplinary activities.

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Table 9. Funding of the CNRS Interdisciplinary Programmes, by Disciplinary Field and Department, 2003-200422

Source: CNRS : Prepilab, 31/12/2004 - Traitements DEP/SP

4.2. Interdisciplinary Thematic Networks (RTP)

In addition to the interdisciplinary research programs, the CNRS also supports large interdisciplinary thematic networks (RTP), bringing together research teams from various disciplinary backgrounds and working within the same thematic field or/and around the same research object.

In September 2003, following its “Foresight Conference” (colloque prospective)23, the Humanities and Social Sciences (SHS) Department launched six interdisciplinary thematic networks and several other RTP networks have been created during the two past years. These networks usually run for three years and they act as an implementation tool for the departmental scientific policy. The networks operate as consulting bodies formulating propositions for the further development of multidisciplinary research. Thus, they are not funded in order to actually conduct interdisciplinary research, but rather to act as a forum for

22 This table only includes the CNRS budget. Additional funding from the Ministry of Research (through the ANR or other research programmes) is not included here.23 The data used in this section is available on the CNRS website http://www.cnrs.fr/SHS/actions/intro_RTP.phpaccessed 6/9/2005.

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the promotion of collaboration between existing research projects around common thematic interests.

The interdisciplinary thematic networks are flexible structures. They are coordinated by a director and an administrative board (bureau) nominated by the director of the SHS department. The annual funding for a thematic network ranges from 5000 € to 10 000 €. The networks have to provide an annual report on their activities for the scientific council of the department. These actions can include, for example: the production of a directory listing all the national research teams or centres working on a specific interdisciplinary topic; the mapping of the existing interdisciplinary research done in a specific field; the coordination ofdissemination activities (publications, conferences, seminars, etc.); the development of the cooperation between researchers engaged in the same thematic field and networking activities. The networks can also take part in doctoral training activities. In September 2005, there were eleven thematic networks running:

Prehistoric Art: the study, valorisation and preservation of sites; African studies; Natural language, logic and philosophy of language; Landscape and the environment; Health and society (currently being launched); Risks and environmental crises; Biological anthropology and contemporary populations; Human Paleo-genetics and the environment Societies in evolution, social science in movement Music, cognition, society Social sciences and South-East Asia (launched late 2005)

Some of these networks bring together researchers from “neighbouring” disciplines. This is the case for the “Risks and environmental crises” network, which includes specialists from anthropology, sociology, geography, law and economics, or the “Landscape and environment” network, with participants from history, archaeology, geography and palaeontology. Others, on the contrary, attract people from quite broad disciplinary horizons. This is the case for the “Human Palaeogenetic and the environment” network, which has members from the natural sciences (biology), anthropology, universe science, etc. and also the “Music, cognition, society” network, with researchers from the CNRS Humanities and social sciences (SHS), Life sciences (SDV) and Information and communication technology (STIC) departments.

4.3. The CNRS “European Identity in Question” Interdisciplinary Programme

The CNRS “European Identity in Question” (L’identité européenne en questions)interdisciplinary programme ran from June 1997 to June 2001 as one of the five programs funded in the thematic field “Social dynamics” (dynamique de la société)..24 We have chosen this programme as our second case study from France.

24 The list of all the completed CNRS programmes is available on http://www.cnrs.fr/DEP/prg/archives.htmlaccessed 5/9/2005.

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It was directed by a CNRS Research Director in Economics, under the scientific responsibilityof the former director of the CNRS Humanities and Social Sciences (SHS) Department and was coordinated by a CNRS administrative officer. The program also had an interdisciplinary pilot committee (comité de pilotage) of eleven members and was coordinated at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme – MSH)25 at the University of Grenoble (Université Pierre Mendès France). Most of the pilot committee members were from the social sciences; three of them had disciplinary backgrounds in sociology, four in political science, two in economics and one in social anthropology. Only one of the members, a historian, worked in the humanities (Interview, CNRS Programme coordinator: p. 2).

As suggested by its title, the question of European identity formed the heart of this research programme, which aimed to further understanding of “the economic, political, legal, social and cultural transformations which have shaped European societies over the past twenty years” and to “understand the debates and issues arising from the intensifying construction of the European community”26. The general aim of the programme was thus to contribute to the “(often politicised and polemical) public debate about the transformation of European identity, which is too often understood as an identity crisis”. The programme call targeted cross-disciplinary approaches to European history, European social transformations, new economic challenges, as well as emerging forms of political and legal regulation within the countries and regions that constitute the geographical entity called Europe. The programme aimed to promote interdisciplinary approaches in order to respond to the questions raised by a changing Europe. It also aimed to build up a thematic network of researchers working on the evolution of contemporary European societies and to serve as a resource centre of knowledge on this issue in France.

4.3.1 The Organisation and Funding of the Programme

The main objective of the programme was to develop and support research projects related to its thematic field and to produce knowledge on the issues covered by its subject matter. It alsohad a scientific policy goal, which entailed organising and restructuring the comparative European research carried out within France. Thus, at the policy level, the program aimed to support those CNRS research centres, especially from the Humanities and Social Sciences (SHS) Department, in their efforts to reinforce their research potential in the field of comparative European research. This political strategy had a clear and explicit objective of enabling French research centres to maintain their position within the international research community, or even to catch up with other European (or American) research teams. Hence, the programme’s role as a thematic network was to encourage the development of comparative research in France, based on “the constitution of large scale research teams which have achieved a ‘critical mass’ and can therefore have some bearing on this field of study at the national and international level”.

25 The Maison des Sciences de l’Homme is an interdisciplinary research structure jointly run by the CNRS and the host university. The MSH-Alpes located in Grenoble brings together four local universities, the Institute of political studies (IEP-Grenoble), the National Institute of Polytechnic (INP-Grenoble) and local CNRS research centres (http://www.msh-alpes.prd.fr accessed 6/9/2005) 26 The citations are taken from the programme web site (our translations).

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According to the program coordinator, the construction of a national research network was seen as a necessary condition for tapping into European research funding in the future (Interview, CNRS Programme director: p. 8). The programme thus paid special attention to the research teams and centres that were involved in developing cross-national comparative research methodologies and new tools for analysing European research material.

4.3.2. Thematic Priorities and Objectives

The “European Identity in Question” interdisciplinary programme had three main sub-themes and a single common strand. Each sub-theme covered various research project possibilities and included suggestions for cross-thematic projects. However, the programme description specified that projects on questions relating to the European identity that were not directly mentioned in the call for tender would be welcome.

The three sub-themes were: Europe and globalisation (l’Europe et la globalisation), European territories (l’Europe et ses territories) and European politics and policies (Un espace public et socio-politique européen). The common strand was entitled: Methodology and Practice of European comparative research (Méthodologie et modes opératoires de la recherche comparative européenne). In addition to these working themes, the programme initiallyintended to organise a large scale-research seminar, which would bring together participants from all the projects funded.

4.3.2.1. Europe and Globalisation

This sub-theme brought together research projects centred on the position of Europe in the globalisation process, considering Europe either as an economic entity, as a society or as a specific political form. This general theme was divided into five main categories of questions such as; the transformation of the European economic and legal systems; Europe as an entity in international relations; the transformations of European economic policy and the effects of the Euro; the role of the “European social model”, the notion of the “European civil society” in the context of globalisation. In addition to these questions, this sub-theme also called for research projects studying the interaction between the globalisation process and the European construction process.

4.3.2.2. European Territories

The second sub-theme of the programme covered research projects studying Europe as a territory with historical, geographical, economic, political, legal and cultural dimensions. Again, the call for tender mentioned five main groups of questions. The first group focused on the European Union’s relation to its territory from the point of public policy measures in relation to the environment policy, agriculture, rural and local development. The second group of questions referred to European borders and to migration. The third and forth categories of questions targeted issues linked to a comparison of rural and urban territories, such as the crisis of the common agricultural policy (PAC) or phenomena such as unemployment. Finally, the fifth group of questions aimed to understand the impact of transport systems on the mobility of goods and people within the EU. The general objective of this sub-theme was to understand the necessary conditions for the stability of the European political “pact” which was being implemented to an already existing, historically and culturally, fragmented context.

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4.3.2.3. European Politics and Policies

The projects funded under the last sub-theme were invited to analyse the question of European identity through the notions of public sphere and public debate. This theme calledfor research projects on the cultural, historical and intellectual foundations of the European socio-political system. It examined, for example, the following subjects areas: the nation-state in a European context; the role of European lobbies and elite groups; social stratification, class relations and inequality; the history of the European political system in relation to national historical legacies; the constitution of the European public policy models and the role of the European public services; the institutional reforms of the EU; the political participation of the European citizens (for example, voting practices) and European political life.Furthermore, this sub-theme welcomed work on the representation of the European identity, on the symbolic and cultural construction of Europe and on the plurality of identities in contemporary Europe.

4.3.2.4. Methodology and Practice of European Comparative Research

In parallel to these sub-themes, the programme aimed to develop discussion and exchangearound comparative research methodology issues. These methodological questions couldrepresent one section of the selected research projects, especially among the funded seminars, although they did not form a specific sub-theme. As a rule, all the projects were expected to include both empirical and theoretical dimensions, as well as methodological considerations.The choice of the empirical measures and their compatibility, the articulation between intra-national, national and supra-national levels and the value of the theoretical frameworks used in cross-national comparative studies were among the various methodological questions the programme aimed to explore.

Due to this commitment, the programme call stated that priority would be given to those projects that best met the following criteria: the research projects should be interdisciplinary; they should have a comparative dimension and they should involve a network of research teams, rather than isolated individuals or a single research centre.

This last point was regarded as a crucial criterion, not only from the point of view of the research to be conducted, but also in anticipated of the planned programme seminars aimedat federating the research projects and disseminating their results.

In practice, the programme seminars actually served more as a forum for discussing the content of the three successive calls for tenders than as a means of disseminating the programme research results. Nonetheless, at the beginning of the program a number ofseminars for all the funded research projects were organised. The idea of a cycle of specific meetings first came up in 1998, when the first call for tender was outlined. Three seminars were held at that time as a way to delineate the thematic boundaries and to define more clearly the programme remit. The first seminar held in 1998 was co-ordinated by one of the project leaders, who was invited to present her work on European rural territories. A second seminar focussed on public policies in Southern Europe. Finally, another project leader organised a working session on the creation of a European observatory on the enlargement process.

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Some of the papers presented at these three initial seminars were published as working papers and were sent our directly to other CNRS research centres (Interview, CNRS Programme coordinator: p. 7).

