Dear all This is to inform you about an attractive job offer in France the yearly announcement of researcher positions financed by the French Funding Organization Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). These are *life-time 100 % research* positions offered in an international competition to excellent candidates. The web page is http://www.sg.cnrs.fr/drhchercheurs/concoursch/default-en.htm. Posts are available, for instance in Biodiversity, evolution and biological adaptations: from macromolecules to communities, and Biological systems modelization, bioinformatics. The deadline, regrettably, is January, 16.
THE TYPES OF POSTS (see also http://www.sg.cnrs.fr/drhchercheurs/concoursch/chercheur/default-en.htm, http://www.sg.cnrs.fr/drhchercheurs/concoursch/informer/default-en.htm, http://www.sg.cnrs.fr/drhchercheurs/concoursch/pdf/guide-en.pdf): There are chargés de recherche, 2nd and 1st degree, and directeurs de recherche, 2nd and 1st degree, i.e. Associate Scientists after dissertation and after 4 years of experience, and Senior Scientists after 8 years or 12 years of experience, respectively. According to my experience already the Chargés de Recherche are actually free to do what they want within an overall, very large disciplinary category (there are some 40 categories defined for all sciences together). Directeurs are of course expected to, finally, develop leading roles. This may mean becoming leader of a team as proposed and agreed upon by the Research Unit (Unité Mixte de Recherche, UMR) and to search for extramural funds, which are scarce in France. Experience in such leading functions is thus an important plus for an application to a directeur post. And of course publications. Even though strange things are happening, multiple first or senior authored publications per year with an overall impact of 4 or more seem to be useful, but its open end. For Chargé, 2nd degree, several good publications from the PhD are probably needed. THE PROFILES If you go to http://gestionoffres.dsi.cnrs.fr/fo/offres/default-en.php you will find a number of posts offered in the sections 29 (Biodiversity, evolution and biological adaptations: from macromolecules to communities), 44 (Biological systems modelization, bioinformatics), and also 20 (Continental Surfaces and Interfaces, which includes vegetation). But note that by further clicking on the numbers given to the jobs (e.g. N°29/02) you will find that the Chargé positions (Associate Scientists) in sections 29 and 20 are focused to quite restricted fields of research. This is where science politics comes into play. THE RECRUITMENT Directeur (Senior scientists) posts are told be more difficult to obtain for someone that comes from outside the French system. A so-called poste rouge is often recommended in advance, a funding for half a year within the host institution. Even for demanding a Chargé position, advance visits in the host lab may be appreciated. Obviously, this is hardly possible anymore for the deadline 16 January 06. A visit to the lab after having submitted the application seems to be very much expected in all cases. Generally, French institutions *do not* reimburse candidates the travel costs to visit labs or to come to interviews etc.. Yes, this is a shame. I hope we have some funds here at Rennes, but this is not sure. After having applied *all* candidates will be invited to a presentation and an interview in Paris in spring 2006 (see http://www.cnrs.fr/comitenational/calend/printe06/cprint06.pdf). Travel costs will *not* be reimbursed by the CNRS, and on the level of host Units funds may be scarce, too. Presentations and interviews can be in English, French is possibly a plus. I personally could offer help in putting together an application for qualified candidates with a project willing to choose University of Rennes 1 and to work here on the interface between ecology and phylogeny preferably of plants or, alternatively, on the diversity and diversification of arthropods in the canopy. The host lab here is the UNITE MIXTE DE RECHERCHE ECOSYSTEMES , BIODIVERSITE , EVOLUTION with particular expertise in mechanisms of speciation, life history evolution, and adaptation, expertise at the interface between macroevolution and macroecology, expertise in ecophysiology, landscape ecology and soon also behavioral ecology. It is a large institution with several dozen CNRS-researchers, docents and professors, plus technical staff. (see http://ecobio.univ-rennes1.fr/). My personal web page (somewhat outdated) is given below. Please let me know if anyone is interested. But please note that each applicant is free to select and contact his / her possible host lab as available from the CNRS website, and that the decision is finally made by a national committee, which I am not a member of. All the best Andreas Prinzing ____________________________________________ Andreas Prinzing, Prof. Université de Rennes 1 Unité Mixte de Recherche CNRS 6553 « Ecobio » : Ecosystèmes - Biodiversité - Evolution Campus de Beaulieu, Bâtiment 14A 263 Avenue du Général Leclerc 35042 Rennes Cedex, France Tel : +33 2 23 23 67 12; fax: +33 2 23 23 50 26 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ecobio.univ-rennes1.fr/Fiches_perso/Fiche.asp?pseudo=APrinzing http://ecobio.univ-rennes1.fr/Fiches_perso/Banque/publi1_APrinzing.doc
