France - Collaboration

France is home to the 3rd largest concentration of Oxford co-authors outside the UK, behind the US and Germany. The French institutions with which Oxford most frequently collaborates on published research are Université Pierre et Marie Curie; Université Paris-Sorbonne; CNRS (Centre National de Recherche Scientifique); Université Paris-Diderot; and Université Paris-Sud. Our major areas of collaboration are in physics, biochemistry and molecular biology, and physical chemistry. We also collaborate with French institutions in the social sciences and humanities. 

Founded by the Universities of Oxford and Paris in 1946, the Maison Française d'Oxford was created through a mutual desire to develop cooperation between researchers, lecturers and students from both institutions.

The institution aims to promote French culture and to be an agent for academic cooperation. As a research/cultural centre funded by the French 'Ministère des Affaires étrangères', the Maison Française organises and hosts lectures, seminars and cultural and scientific events.

The Maison Française is currently running two research projects. The ‘History of Science’ programme brings together French and British specialists in the history of science, techniques and innovation, while the ‘Classical Studies’ programme is a multi-disciplinary network linking the Maison Française with Oxford’s Faculties of Classics and Philosophy, and other European research centres. A solid network is being established both with IFREs (Instituts Français de Recherche à l’Étranger) and with other academic institutes of various European universities. 

The Oxford-Sciences Po Research Group in the Social Sciences (OXPO) is a meeting point for social science scholars in Oxford and at Sciences Po in Paris, who work on the comparative analysis of the evolution of the transformation of political systems and societies, in Europe and beyond.

The group is composed of comparative research projects initiated by its member academics. The research group consists of the Department of Politics and International Relations, the Department of Sociology, a number of Oxford colleges, and the Maison Française d’Oxford, along with the laboratories of sociology and political science of the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (FNSP) and the teachers of the Ecole Doctorale of Sciences Po.

In addition to joint research projects, OXPO also facilitates other types of exchange between the partner institutes, notably in teaching. Examples of projects currently within OXPO include: ‘Citizens Talking about Europe. French, British and Belgian Citizens in Political Discussion’, ‘Comparative Analysis of Elites’ and ‘French Politics.’

In recognition of their long history of joint research and collaboration, Oxford University and Centre National De La Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the intention of creating the CNRS-Oxford Collaboration Scheme.

This scheme aims to help the two partners identify new research projects to collaborate on, to offer access to each other’s research facilities and to facilitate short-term research visits.

In addition to these institutional collaborations, individual academics are collaborating with their French colleagues in such fields as astrophysics, materials modeling at the nanoscale, zoology and earth sciences.

Oxford University is one of the international partners in the CoRoT mission, a space telescope project led by the French space agency CNES and based at CNRS laboratories. 

The CoRoT (Convection, Rotation and Transits) space telescope is designed to detect planets outside our solar system – exoplanets. It does this by searching for small dips in the brightness of a star which indicates that an orbiting planet has passed in front of it, a technique known as asteroseismology. In June 2011, the team announced the discovery of ten new planets including a previously undiscovered star which may turn out to be only a few tens of millions of years old, twin Neptune-sized planets, and a rare Saturn-like world. The young star is a particularly special discovery as observing planets around stars that are within their first few hundred million years of life can yield a great deal of information about the conditions under which the planets form. Much of this information about initial conditions is lost once the star and planets have evolved beyond this stage.

The other partners in this truly pan European project include a series of astronomical laboratories from all across France, and international partners in Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Spain, and the European Space Agency (ESA), plus a team of scientists from Denmark, Switzerland, and Portugal as well as Oxford University. The ground stations used for COROT are located in Kiruna (Sweden), Aussaguel (France) Hartebeesthoek (South Africa), Kourou (French Guyana), Alcantara (Brazil), and Vienna (Austria). 

A number of colleges have lecteur exchange schemes with French universities, including Nanterre (Paris X), the École Normale Supérieure in the rue d’Ulm (Paris) and Université Stendhal Grenoble III. Graduate students in French may apply for these lecteurships which are usually taken up in the second or third year of doctoral research.

At undergraduate level, those studying French have the opportunity to spend for a year abroad as part of their degree. Students have a range of options: they can study at a foreign university, do voluntary work, work in a foreign company or follow training courses in the country of their choice. The department and several colleges have schemes with French universities, which students are encouraged to take advantage of.

Similarly, individual colleges also have agreements with French institutions for student exchange. Keble College and the École Normale Supérieure De Cachan, Paris, offer students the chance to spend either a semester or a full academic year studying at the partner university. Preference is given to those in the Faculty of Modern History, but graduate applicants in History, Politics, Economics, Sociology and Modern Languages are also invited.

On another scheme, graduate research students from any subject at Keble College and Magdalen College can apply to spend a year at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure as a pensionnaire étranger (visiting student).

A number of French organisations provide key funding to Oxford medical science research projects. The Institute de Recherches International Servier supports the work of pharmacologist Dr Trevor Sharp’s work in gene expression changes following antidepressant administration.

The Association Française Contre Les Myopathies supports Professor Dame Kay Davies’ research into finding effective treatments for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and spinal muscular atrophy. Sanofi Aventis (France) supports Professor Rury Holman’s diabetes trials at the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolism (OCDEM). Sanofi Pasteur MSD sustains paediatric influenza vaccine trials in Professor Andrew Pollard’s Oxford Vaccine Group and Paediatric Infection and Immunity Group. Finally, the Foundation Leducq supports Dr Rajesh Kharbanda’s work in Cardiovascular Medicine.