However, by the end of the programme, only one dissemination seminar had taken place and the initial programme objective of giving participants the opportunity to meet and to discuss their respective research activities appeared to have disappeared entirely from the agenda. According to the programme coordinator, this was mainly an organisational problem. The projects were selected through three consecutive calls for tender, in 1998, 1999 and 2000. Thus, when the projects funded under the first selection campaign were coming to a close, those projects selected during the final campaign had only just started. However, the coordinator also recognised that the planned dissemination seminars were not held because of lack of funding and also because the programme leader was overwhelmed by his otherresponsibilities and tasks. It is important to note that the CNRS interdisciplinary programmes are run on a “voluntary” basis by permanent research and/or administrative staff and that no specific budget is allocated to the programme administration. The programme director therefore takes on the coordination tasks in addition to his/her other activities. As this programme coordinator explained: “the success of this type of programme depends on a lot of voluntary work and there are certain limits to the amount of voluntary work one is willing to put in. Since there was no real obligation to organise the seminars, they just didn’t get done, that’s the short of it” (Interview, CNRS Programme director: p. 9).

Thus, only one genuine programme dissemination seminar was held on June 23 1999, and was entitled “European Union: from fieldwork to theory” (l’Union européenne: du terrain à la théorie). The seminar was organised around a presentation by one of the programme participants of interdisciplinary literature in the field of political science and international relations. An information sheet presenting the debates that took place during the seminar was published and about 500 copies of this document were circulated to selected CNRS research centres across the country (Interview, CNRS Programme coordinator: p. 7).

As we have seen, the anticipated programme seminars that were supposed to foster discussion and debate between the different projects funded and to enable the comparison of their research results never took place: “After that, there were no more discussion or dissemination seminars on the research projects, there was no real opportunity to create space to discuss the projects” (Interview, CNRS Programme director: p. 7).

4.3.3. Research Projects and Activities Funded

The programme initiated three campaigns of calls for tender, the first in October 1998, the second at the end of March 1999 and the third in mid-2000. These calls were broadly opened to the scientific community, even beyond the CNRS, and they invited research teams and centres to propose three types of activities; new interdisciplinary research projects, seminars or mapping of a particular research question. In all, 42 projects were financed. They were divided up as follows27: 22 projects under the first campaign, including eight interdisciplinary seminars; 11 projects in 1999, including seven research projects and four seminars; and finally 9 projects in the third wave in 2000, including seven research projects and two

27 The list of funded projects, including their abstracts, is published on the programme web site http://www.msh-alpes.prd.fr/programmecnrs/europe/resumes.htm accessed 6/9/2005.

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seminars (see Appendix 2.a and 2.b). There was thus a decline in the number of funded projects each year, which reflects a decrease in the number of project submissions. In 1998,the program organisers received a total of 91 proposals, as against 55 in 1999 and 33 in 2000 (Interview, CNRS Programme coordinator: p. 4).

The average budget from the programme was between 80 000 and 100 000 Francs (12 000 –15 200 Euros) for the research projects and between 40 000 and 50 000 Francs (6 000 – 7 600 Euros) for the research seminars. These figures do not include staff costs, since these are covered by the civil servants status of tenured academics and public sector researchers in France.

The programme description explicitly called for submissions from the social sciences as well as the humanities and mentioned the following disciplines: social psychology, sociology, anthropology, demography, law, economics, geography, history, linguistics, philosophy, political science, communication science – stipulating that this list was in no way restrictive. It was also mentioned that some of the priority research questions could be investigated and analysed simultaneously from various disciplinary angles.

It is not easy to determine to what extend the funded projects really are interdisciplinary since in most cases the project descriptions do not mention the disciplines included. This is the case for all but eight projects out of the total of 28 funded research projects (see Appendix 2.a). Sixout of these eight projects include one or several disciplines from the social sciences and only two projects really constructed bridges between the social sciences and the humanities (see Appendix 2.a), including the project we have chosen to study in more detail below. The sixother projects are interdisciplinary in a more restricted sense and focus on “neighbouring” disciplines such as political science, sociology, law, geography and economics. Two projects also mention an interdisciplinary field of studies (communication studies and race relation studies).

For the twenty remaining projects which do not specify their disciplinary combinations, we get a clearer picture if we look at the disciplinary backgrounds of the research teams and/or of individual researchers engaged in these projects. It is clear that this information can only serve as an indication of the disciplines potentially included in the research projects and it might not cover all the research methods used by these projects. Keeping these limits in mind, it is clear that the social sciences dominate the projects funded. A large majority of the projects are carried out by CNRS research centres which come under the social sciences heading of the National Committee of Scientific Research28 (Comité national de la recherche scientifique –CN) nomenclature. They belong to just seven different CNRS sections (sections 33, 34 and sections 36-40), which all come under the remit of the CNRS Social Sciences and Humanities department (see Appendix 3). The most frequently cited sections are: section n° 40 “Politics, power, organisation” (mentioned 14 times), section n° 37 “Economy and management” (6 times) and section n° 36 “Sociology – Norms and Rules” (4 times). Section n° 39 “Spaces, territories and societies” is mentioned twice, the sections n° 33 “Modern and contemporary worlds”, n° 34 “Languages, language, discourse” and n° 38 “Societies and cultures:

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This committee is an integral part of the CNRS and it delimits the disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields for the research sector just as the CNU defines the disciplinary boundaries for the HE sector. For more detail, see:Le Feuvre, Nicky, and Milka Metso. 2005. STREP National Report: Disciplinary Boundaries between the Social Sciences and Humanities in France. Toulouse: STREP Research Integration Project. www.hull.ac.uk/researchintegration

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comparative approaches” only once each. It is true that these sections do not exactly focus on a single discipline, but they are still tightly connected to disciplinary structures and make only timid connexions to neighbouring disciplines. For example, section n° 33 “Modern and contemporary worlds” includes subjects areas like history, art history, demography and social history, whereas section n° 40 “Politics, power, organisation” includes subjects areas such as sociology, political science, communication studies, management and some aspects of law. It is therefore quite clear that the social science sections (n° 36-40) were far more active in this programme than the humanities sections (n° 33 and 34). The results obtained by analysing the disciplinary backgrounds of the research centres confirm the fact that the humanities are represented solely by the disciplinary fields of history and linguistics.

Analysis of the research methodology used in each project (see Appendix 2.a) also confirms this tendency. If we look at the projects giving details on the methodology used and especially on the material analysed, we can observe that the most commonly used methodological frameworks are: public discourse analysis (mentioned five times), secondary analysis of documents and statistics (four times) and media analysis (four times). Other methods used are interviews, observation and questionnaire surveys. Although these findings are incomplete (only thirteen projects gave any details about the empirical data they intend to study) and thus can only serve as an indication, it is quite clear that the social sciences methodological tools form the majority of the techniques used. It is however interesting to notice that methodological tools from the humanities, like media analysis, are also frequently present among the methods adopted by the projects, and this is true even for projects which do not include disciplines from the field of humanities.

These conclusions were confirmed by the programme coordinator. According to her, most of the responses to the call for tender came from the social sciences and they were mainly mono-disciplinary. A majority of the projects submitted came from sociology and political sciences, the other disciplines represented were economics, anthropology and ethnology, law and geography. History was the only discipline from the humanities field. When the projects were pluridisciplinary, they usually made connexions between “neighbouring” disciplines and combined disciplines like sociology and political science, economics and sociology or political science and geography. To quote the programme coordinator: “I don’t think you’ll be able to make a really transcendent discovery about a beautiful cooperation between the two distinctive categories suggested by the Ministry (Humanities and social sciences)” (Interview, CNRS Programme coordinator: p. 11).

She also confirmed that the interdisciplinary nature of the programme principally meant that all the social science disciplines could submit research projects. Therefore, when it came to selecting the research proposals, the main objective was not really to create cooperation between different social sciences disciplines, and even less so between the social sciences andthe humanities, but rather to make sure that the largest possible number of disciplines would be included in the programme: “There isn’t really much contact between the disciplines that are covered by DSPT 6 (Humanities) and DSPT 7 (Social sciences) at the Ministry of Research, so we didn’t concentrate so much on interdisciplinarity as such, but rather on the idea ‘let’s have as many social science and humanities disciplines represented as possible, let’s not leave anyone out’. It was more a question of that than of ‘get together and make a joint proposal’, really”. (Interview, CNRS Programme coordinator: p. 1).

As mentioned above, in addition to their interdisciplinary nature, the funded projects were also expected to use a comparative approach and to be carried out by networks of research

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teams. All the projects seem to fill the first criterion, whereas only seven projects correspond to the second criterion and mention national or international partnerships (Appendix 2.a). In total, it would appear that only six of the projects selected actually correspond to the threeselection criteria described in the successive calls for tender. Furthermore, only two of these projects develop any kind of interdisciplinary approach involving the social sciences and the humanities. According to the coordinator, in practice, the interdisciplinary criterion was used exclusively to ensure that the funded projects were not “too mono-disciplinary”. At the end of the day, this criterion proved less important than the ability to form a team with international partners, for example (Interview, CNRS Programme coordinator: p. 6).

In addition to the research projects, the “European Identity in Questions” programme also funded 14 research seminars. Eight seminars were financed by the call for tender launched in 1998, four others in 1999 and two in 2000. These were distinct from the originally planned dissemination seminars (see above) and focussed on specific thematic fields. Although only two of these seminars were explicitly on cross-national comparative methodology issues, it is very likely that other seminars also discussed methodological questions.

5. Project Case Studies

From within the two interdisciplinary research programmes presented above, we selected two distinct research projects (one from each programme) as material for the second stage of our case studies.

The first of these projects, entitled “Study of the effects of the teaching practices in vocational education on the knowledge, competencies and representations of students. The origins of discontinuous study patterns and drop-out amongst vocational high school pupils and those on level V apprentice schemes” (« Etude des effets des dispositifs pédagogiques de l’enseignement professionnel sur les savoirs, les compétences et les représentations des apprenants. Genèse des ruptures dans les parcours de formation des lycéens professionnels et des apprentis de niveau 5 »), was funded under the ACI « Education and Training » Programme. It was coordinated by a psychologist from Toulouse-Le Mirail University, in partnership with the University of Tours, and involved 6 psychologists and two linguists from the two institutions. The total budget for the project was 43 000 Euros, over three years. In the following sections, this project will be referred to as the “vocational education” project.

The second project, entitled “Rituals and Places of the European Identity: 20th Century War Museums” (Lieux et rituels d’une identité européenne, les musées de guerre du XXème siècle), was funded under the CNRS “The European Identity in Question” research programme. It involved a team of four academics from the same research centre, but from different disciplinary backgrounds (History, Sociology, Political Science and Political Anthropology), with occasional additional input from other colleagues. The total budget for the project was only 15 000 Euros, plus an additional grant from the Ministry of Culture to cover the cost of publishing an edited book entitled Fictions of Europe, war in museums in Germany, France and Britain, published by an academic editor, in a contemporary history series (Fictions d'Europe, la guerre au musée en Allemagne, en France, et en Grande-Bretagne, Paris, Editions des archives contemporaines, 2003).

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5.1. Disciplinary Composition of the Research Teams

Both of our case study projects were headed by female academics who provided most of the information of the precise content of their projects and on the way the work was organised on a daily basis. We also interviewed one research partner from each project. In both cases, the research teams were composed of colleagues who either knew each other from previous research projects or who worked in the same research centre. Both project leaders agreed that they had been able to persuade colleagues to take part in the project because they already knew the project leader and were interested in working in collaboration with her.

In the case of the ACI project, the project leader explained: “In the past, I had been in contact with the two linguists who agreed to take part in the project; I’d invited them to contribute articles and occasional things like that. We’d already thought about doing other things together, but had never done anything serious about it. So this (the call for tender) was just kind of the right opportunity” (Interview, ACI project leader: p. 4).

However, in the course of the interview, it transpired that one of the linguists involved was actually the sister of one of the other team members (a psychologist) and that this family link had been important in establishing the first contacts: “So this colleague put me in touch with her sister and it turned out that the sister’s work is actually closer to my own preoccupations and so I actually do more work with her at the moment than with the colleague who introduced us” (Interview, ACI project leader: p. 4).

The first contact between the two future project participants was also successful because the linguist uses a particular research method that was to be central to the project: “In fact, the project leader first contacted another linguist, but who doesn’t do discourse analysis. So my name was mentioned and since I was doing quite a lot of discourse analysis at the time, she asked me if I’d be interested in taking part” (Interview, ACI project partner: p. 1).

Under the CNRS project, the team was put together jointly by two of the future partners, who each turned to their own (disciplinary or thematic) networks to search for potential collaborators: “One of the people who actually played an important role in the project, who was very involved, she actually helped me put the team together. She had contacts with a network of contemporary historians that I didn’t really know at all, she knew a few people in that network and contacted our future partner and I contacted a political scientist, because I knew that she was preparing a PhD on historical museums and that she could be interested. It was also a way of brining a doctoral student onto the project and of helping her to fund the end of her thesis” (Interview, CNRS Project leader: p. 1).

In this particular case, the shared intellectual interests of the two founding partners played an important role in getting the project underway and the administrative organisation of the team reflected the status differences between these two women: “The other colleague had actually been in the CNRS for much longer than me, but she didn’t feel up to undertaking a project on her own. She was interested in working with me, because we had shared interests around the question of emotions, representations and things like that. At the time, she was still a research engineer; she was going through the whole long-winded process of trying to get promoted to researcher status and there were complicated issues like that going on” (Interview, CNRS Project leader: p. 4).

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The second common experience that we can draw from these two case studies relates to the characteristics of the project leaders and participants themselves. Very often, the project partners were « pluridisciplinary » themselves, either because they had already been involved in a number of interdisciplinary projects in the past or because their academic history had led them to work on the periphery of their own disciplines or even to cross disciplinary boundaries in the course of their academic studies or career. They often stressed that purely disciplinary approaches were too narrow for their own research objects.

In the case of the ACI project, the project leader stressed that “pluridisciplinarity depends to a great extent on the individuals involved in the project” (Interview, ACI project leader: p. 2). In her own case, she went on to explain: “As a psychologist, I’ve been interested in linguistics for a number of years now. I’m a complete autodidact in the field and, at the end of the day, I was interested in having someone I could lean on to develop an analysis of the data we had” (Interview, ACI project leader: p. 3)

In the CNRS project, the main partner had past experience of interdisciplinary projects: “This isn’t my first interdisciplinary project; in fact, I’ve quite often been involved in interdisciplinary teams. In this particular case, it was meeting (project leader), who was in the same research centre as me. We discovered that we had a certain number of interests in common and she has the idea of responding to the call for tender. After that, we kind of built up the team from our respective networks” (Interview, CNRS project partner: p. 1).

The project leader also insisted on her personal interdisciplinary background: “I’m a historian, but I was recruited to a political science position in a social anthropology research centre, so I accumulate several disciplinary hats. I presented the project on the basis of these and not really as a straight historian” (Interview, CNRS Project leader: p. 2).

Indeed, this project leader was rather critical of her original discipline and stressed the intellectual stimulation she gained from working from a position that may be considered somewhat marginal (and with other people also located on the margins of their respective disciplines): “I’m not really too keen on the historians’ world and I’m more enthusiastic about using history as a starting point for looking for other ways of thinking, other ways of doing things, of constructing our research objects and so this (the CNRS call for tender) was an opportunity to do that” (Interview, CNRS project leader: p. 4). She went on to develop this personal approach in the following terms : « I’m in favour of a certain form of ‘metissage’, for borrowing concepts from other disciplines, for the frontier zones and so I’m also interested in people who have the same kind of preoccupations as myself » (Interview, CNRS project leader: p. 11).

Nevertheless, all the partners in the CNRS project had received some training in history. Some of them had also studied other disciplines. When it came to presenting the composition of the research team, these “secondary” disciplinary backgrounds were brought to the fore, precisely as a means of demonstrating the “pluridisciplinary” nature of the project: “One ofour foreign partners was a historian, but we didn’t want to present every partner as a historian, which we could have done, because they all had some kind of background in history. I was trained as a historian myself. Another partner is a sociologist today, but she did her thesis in history. This foreign partner was a “pure historian”, he didn’t have any other disciplinary connexions, whereas another partner was both a historian and a political scientist. So basically we played on all the disciplines available; sociology, I presented myself as a social anthropologist, because that’s the main discipline at my research centre, political

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science and history, represented by the foreign colleague. That said, it’s clear that we all shared a common epistemological and methodological base and that clearly came from history” (Interview, CNRS project leader: pp. 3-4).

This “pluridisciplinary façade” was also noted by the CNRS project partner: “Well, to tell the honest truth (laughs), it makes me laugh really, because we were only moderately pluridisciplinary. Why do I say that? Well, the project leader is a historian, I’m a little bit more of a sociologist, but I’m basically a sociologist and a historian, our foreign partner is a historian and another colleague is a political scientist with a background in history (laughs). That’s what I mean when I say that we were moderately interdisciplinary” (Interview, CNRS project partner: p. 3).

On the ACI project, most of the project participants had a background in psychology, but the interdisciplinary nature of their work was based on the idea of bringing together colleagues from different sub-sections of the discipline that rarely have the opportunity to collaborate: “The research centre that was responsible for the project is called “The social psychology of development” . It’s made up of about 10 full-time tenured research staff, six of whom actually worked on the project. Amongst these, two work in developmental psychology, one in cognitive psychology, one in social psychology and one in clinical psychology; so this was based on bringing together people from the same research centre, but with different orientations. It wasn’t that easy, but it corresponded to our epistemological positions. In order to meet the criteria of the ACI call, we institutionalised a partnership that we already had with colleagues from linguistics” (Interview, ACI project leader: p. 3).

5.2. Interdisciplinarity in Practice

Despite the only “moderately pluridisciplinary” composition of the research teams of our two project case studies, we were nevertheless interested in analysing more closely the ways in which interdisciplinarity was put into practise in each of the projects studied.

In the case of the ACI project, there was a very clear disciplinary division of labour. Throughout the course of the project, each partner worked with her/his own disciplinary methodological and theoretical tools. The work was carried out in phases, with successive input from the different disciplines or sub-disciplines. Psychology thus provided the main analytical and methodological tools for collecting the research data. The empirical data was then submitted to the linguists, who carried out the textual analysis. The project leader described the work programme in the following terms: “Well, up until now the collaboration hasn’t been too complicated; each of us has done their own bit of the work, according to their discipline and their particular field of competency. We did a feasibility study with interviews and on the basis of that we constructed a questionnaire, because we wanted to measure as accurately as possible the logical reasoning and the verbal abilities of the pupils. So we ran two different tests on the data – standard tests in psychology – on logical reasoning and on verbal abilities. Then, our linguistics colleagues took over and analysed the results of the verbal abilities test” (Interview, ACI Project leader: p. 6).

Because the successive stages of the work programme are carried out under the auspices of the representatives of the two disciplines involved in the project, most of the collaboration takes a “virtual” form, via E-mail. To date, a couple of one- or two-day research seminars

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have been organised (a third is due to take place), in order to enable the participants to discuss the results and to work together on different analytical perspectives.

To a certain extent, this project is based on the juxtaposition of different disciplinary research activities. However, as we shall see in more detail below, this juxtaposition did have a positive influence on the research outcomes.

In the case of the CNRS project, the initial aim was to elaborate common research tools. However, the project participants recognise that, at the end of the day, the work was carried out more on an individual basis and was then collated. Despite the fact that the team was composed of colleagues with a common background in history, research methods from the social sciences (observation and interviews) provided most of the empirical data. The project leader gave the following account of the way the project was organised:

“At the beginning, we were under the illusion that we could harmonise some kind of collective research tools and perspectives, that we could share a common model for the case studies of the different museums. So, we tried to elaborate an observation guide and to share out the different museums, mostly on the basis of our respective linguistic skills. We shared out the work on the basis of our respective skills, but also still trying to work as a team; there were always at least two people assigned to each site. Then we followed a sample of secondary school pupils on their museum visits. That didn’t turn out to be so easy, but at the same time, we wanted to maintain some kind of fiction about working together as a group. The fiction was quite efficient at some points and less so at others. Some of the partners said ‘no, no, I won’t be able to do that because I don’t find the technique particularly interesting’. The foreign partner, for example, he didn’t believe in the whole question of how the museums were perceived by the public; he wasn’t convinced that we could analyse the conditions of reception; whereas that was one of the questions I was personally most interested in. So, at the beginning, it wasn’t that easy. In the end, I decided to manage the team according to the idea that each of us defined our own research objectives and that we did the work as rigorously as possible and that we see it through to the end and that then we would try to identify points of articulation, without trying to impose anything on anyone. People don’t like having things imposed on them and the group tends to fall apart, because no-one really feels responsible for their own work, as an intellectual, and then they just become sub-contractors to the research, they’re not that interested anymore and the research dynamics suffer”(Interview, CNRS Project leader: p. 5).

She went on to explain in more detail the precise division of labour that was adopted. According to her account, even those members of the team who were the least interested in interdisciplinarity did attempt to adapt their personal contributions to the shared objectives of the group. Thus: “When the foreign colleague, who wasn’t really that interested in the interdisciplinarity thing, wrote his paper comparing the representation of the two world warsin museums, he did take the issues we had identified as crucial quite seriously, his paper did take the collective objectives of the group on board and he didn’t write the same kind of paper as he would have done if he had been submitting it to a historical journal, for example” (Interview, CNRS Project leader: p. 9).

From her account, the research seminars that took place throughout the project duration were vitally important in creating an “interdisciplinary space”: “Each of us did stay more or less in his or her own speciality, but the constraints of the project - the fact that it had been constructed on an interdisciplinary basis and that the others were to a certain extent

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dependent on the data collected by each of us – meant that we were able to complete and articulate our different perspectives. During the seminars, the collective, interdisciplinary articulation did take place, I believe so” (Interview CNRS Project leader: p. 9).

However, she is more dubious about the long-term effects of having worked on an interdisciplinary project on the future research practices of the participants: “No, I’m not convinced that any new commitment to interdisciplinarity as such will have come out of the project. The partners who were already sensitive to the interdisciplinary research process are still interested and those team members who weren’t are still not. Although, I do think that they have developed a better ability to recognise the interest of other disciplines and that’s something they weren’t necessarily able to do at the beginning” (Interview CNRS Project leader: p. 10).

When asked to evaluate the most important phases in the work programme for creating a true form of interdisciplinary collaboration, she insisted on the fact that “the thing that created the most dynamic was undoubtedly the perspective of publishing the book from the project” (Interview, CNRS Project leader: p. 12).

Thus, in comparison to the ACI project, the CNRS experience would seem to have been less based on a juxtaposition of disciplinary-based research methods and perspectives. However, it is interesting to note that, in this case, the cross-disciplinary activities were achieved by individuals who had been trained in different disciplinary fields, rather than through collaboration between disciplinary focussed colleagues.

5.3. Outcomes and Evaluation

The question of the importance that will be given to the interdisciplinary nature of knowledge production in the ACI project is something of a moot point, since the ACI programme has itself been phased out (following the creation of the ANR) and the programme directors and project leaders have received no information from the Ministry as to the evaluation procedures. They presume that, as is standard practice in France, they will be asked to provide a mid-term report and, probably, a final report, but they have, as yet, no clear idea about the evaluation criteria. As the programme director explained: “We don’t really know what will happen. We would like at least to evaluate the on-going projects and we’ve asked the members of the Scientific Council to continue and to carry out the minor task of evaluating the project. They’ve been very good so far, but the problem is that, since the ACI programme doesn’t actually exist anymore, we only have enough money for one or two more meetings and so the evaluations will depend to a large extent on the individual good will of the Council members” (Interview, ACI Programme director: p. 2).

When asked if the Ministry of Research had provided the ACI programme directors with any advice on the evaluation procedure, she replied: « No, no advice whatsoever. But, this isn’t the first time that something like this has happened. You know quite often calls for tender are published and there is no evaluation follow-up procedure, either because the ministerial organisation has changed, or a new government is put in place… These things happen quite often, each time the structures change. There’s a real problem with continuity in France” (Interview ACI Programme director: p. 3).

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She went on to explain that the end of the programme did not mean that the budget for the funded projects would disappear, just that there was no evaluation procedure planned: “The research teams will get all their funding, they just won’t be evaluated, that’s all. As far as I’m concerned, they (the Ministry) got a very good deal out of our mid-term reports; we’ve got absolutely no money for anything else, apart from the projects. They decided to stop the programme and to be perfectly honest; I’m not willing to do much else. They really don’t treat us very well. For example, I was never informed that the PIREF was going to be abandoned, nor the ACI programme; nothing. That’s just the way things are in France, we’re used to being treated like that. The programme directors are a bunch of old professors, almost at the end of their career, like me, and we’re just used to being treated like this by the Ministry (laughs)” (Interview ACI Programme director: p. 12).

This was confirmed by the President of the Scientific Council: “Once the mid-term reports are in, I’ll try to phone the contact we had at the Ministry. I’m not even sure that the person in question is still there, but I’ll try and see with him what we can do. I guess he’ll know what he wants to do with the reports, but I’m not sure that he will have received clear instructions. I just know that he was as committed as we are to take these projects through to the end” (Interview President of the ACI Scientific Council: p. 9.).

However, as someone with previous experience of directing national research programmes, the Programme director also provided some information on the usual evaluation procedures at the Ministry of Research. She stressed that the Ministry was less interested in the publications that had been produced from the project than in the content of the mid-term and final reports, where all the research findings and policy recommendations are presented in detail. Publications were therefore not evaluated directly, but as she indicated: “In France, academics are under quite a lot of pressure to publish, so it’s in their interests to publish and we just trust them to do so” (Interview ACI Programme director: p. 12).

In much the same vein, the interdisciplinary nature of the project is rarely evaluated as such: “We basically make sure that people have actually done what they said they were going to do.Since we selected the projects according to a certain number of criteria, including interdisciplinarity, that’s certainly one of the evaluation criteria we’ll use. However, as I explained, not all of the projects were actually very interdisciplinary in nature, so we can’t ask them to have created some kind of interdisciplinarity, since that isn’t what they said they were going to do in the first place” (Interview ACI Programme director: p. 11).

Both the programme director and the President of the Scientific Council stressed that the ACI programme did not cover dissemination activities, which were left up to the individual project leaders and partners. Before the programme was disbanded, it was common practice for the programmes to organise final conferences and to help with the publication of these. However, according to the President of the Scientific Council, previous research programmes financed by the Ministry had been severely criticised by the government watch-dog organisation (Cour des comptes) for allocating a disproportionate share of their budget to dissemination activities, rather to original research projects. As he explained: “The ACI programme was designed to promote new research, as an incentive programme for new research. We managed to keep up some dissemination and publication activities with the money left over from the PIREF, but there was nothing set aside specifically for that in the ACI budget […] The only thing we could do, for example, would be to post the papers from a seminar on the ACI web site. But since the ACI programme doesn’t even exist anymore, I’m not even sure that we’ll be able to

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do that, especially not by the time we get to the end of the projects, in 18 months time” (Interview, President ACI Scientific Council: pp. 6-9).

The lack of clear directives from the principal funding body of the ACI programmes – the Research Ministry – is also experienced by the project leaders, who have no clear idea about the evaluation procedure or about the evaluation criteria: “I was told that I was probably going to have to provide a mid-term report and, perhaps, to go to a meeting at the Ministry at some point, I’m not too sure if that still holds. That’s about it really; nothing more. I know that at the beginning of the project, they told me that someone would be nominated as an expert for our project; they even mentioned the name of the person. As far as I know, the person was never nominated and we heard absolutely nothing after that” (Interview ACI Project leader: p. 1).

As far as publications plans are concerned, the ACI project leaders were also left somewhat in the dark: “I’m not too sure what’s supposed to happen about publishing the results. When things are more organised, I think that the Ministry sometimes publishes the research, but at least part of the dissemination is up to us, but I don’t think that I’ve ever received any particular indications on that point” (Interview ACI Project leader: p. 13).

The particular circumstances of the ACI programmes obviously explain a lot of the confusion surrounding the evaluation procedures for the programme as a whole and for the funded projects. However, the experience of the CNRS-funded projects confirms that this is not that exceptional in France.

When asked if her project had been subject to an evaluation procedure, the CNRS project leader replied: “No, nothing at all! I haven’t had any feed-back at all on the final report. I phoned the programme director and the President of the Scientific Council, they were quite happy with our work, but I’ve never had any feed-back directly from the CNRS. No feed-back, no evaluation, nothing (laughs); it’s quite appalling really. It’s appalling and at the same time… We might have had a negative evaluation and that would have been even more appalling. As I explained, we’re sort of gun-slingers and the pure historians might have thought that what we had done wasn’t exactly… Pluridisciplinarity isn’t exactly the flavour of the month in France, so, in a certain way, perhaps it isn’t so bad that we weren’t evaluated by an institution where the experts are strongly based in their own disciplines. In must admit that I was expecting some kind of final conference from the programme. Once they had received all the project reports, I thought that they would organise something where we could listen to the other project results and conclusions. Apparently, that won’t be the case. They listened to all the projects during the selection procedure and then nothing… Either because the work hasn’t actually been done, or for whatever other reason, they don’t seem to think it necessary to bring us all together at the end. It makes you wonder about the point of the whole programme, really” (Interview, CNRS Project leader: p. 16).

A little later in the interview, this project leader also expressed doubts about the knowledge the CNRS had gleaned from the different projects: “I’m not even really sure that someone has actually read the whole final report. The programme director mentioned one of the parts he’d been interested in, because he already knew something about the specific topic we wrote about, but perhaps if he hadn’t have had that personal interest; he wouldn’t even have read that part! You know, he’s programme director for institutional reasons, he doesn’t necessarily have knowledge on all the themes; so we’ve had nothing, no meetings organised for the project leaders; nothing back from the CNRS at all” (Interview, CNRS Project leader: p. 17).

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However, despite the lack of clear recommendations from their respective funding bodies, both of the project leaders had started working on the dissemination and publication of their research results. On this point, they were particularly aware of the difficulties involved in publishing in journals with an interdisciplinary or pluridisciplinary profile. As the ACI project leader explained: “I’m hoping to get several articles out of the project, either in psychology journals, somehow integrating the indicators that our linguistics colleague have constructed, or in linguistics journals, or something more pluridisciplinary, more in line with following up the kind of thing we’ve been doing” (Interview ACI Project leader: p. 10). However, she was quick to point out that the dissemination of interdisciplinary research results posed serious problems in France: “Well, there are some academic journals where we could publish, like Langage, but things are a bit complicated. In a way, there’s something paradoxical going on at the moment, because we’re really under pressure to publish in certain kinds of academic journals and the research centres have adopted a rational attitude towards publishing – such and such a journal is worth more than such and such – and we can’t really afford to publish in the journals that aren’t recognised within the discipline. The problem I have at the moment is that the journals which could publish a joint paper with my colleague from linguists aren’t recognised in psychology; so, as far as I’m concerned, the publication will be worth nothing” (Interview, ACI Project leader: p. 10).

This project leader had also thought about publishing an edited volume from the project, but, again, she foresaw difficulties with this project too: “Yes, we’ll probably try and get an edited volume out, with one chapter from the linguistics people, but we’ll come up against the same problem there, really. In psychology, books aren’t worth anything at all, there’s absolutely no point in publishing a book in psychology. We’re tied up in all sorts of constraints… We’ll probably do the book after a series of journal articles, just for the fun. It’s the same problem as with the journal I mentioned earlier. Our paper has been accepted by the best linguistic specialists, but it’s as if I hadn’t done anything at all. That’s the paradoxical situation we’re in today” (Interview, ACI Project leader: p. 11).

The problem in finding the right outlet for publishing is certainly one of the most important barriers to interdisciplinary research in France at present. However, the strength of the problem varies somewhat from one disciplinary field to another. As one of the project partners explained: “Little by little I’m going to have to face the problem of publishing stuff that is somewhere in between psychology and linguistics. I haven’t had to do that up until now, because I’ve been more involved in linguistics and sociology; the sociology of language, and there is a journal on that topic, where they publish papers from interdisciplinary conferences on discourse analysis, and there are more and more of those now” (Interview, ACI Project partner: p. 3).

The partners in the CNRS project had also experienced problems in the dissemination process, directly related to the interdisciplinary nature of their work and to the fact that they had chosen to study something which is rarely analysed in France. Immediately after the end of the project, they tried to organise a conference, but were faced with the problem of having too few French colleagues to invite (most of the existing work on war museums has been carried out in the US) and of somewhat strained relations with the directors of the museums they had studied, who were not necessarily pleased with their results. In the end, they opted for a thematic issue of an interdisciplinary journal, Tumultes, published in 2001, followed by an edited volume from the project in a contemporary history series through an academic publisher and several articles and book chapters, each covering a specific disciplinary field:

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“Tumultes is an interdisciplinary journal, slightly marginal, published by the University of Paris VII. It just so happened that one of the project partners had contacts there so we coordinated an issue which I find quite interesting… it’s quite pluridisciplinary, we published an article from a philosopher and one by a psychoanalyst too. That issue of Tumultes is really pluridisciplinary. Then we did the edited volume, which allowed us to publish our most interesting results” (Interview, CNRS Project leader: p. 7).

Contrary to the experience of the ACI, the participants in the CNRS project generally agreed that they had not met with too many problems in finding ways to publish their results. This difference would seem to reflect the diversity of the research evaluation criteria in different disciplinary fields in France.

5.4. Positive and Negative Aspects of Interdisciplinary Work

However, whether publishing had been a major problem or not, the project participants were unanimously enthusiastic about their interdisciplinary experiences and intended to continue their collaboration with colleagues from different disciplinary fields. As the ACI Project leader stressed: “This experience has made us want to continue on the same basis; this meeting with the linguist colleague around discourse analysis. My colleague from linguists is going to teach a joint course with me this year on the doctoral training programme here in Toulouse. I asked her to come in on the course with me, so I think that this first meeting is going to continue on to other things, although I’m sure that we’ll succeed in the long run only if we manage to publish together and it’s still a bit early to say whether that will be possible or not” (Interview ACI Project leader: p. 7).

They did, however, stress the additional difficulties involved in working across the traditional disciplinary boundaries. On the one hand, building a common language was the first barrier to be overcome: “It’s quite complicated. First of all, you have to understand the meanings of the others; that’s really the most complicated thing at the beginning” (Interview ACI Project leader: p. 8). This was confirmed by the CNRS project leader: “With us the fit was made easier by the fact that we were all historians in a way; we had a common methodological and epistemological base to work from and then we could open up to the disciplines that were coming from elsewhere. I remember that we had various reactions, boredom, disappointment or outright unpleasantness (laugh) to some of the contributors from other disciplines who came to our seminars, because some of the ways of framing things are unfamiliar, they can seem uninteresting at first sight” (Interview CNRS Project leader: p. 4).

Secondly, the most unsatisfactory aspects of the experience were directly related to the perceived lack of academic recognition for interdisciplinary research activities, particularly in a context where interdisciplinarity is being actively promoted by the official research bodies: “There would be a lot of things to say about the gap that exists between the official discourse on interdisciplinarity and the kinds of problems that you come up against when you do that kind of work, that’s for sure! You really get the impression that some people are living in cloud cuckoo land (laugh). On the other hand, as someone who isn’t very career-minded… I’ve never really had what you might call a ‘career plan’. But, if I’d have been ambitious, it’s clear that it would have been a problem” (Interview CNRS Project partner: p. 5).

The negative effects of doing interdisciplinary research on individual career paths werementioned on a number of occasions: “For example, when you apply for certain jobs, they

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expect you to have published in certain journals and not in others. Things like that: they’re part and parcel of the difficulties of doing pluridisciplinary research, that’s for sure. Pluridisciplinarity isn’t particularly valued, it isn’t seen as serious. In general, that’s really the case. It’s true that there’s a whole discourse around pluridisciplinarity within the CNRS ; it’s good to do interdisciplinary research and all that. In practice, all the people who have done just that, they always come up against all sorts of problems; problems with promotion when they come before the board members, who have to judge their work and who come out with things like ‘well it isn’t really this and it isn’t really that’. Personally, I’m not really that bothered, but I’m convinced that that’s still the case today; it just doesn’t wash. It’s supposed to be what we’re encouraged to do, but there are enormous difficulties still” (CNRS Project partner: pp. 5-6).

Indeed, within our case study panel, those individuals with the most experience in interdisciplinary projects were also the lowest ranking in the academic career hierarchy. Generally speaking, the interviewees expressed the ambivalence of doing interdisciplinary work quite clearly. Their opinions provide ample evidence of the risks and rewards associated with this kind of research in France today:

“There are undoubtedly advantages and disadvantages. Firstly, the advantages include thefact that, as psychologists, it gave us access to all sorts of material that we wouldn’t usually come into contact with and so that’s really interesting. On the other hand, this material isn’t constructed for the needs of psychological research in mind, so it doesn’t really correspond to the criteria that we usually use to define a corpus. That’s a first level of difficulty. The other advantage is that, as psychologists, we get access to all kinds of indicators that we don’t usually even think about, that we don’t usually have and that really gives you new ideas about what contributes to the way a discourse is structured; even though we’re not as much at the cutting edge of things as our linguistics colleagues. The other strong point is that you have to become more reflexive about the whole research process. When the linguists ask questions that you don’t know how to answer, that necessarily makes you think in more detail about your own research objects, about the whole research process. You make progress just through the fact of having to explain what you’re doing to someone else” (Interview, ACI Project leader: p. 9).

“I’m very satisfied with the whole experience; I found it very enriching. The analytical base… The analytical bases are very different from the ones I’m used to using, in the sense that we produced our data through interviews, whereas I’m more used to working on the written text, so, that’s really a different kettle of fish. It’s also very different on a theoretical level; on the kind of theoretical problems that discourse analysis raises. For example, I’d never really thought about the psychological inference that you can find in linguistic material and, although we’re still in the field of discourse analysis, I’d never really thought about it in that way. So that’s really interesting, because it made me think differently about things” (Interview, ACI project partner: p. 1).

“The pluridisciplinarity in itself wasn’t a problem; on the contrary it was very fruitful. We weren’t into creating a pseudo-interdisciplinarity, it wasn’t just a fantasy, that wasn’t our aim at all. We were more interested in taking a contemporary research object and shedding light on it in a broader way and, in that sense, the pluridisciplinarity wasn’t a problem at all »(Interview CNRS Project leader: p. 16).

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6. Conclusions

This report has attempted to paint an overall picture of both the policy and the practical aspects of interdisciplinarity in contemporary France. The picture is somewhat paradoxical.

One the one hand, there is ample evidence of a clear commitment to the promotion and development of pluri- or interdisciplinary research activities at the research policy level. One the other hand, accounts of the experiences of those academics or research administrators who have coordinated pluridisciplinary research programmes, along with those of the people involved in putting the principles of interdisciplinarity into practice, have illustrated the many pitfalls encountered on a day-to-day basis.

On the public policy level, there can be no doubt that France has followed the rest of Europe in its quest for more innovative and socially relevant research activities and that the promotion of interdisciplinarity has played a central role in this respect. For the past 10 years at least, both the Ministry of Research and the largest public-sector research body – the CNRS – have launched a series of research programmes that define the development of collaboration between and across the disciplines as a major objective. The most recent policy initiative, the creation of a new streamlined national research agency, is characterised by the continuing commitment to this objective. Indeed, pluridisciplinarity is explicitly cited as the solution to a number of perceived recurrent weaknesses of the French public-sector research sector. It is presented both as the key to defending the country’s position in an increasingly competitive international research market and as a means of making research more responsive to the needs of society. The priority that the ANR gives to collaborative research projects with private sector enterprise is just one indication of the “silent revolution” that is currently taking place in the research sector in France, given the weight of the disciplines in the history of the higher education and research sectors in the past.

It goes without saying that the renewed attention that policy-makers are now giving to so-called “applied” pluridisciplinary research projects is not necessarily approved by the whole academic community and has given rise to one of the most active public campaigns that France has experienced in recent years. The “Sauvons la recherche” movement has strongly criticised the current funding levels of public-sector research and has drawn public attention to the pitfalls of tying research priorities too closely to the short-term needs of private enterprise. The particular case of the Humanities has been cited to support arguments in favour of maintaining a high level of funding for “basic” or “fundamental” research projects; since these are seen as vital to the defence of the national culture. To a certain extent, the fact that the ANR has introduced a series of “open” calls for tender specifically for the Humanities and the Social Science disciplines serves to confirm the lack of social accountability that has traditionally been required of these fields in France to date.

However, in parallel to the recent measures adopted to promote interdisciplinarity in France, there has been a striking lack of reform of the traditional academic structures and procedures. The interdisciplinary research programmes we have studied in this report are largely dependent on the traditional - strongly disciplinary – research administration structures that existed previously. This particular historical legacy has produced a rather specific kind of interdisciplinarity in practice. Our case study data would seem to suggest that the common understanding of the term “pluridisciplinary” amongst the research programme administrators and scientific directors corresponds to the idea that they should be “open to all disciplines”, rather than centred on cross-disciplinary collaboration. At the research programme level, we

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have found numerous examples of calls for tender that clearly state that they wish to promote a “pluridisciplinary” approach to the topic or question they address. However, it is clear from our interview data that this objective is often met by the juxtaposition of research projects that are mainly mono-disciplinary or, more rarely, bi-disciplinary, under a single programmeremit. The programme calls are written in such a way as to encourage submissions from a range of disciplinary fields, but the pluridisciplinary nature of the projects selected never appears as a central criterion. Furthermore, the accompanying measures of the programmes, that were initially planned to create an “interdisciplinary space” for exchange between the different projects funded, tend to be rather limited in practice. Organisational constraints and financial restrictions undoubtedly contributed to the relatively low-key profiles of the programme seminars or final conferences. However, we would also hypothesise that the lack of collective commitment to the intended cross-disciplinary aspects of these programmes reflects the more widespread ambivalence of the French academic community to the whole issue of interdisciplinarity.

This hypothesis is supported by the accounts of the individual academics involved in research projects that were funded under these pluridisciplinary programmes. It should be remembered that, when choosing our case study projects, we were concerned to identify the examples that could be considered the “most interdisciplinary”. Despite this objective, we soon realised that most of the projects funded under these programmes were, at best, bi-disciplinary in nature. They usually involved a majority of participants from the same disciplinary background, who had invited colleagues from a “neighbouring” discipline to participate in a particular stage of the research process. To a certain extent, this was also the situation in the two case study projects we eventually selected. As we have seen, despite the presence of an impressive range of disciplinary backgrounds in the presentation, the CNRS project actually involved individuals who all had some kind of background in history. The project leader was able to create a “pluridisciplinary façade” because some of the participants had also been trained in other disciplines or because they were members of pluridisciplinary research centres. The overwhelming majority of the participants in the ACI project were all from the same discipline, although the fact that they worked in different fields of psychology was in itself presented as a form of interdisciplinarity by the project leader. It even seemed as if the links made to colleagues from linguistics were almost less problematic than were the cross-specialisation collaborations within psychology.

However, the accounts from both these projects provided considerable insight into the risks and rewards of doing interdisciplinary research in this particular national context. The risks associated with interdisciplinary research were principally expressed in terms of reduced career prospects. As we have already seen the recruitment, promotion and evaluation procedures within the French higher education and research sectors continue to function along strictly demarcated disciplinary boundaries. The opportunities to publish interdisciplinary research results were described as rather limited and the academic value attached to such publications was generally considered to be largely inferior to that associated with those journals with the clearest disciplinary profiles.

However, despite these difficulties, the rewards the project participants received from the interdisciplinary research experience were numerous. In particular, there was considerable evidence of methodological “cross-fertilization” between the disciplines represented in these two projects and this was a source of intellectual satisfaction for the project participants. In the case of the ACI project, discourse analysis was developed at the interface of the questionnaire and interview data traditionally used by the psychologists involved. In the case

50

of the CNRS project, participant observation techniques, quantitative questionnaire data and interviews were added to the textual analysis that generally represents the main source for historical analysis. In the opinion of the two project leaders, the adoption of a wider range of methodological tools than was habitually the case within their own disciplines also represented a theoretical challenge. Using methods which were not seen as central to their disciplinary backgrounds increased the reflexive stance of the academics and encouraged them to reflect more deeply on the influence of the data production process on their research outcomes.

There was thus a clear link between the progressive apprenticeship of innovative research methods through the “hands on” experience of cross-disciplinary collaborative projects and the ability to apprehend the theoretical and epistemological foundations of the disciplines in which they originated or were developed. To a certain extent, both of our case studies illustrate the fundamental importance of common research methods as a practical basis for the development of interdisciplinary research projects. This is a somewhat neglected aspect of the research policy priorities in relation to the promotion of interdisciplinary research programmes and projects in France. Indeed, the question of research training was never mentioned in any of the policy documents we had access to. In conclusion to this report, we are convinced that training in cross-disciplinary research methods holds at least part of the key to the development of more intensive and productive pluri- and interdisciplinary research activities in the future in France.

Appendix 1. The Organisational Structure of the ANR

Source: http://www.gip-anr.fr

52

Appendix 2.a List of Research Projects Funded Under the CNRS “European Identity in Question” Interdisciplinary Programme

Title of the Project DirectorInstitution and/or Research Group

Starting Year

Disciplines included Methodology Partners

Les valeurs des Européens: 1981-1999. Comparaisons dans le temps et dans l’espace

Pierre Brechon

Centre d’Informatisation des Données Socio-Politiques, USR 707, CNRS, Grenoble

1998 Political Sociology29 Questionnaire (same in all partner countries)

French part of a larger European project (no mention of the other countries involved)

Identité européenne dans la globalisation et cohérence des systèmes industriels des pays membres

Michel Delapierre

Fondements des Organisations et des Régulations de l’Univers Marchand (FORUM), ESA 7028, CNRS, Paris

1998CNRS’s section n°37 Economy and Management

Comparative study analysing national industrial systems and their evolutions during the last decade in five European countries (no details on the material used)

Les espaces publics fragmentés face à l’intégration européenne par la démocratie

Jacques Grestle

Centre de Recherche et d’Etudes Politiques (CREDEP), University of Paris Dauphine

1998

CNRS’s section n°40 Power, Politics, Organisation and n°36 Sociology, Norms and Rules

Comparative study of the political representations of the EU in six European countries (trough media and public discourses)

L’élargissement européen: l’altérité en question

Jean-François Gossiaux

Laboratoire d’Anthropologie des Institutions et des Organisations Sociales (LAIOS), UPR 9037, CNRS, Paris

1998

CNRS’s section n°40 Power, Politics, Organisation and n°38 Societies and Cultures, Comparative Approaches

Empirical study observing and analysing the relations between the old members of the EU, the new candidates and the European institutions (five field studies)

L’identité européenne entre marché et solidarité: le cas des transformations des systèmes de protection maladie européens (France, Allemagne, Angleterre, Espagne)

Patrick Hassenteufel

Centre Universitaire de Recherches Administratives de Picardie (CURAPP), ESA 6054, CNRS, Amiens

1998CNRS’s section n°40 Power, Politics, Organisation

Secondary analysis of the relevant documents and interviews at three levels: EU, national and regional

Institutionnalisation de l’espace européen et recomposition de l’Etat

Patrick Le Gales,

Richard Balme

Centre d’Etudes de la Vie Politique Française, (CEVIPOF), ESA 7048, CNRS, Paris

1998

CNRS’s section n°40 Power, Politics, Organisation and n°36 Sociology, Norms and Rules and n°39 Spaces,

Comparative study analysing the evolution of regional policies, mediations in social policies and reforms of central banks (no mention of the supports used)

CEVIPOF-CNRS, Maison Française d’Oxford (CNRS), Centre Robert Schumann (Institut Européen de Florence),

29 Disciplines written in black are explicitly mentioned in the project abstracts (www.msh-alpes.prd.fr/programmecnrs/europe/euro.htm), those written in blue have been identified through research centre web sites or through the CNRS directory, via with the name of the project director.

53

territories and societies Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Ciencias Sociales (Institut Juan March Madrid)

Nouveaux territoires politiques et acteurs économiques organisés dans les métropoles européennes

Christian Lefevre

Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires, Sociétés (LATTS), UPRESA 7082, CNRS, Marne-La-Vallée

1998Political Science, Economical Geography

Approach of political science combined with concepts of economical geography (study fields : Lyon, London, Milan and Manchester)

La recomposition des marges orientales de l’Europe

Gilles Lepesant

Territorialité et Identité dans le Domaine de l’Europe (TIDE), URA 1693, MIGRINTER, CNRS, Talence

1998Political Science, Geography, Social Linguistic

Confrontation of disciplinary approaches around notions such as “territory” and “territoriality”

Partners from France, Ukraine, Poland, Germany and Russia (no further details)

Mobilité du travail et des unites productives dans l’Union Monétaire Européenne

Jaques Mazier

Centre d’Etudes des Dynamiques Internationales (CEDI), University of Paris XIII, Villetaneuse

1998CNRS’s section n°37 Economy and Management

Analysis of strategies of localisation during the last twenty years and a qualitative approach on the production units’ mobility (no further precisions)

Gestion des ressources humaines et innovation dans les firmes multinationales européennes: vers quel(s) modèle(s) productif(s) en Europe?

Ariel Mendez

Laboratoire d’Economie et de Sociologie du Travail (LEST), UPR 9059, CNRS, Aix-en-Provence

1998

CNRS’s section n°37 Economy and Management and n°40 Power, Politics, Organisation

Analysis of the staff management practices in the multinational companies (no further details)

Partis et cultures politiques anti-européens de l’Europe Centrale face à la perspective d’élargissement de l’Union Européenne (Hongrie, Pologne et République Tchèque)

Georges Mink

Laboratoire d’Analyse des Systèmes Politiques (LASP), UPRESA 7026, CNRS, Nanterre

1998CNRS’s section n°40 Power, Politics, Organisation

Comparative study of political representations in three east European countries

Signifier l’Europe Erik Neveu

Centre de Recherches Administratives et Politiques (CRAP), URA 984, CNRS, Rennes

1998Sociology, Political Science and Science of Communication

Analysis of the representations of Europe through written and visual medias combined with a sociological approach to the work of journalists

Partners from France, UK, Belgium and Switzerland (no further details)

Construction de(s) enjeu(x) migratoire(s) en Europe du Sud: convergence des normes, divergence de débats ?

Evelyne Ritaine

CERVL Pouvoir Action Publique Territoires, URA 981, CNRS, Bordeaux

1998CNRS’s section n°40 Power, Politics, Organisation

Analysis of the process of construction of migration as a political question in three southern European countries (Italy, Spain and Portugal) through public discourses

Identité monétaire européenne et pacification monétaire internationale

René Sandretto

Groupe d’Analyse et de Théorie Economique (GATE), UMR 5824,

1998CNRS’s section n°37 Economy and Management

Analysis of the international impact of Euro and its consequences at the institutional level (no further

54

CNRS, Lyon information on the material used)La reforme d’une politique identitaire pour l’Europe: cohérence et pérennité de la nouvelle Politique Agricole Commune

Hélène Delorme

Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI), URA 99, Paris

1999Political Science, Economy

Pluridisciplinary analysis (using concepts of political science and economy) of the evolutions of PAC in five European countries

La construction d’une identité syndicale européenne. Le travail syndical d’élaboration du statut de société anonyme européenne

Claude Didry

Institutions et Dynamiques Historiques de l’Economie (IDHE), UMR 604, Cachan

1999

CNRS’s section n°37 Economy and Management, n°36 Sociology, Norms and Rules and n°33 Modern and Contemporary World

Analysis of the European status of “Société Anonyme” through documents and interviews with the members of the CES (Confederation Européenne des Syndicats)

L’Euro comme vecteur d’identité européenne

Gilbert Koenig

Bureau d’Economie Théorique et Appliquée (BETA), UMR 7522, Strasbourg

1999CNRS’s section n°37 Economy and Management

Study of the role of Monetary Union in the construction of European policy (no further details)

Les commissaires européens et la représentation politique de “l’Europe”

Andy SmithCERVL Pouvoir Action Publique Territoires, URA 981, Bordeaux

1999CNRS’s section n°40 Power, Politics, Organisation

Empirical study of eight European commissionaires’ communications during the periods of 1989-92 and 1995-99, discourse analysis

La formation d’une autorisation européenne de mise sur le marché des médicaments de 1985 à 1998

Philippe Urfalino

Centre de Sociologie des Organisations (CSO), UPR 710, CNRS, Paris

1999CNRS’s section n°40 Power, Politics, Organisation

Combination of several methods and three studies: quantitative analysis of the authorisations, study of the process of construction of the European Agency and a comparative study of the roles of specific countries in the European policy on the matter

Lieux et rituels d’une identité européenne, les musées de guerre du XXème siècle

Sophie Wahnich

Centre Universitaire de Recherches Administratives et Politiques de Picardie (CURAPP), ESA 6054,Amiens

1999History, Sociology, Political Science and Political Anthropology

Study analysing the museums and their narratives on the 20th century’s wars (no further details)

Analyse comparative des relations entre formation des familles et participation féminine au marché du travail dans les pays de l’Union européenne: vers une identité européenne des modèles d’emploi féminin?

Jacques Zighera

Fondements des Organisations et Régulation de l’Univers Marchand (FORUM), ESA 7028, Paris

1999 ?Secondary analysis of European statistics (Eurostat)

Les minorités ethniques dans l’Union européenne: politiques

Lionel Arnaud

Centre de Recherches Administratives et

2000Political Science, Sociology, Geography,

Two approaches combined : public policy analysis and sociological

CRAP Rennes, CRAPS Lille, CRER University of

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d’intégration et identités Politiques (CRAP), ESA 6051, Rennes

Race Relations Studies analysis of integration (with race relation studies)

Warwick, INMES University of Amsterdam, OTB University of Delft

L’Union européenne, une démocratie diffuse ? L’émergence de modes alternatifs de contrôle

Olivier Costa

CERVL, Pouvoir, Action Publique, Territoires, UMR 5116, Bordeaux

2000CNRS’s section n°40 Power, Politics, Organisation

Analysis of new norms and forms of public control characterising the CE (no further details)

Les politiques du marché du travail en Europe: les cadrages juridiques et économiques du jugement des compétences et leur rapport au chômage

François Eymard-Duvernay

Fondements des Organisations et Régulation de l’Univers Marchand (FORUM), ESA 7028, Nanterre, Paris

2000Economy, Law Studies, Social Economy

Comparative analysis (four countries) of policies using approaches from economical theory, from law theory and from social economy of education

FORUM-CNRS-ParisX, London School of Economics, University of Louvain, LEST-CNRS, Centre d’Etudes de l’Emploi and Observatoire social européen

Rôle de la construction d’un référentiel communautaire dans les réformes des systèmes nationaux de retraite

Bernard FriotEmploi et Politiques Sociales, ESA 7003, Nancy

2000CNRS’s section n°40 Power, Politics, Organisation

Analysis of CE’s texts of law on the matter as well as national documents for the countries involved (Spain, Netherlands, France)

Espace(s) public(s) européen(s), construction(s) identitaire(s) et dispositifs télévisuels. Approches comparatives des émissions de débat public en Europe

Guy LochardLaboratoire Communication et Politique, UPR 36, Paris

2000

CNRS’s section n°40 Power, Politics, Organisation and 34 Languages, Language and Discourses

Comparative analysis of public political debate in the TV

Partners from France, Spain, Denmark, UK, Romania and Quebec (no further details)

Vers un modèle européen des politiques de la santé ? Mise en perspective comparative des réformes

Monica Steffen

CERAT Politique, Administration, Ville, Territoire, UMR 5606, Grenoble

2000

CNRS’s section n°40 Power, Politics, Organisation and n° 39 Spaces, territories and societies

Comparative study of the Health policy reforms and their consequences for the European Welfare state model (France, UK, Germany, Sweden, Italy and Spain)

Usages municipaux de la citoyenneté européenne: mobilisations, votes et enjeux communautaires

Sylvie Strudel

Centre de Recherche Administratives, Politiques et Sociales (CRAPS), UPRESA 8026, Lille

2000

CNRS’s section n°40 Power, Politics, Organisation and n°36 Sociology, Norms and Rules

Study of motivations and representations of citizens voting in the CE elections (France, Belgium, Denmark, Portugal)

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Appendix 2.b List of Seminars Funded Under the CNRS “European Identity in Question”Interdisciplinary Programme

Title of the Seminary DirectorInstitution and/or Research

GroupStarting

YearPublic Partners

La modernisation des entreprises et l’intégration sociale à l’Ouest et à l’est de l’Europe. Identités et modèles européens

François Bafoil

CERAT, Politique, Administration, Ville, Territoire (UMR 5606), CNRS, Grenoble

1998Four pluridisciplinary seminaries open for French and foreign specialists, as well as for professionals coming from outside academic world

Vers une politique européenne de formation professionnelle?

Thierry Berthet

CERVL Pouvoir Action Publique Territoires (URA 981), CNRS, Bordeaux

1998Seminary aiming in priority the academic staff but also welcoming the professionals from outside the HE sector

In co-operation with the seminary directed by Annick Kieffer and financed by the same program

Séminaire international et interdisciplinaire: histoire comparée des catégories socio-culturelles européennes

Christophe Charle

Institut d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine (UPR 671), CNRS, Paris

1998Three pluridisciplinary seminaries (no further precisions on public or on disciplines involved)

Espace public, citoyenneté européenne et identité postnationale

John Crowley

Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI) (ESA 7050), CNRS, Paris

1998Seminary around the concept of « European public space » addressing to “different disciplines and different national traditions”30 (no further details)

In co-operation with the research project directed by Jaques Grestle and financed by the same program (see table “projects”)

Faut-il compter en ou sur l’Europe? Perspectives comparées sur l’investissement du champ politique européen

Virginie Guiraudon

Centre de Recherches Administratives Politiques et Sociales (CRAPS) (URA 982), CNRS, Lille

1998

The partners of the seminary come from “several disciplines, work in different countries and use different theoretical frames but they all work towards the same comparative aim” (no further precisions)

Formation, insertion, et carrières en Europe : harmonisation en questions

Annick KiefferLASMAS-Institut du Longitudinal (UPR 320), CNRS, Paris

1998The seminary aims to reinforce an already existing network of specialists (consisting of academics and other professionals of the field)

In co-operation with the seminary directed by Thierry Berthet and financed by the same program

Histoire, mémoire et recomposition des identités politiques

Marie-Claire Lavabre

Centre Marc Bloch (UMR 296), CNRS, Berlin

1998Five seminaries around the question of memory and political identity in the former communist countries, The seminary takes place in Berlin (no further details)

Territoires européens: diversité, différenciation et integration

Violette ReyUMR Géographie – Cités, CNRS, Fontenay-aux-Roses

1998Six pluridisciplinary seminaries initiated by the geographers and welcoming disciplines like history, philosophy, political science and sociology

30 Citations are taken from the project abstracts www.msh-alpes.prd.fr/programmecnrs/europe/euro.htm

57

Anthropologie sociale compare des sociétés européennes confrontées à la redéfinition de leurs souverainetés et de leurs valeurs ultimes

Daniel De Coppet

ERASME (EP 1987), CNRS, EHESS, Paris

1999The seminary is directed to specialists using the same methodology and finding the theory of Louis Dumont (anthropology) promising

Identités européennes: diversités, convergences et solidarities

Robert Frank

Europe et Européens au XXème siècle : interactions et relations internationales (GDR 1550), Paris

1999

An interdisciplinary conference and seminary aiming to produce a co-operation between four pluridisciplinary and transnational research groups. Its final objective is to build up a new European network of historians (replacing the previous one which ended in 1998)

Les régimes juridiques de la responsabilité civile en Europe: convergence ou maintien des spécificités nationals

Thierry KiratInstitut des Sciences l’Homme-Centre Walras (ESA 5056), Lyon

1999Seminary at the intersection of Law studies and economy (inspiring from the Anglo-Saxon “Law and Economics”)

La comparaison internationale: bilan raisonné et perspectives de recherche aujourd’hui

Michel Lallement

Groupe de Recherche Innovations et Société, UFR Sociologie, Psychologie, Sciences de l’Education, University of Rouen

1999Interdisciplinary seminary focusing on comparative analysis - methodology and epistemology (no further details on disciplines included)

Globalisation, entreprise et identité européenne

Youssef CassisEquipe Histoire Economique,Sociale et Politique (UMS 1799), MSH-Alpes, Grenoble

2000Seminary based on already existing European networks of searchers (no further details)

“Bringing the top civil servants back in”. Quelle place pour les hauts fonctionnaires dans les procès de gouvernement des sociétés européennes

Pascale Laborier, Jean-Michel Eymeri

Centre Universitaire de recherches Administratives et politiques de Picardie (CURAPP) (ESA 6054), Amiens

2000(No mention of the public desired or the disciplines included)

Appendix 3. Sections of the CNRS National Committee of Scientific Research (CN)

Sections for the mandate 2004-2008 01 Mathématiques et interactions des mathématiques 02 Théories physiques : méthodes, modèles et applications 03 Interactions, particules, noyaux du laboratoire au cosmos 04 Atomes et molécules - Optique et lasers - Plasmas chauds 05 Matière condensée : organisation et dynamique 06 Matière condensée : structures et propriétés électroniques 07 Sciences et technologies de l’information 08 Micro et nanotechnologies, électronique, photonique, électromagnétisme, énergie électrique 09 Ingénierie des matériaux et des structures - Mécanique des solides - Acoustique 10 Milieux fluides et réactifs : Transports, transferts, procédés de transformation 11 Systèmes supra et macromoléculaires : propriétés, fonctions, ingénierie 12 Architectures moléculaires : synthèses, mécanismes et propriétés 13 Physicochimie : molécules, milieux 14 Chimie de coordination, interfaces et procédés 15 Chimie des matériaux, nanomatériaux et procédés 16 Chimie du vivant et pour le vivant : conception et propriétés de molécules d’intérêt biologique 17 Système solaire et univers lointain 18 Terre et planètes telluriques : structure, histoire, modèles 19 Système Terre : enveloppes superficielles 20 Surface continentale et interfaces 21 Bases moléculaires et structurales des fonctions du vivant 22 Organisation, expression et évolution des génomes 23 Biologie cellulaire : organisation et fonctions de la cellule ; pathogènes et relations hôte/pathogène 24 Interactions cellulaires 25 Physiologie moléculaire et intégrative 26 Développement, évolution, reproduction, vieillissement 27 Comportement, cognition, cerveau 28 Biologie végétale intégrative 29 Biodiversité, évolution et adaptations biologiques : des macromolécules aux communautés 30 Thérapeutique, médicaments et bio-ingénierie : concepts et moyens 31 Hommes et milieux : évolution, interactions 32 Mondes anciens et médiévaux 33 Mondes modernes et contemporains 34 Langues, langage, discours 35 Philosophie, histoire de la pensée, sciences des textes, théorie et histoire des littératures et des arts 36 Sociologie – Normes et règles 37 Economie et gestion 38 Sociétés et cultures : approches comparatives 39 Espaces, territoires et sociétés 40 Politique, pouvoir, organisation 41 Gestion de la recherché

4231 Santé et société43 Impacts sociaux du développement des nanotechnologies44 Modélisation des systèmes biologiques, bioinformatique45 Cognition, langage, traitement de l'information, systèmes naturels et artificiels46 Risques environnementaux et société47 Astroparticules

31 Sections n° 42 to 46 are interdisciplinary commissions in charge of the recruitment and evaluation of candidates specialised in pluridisciplinary research.

Appendix 4. Projects Funded Under the “Education and Training” ACI in 2004

First Call for Tender

Coordinator Project’s Title Coordinator’s Research Laboratory Partner Laboratory

Bailly Franck« Modalités d’apprentissages et activités de travail. Une analyse économique et sociologique de différentes filières et modalités de formation du tertiaire »

C.A.R.E (Centre d’Analyse et de Recherche en Economie) EA 2260, University of Rouen

Brinbaum Yaël« Education, intériorisation de la méritocratie et perception des frontières entre groupe »

UMR 5192 IREDU FRE CNRS, University of Bourgogne

UMR 6024 Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale et Cognitive, University of Clermont 2

Brodaty Thomas« Education, diversité des écoles et des familles, réussite scolaire, et capital humain ; une analyse économétrique du système éducatif français »

Théma, UMR 7536, Théorie Economique Modélisation et Applications, University Paris X

Capdevielle-Mougnibas Valérie

« Etude des effets des dispositifs pédagogiques de l’enseignement professionnel sur les savoirs, les compétences et les représentations des apprenants. Genèse des ruptures dans les parcours de formation des lycéens professionnels et des apprentis de niveau 5 »

Laboratoire Personnalisation et Changements Sociaux (PCS), Laboratoire de psychologie EA1697, University of Toulouse 2

Département de linguistique, University of Tours

De Saint Martin Monique

« Expériences éducatives et construction des frontières. Familles monde associatifs et institutions scolaires »

Centre d’étude de mouvements sociaux, UMR 8091, CNRS, EHESS

Felouzis Georges« Ethnicité et ségrégation à l’école. Une analyse longitudinale des effets des situations de ségrégation ethnique sur l’expérience scolaire au collège »

LAPSAC EA495 University of Bordeaux 2

Huguet Pascal« Le regroupement par niveau : De ses effets pervers sur le concept de soi et les performances scolaires aux stratégies de comparaison sociale des élèves »

Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive (LPC), UMR 6146, University of Provence

Levy-Garboua Louis

« Contextes sociaux, contextes institutionnels, et rendements des systèmes éducatifs » TEAM (CNRS) University of Paris I

Quenson Emmanuel

Usages de la formation et production des inégalités sociales dans les grandes entreprisesCentre Pierre Naville EA2543 Unniversity of Evry

Rian Luc« Développement professionnel en formation par alternance : nature et dynamique temporelle des apprentissages des professeurs-stagiaires (PLC2) au sein des IUFM »

Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de recherche PAEDI, IUFM Auvergne

Second Call for Tender

Coordinator Project’s Title Coordinator Laboratory Partner Laboratory II Partner Laboratory III Partner Laboratory IV

Balacheff Nicolas

« COPEX Construire des protocoles expérimentaux pour apprentissage humain: prise en compte des usages »

Leibniz UMR CNRS 5522 INRP LES, EA 602Communication Langagière et Interaction Personne-Système

UMR/UJF/INPG 5524

Bruillard Eric « Didatab, didactique du tableur »UMR-P STEF ENS de

CachanLagrange Jean-Baptiste

« Genèses d’usages professionnels des technologies chez les enseignants »

IUFM de l’Académie de Reims

Analyse et Evaluation des Professionnalisations

Mangenot François

« Outils et didactique pour les interactions en ligne »

Laboratoire de linguistique et didactique des langues

EA 609

FRE 2730 Laboratoire d’Informatique de l’Université du

Maine

FRE 2661, Laboratoire d’Informatique de l’Université

de Franche-Comté

UMR 5191 Interactions, corpus, apprentissage, représentation-ICAR

Thieberghien Andrée

Analyse de faisabilité pour un rôle de recherche d’archive vidéographique « Vidéo Sciences et Apprentissage » : Projet Visa »

ICARE, UMR 5191

Appendix 5. Composition of the « Education and Training » ACI Scientific Council

N° Name Title and Grade Discipline1 Barrouillet Pierre Professor Psychology2 Bressoux Pascal Professor Education Sciences3

Choquet MarieResearch DirectorINSERM

Health Sciences

4Depover Christian Professor

Education Sciences, Educative technology

5 Dubet François Professor Sociology6 Duru-Bellat Marie

Programme Director Professor Education Sciences

7 Fayol Michel Professor Psychology8 Flitner Elisabeth Professor Sociology9 Grisay Aletta Professor Education Sciences10 Gurgand Marc Researcher Economy11 Lelievre Claude Professor History of Education12 Mehaut Philippe

President of the Scientific Council

Research Director Economy

13 Mendelsohn Patrick Professor Psychology14 Meuret Denis Professor Education Sciences15

Moeglin Pierre ProfessorInformation and Communication Sciences

16Plantin Christian

Research DirectorProfessor

Linguistics

17 Rainbird Helen Professor Sociology18 Reuter Yves Professor French didactics19 Rochex Jean-Yves Professor Education Sciences20 Tanguy Lucie Research Director Sociology21 Tiberghien Andrée Research Director French didactics22 Toczek-Capelle Marie-

Christine Senior lecturer Psychology

Source: http://www.recherche.gouv.fr/recherche/fns:acied.htm

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Appendix 6. The Ministry of Research ACI Programmes and the CNRS PIR Programmes

Ministry of National Education, Higher Education and Research

Deputy Ministry of Research

The National Rresearch Body -

CNRS

Interdisciplinary Research Programmes - PIR

- Five thematic fields- In all some twenty

programmes

National Funds of Science - FNS

PIR “European Identity in Questions”In all 42 funded projects:- 28 research projects- 14 seminars

1 Project

Concerted Incentive Action Programmes – ACI

- Five thematic fields - In all some thirty

programmes

ACI « Education and Training » In all 15 funded research projects

1 Project

National Research

Agency (ANR)Replaces the FNS since March 2005

Five thematic fieldsSelection process underway

Appendix 7. List of Interviews32

NameInstitutional Affiliation

Interdisciplinary Programme

Role in the Programme/

ProjectResearch Project Statut / Fonction Sex

Bruno CautresCNRS-CEVIPOF, Sciences PolitiquesParis

European Identity in Question

Programme Director Researcher M

Isabelle Bourdeaux

CNRS, MSH-AlpesEuropean Identity in Question

Programme Coordinator

Communication Administrator (Chargée de

communication)

F

Sophie WahnichCNRS-LAIOS, MSH-Paris

European Identity in Question

Project team leader20th Century European War Museums

Researcher F

Mireille GueissazCNRS-CURAPP, University of Picardie

European Identity in Question

Research team member20th Century European War Museums

Researcher F

Philippe CasellaMinistry of Higher Education and Research

ACI Education and Training

Contact person at the Ministry

Expert for the Direction of Research (SHS) M

Philippe MéhautCNRS-LEST, University Aix-en-Provence

ACI Education and Training

President of Scientific Council

Director of Research M

Marie Duru-Bellat

IREDU-CNRS, University of Bourgogne

ACI Education and Training

Programme Director Professor F

Valérie Capdevieille-Mougnibas

EA1697 (PCS), University of Toulouse -Le Mirail

ACI Education and Training

Project team leader Vocational Education Senior Lecturer (MCF) F

Nadine GarricUniversity of Tours Linguistics Department

ACI Education and Training

Researcher team member

Vocational Education Senior Lecturer (MCF) F

32 All the interviews were carried out by Milka Metso.

Bibliography

Web Sites

http://www.cnrs.frhttp://www.gip-anr.frhttp://www.recherche.gouv.frhttp://www.msh-alpes.prd.fr

Agence Nationale de la Recherche [GIP-ANR]. 2005. "Appels à projets 2005: premier bilan du processus de sélection." Paris: GIP-ANR, 22 pages.

Centre national de la recherche scientifique [CNRS]. 2000. "Programmes du CNRS: Sept nouveaux programmes pour 2000-2004." CNRS Info 386:3-10.

—. 2001a. "Les programmes du CNRS: objectifs et fonctionnement." Campus 47.—. 2001b. "Programme du CNRS: neuf nouveaux programmes pour 2001." CNRS Info 396:3-

18.—. 2002. "Projet d'établissement du CNRS." Paris: CNRS, 50 pages—. 2003. "The CNRS Interdisciplinary Research Programs." Paris: CNRS, 48 pages.—. 2004a. "Instruction relative aux modalités de gestion administrative des programmes

interdisciplinaires." Paris: CNRS-DEP, 6 pages.—. 2004b. "Prepilab." Paris: CNRS.Comité national d'évaluation de la recherche [CNER]. 2003. L'évaluation de la recherche

publique dans les établissements publics français. Paris: Le Documentation française.Le Feuvre, Nicky, and Milka Metso. 2005. STREP National Report: Disciplinary Boundaries

between the Social Sciences and Humanities in France. Toulouse: STREP Research Integration Project. www.hull.ac.uk/researchintegration.