Research at PSL
A Word from the Vice-President for Research & Graduate Education
With more than 70% of its students at the Master’s or PhD level and an exceptional student/faculty ratio, PSL is the ultimate setting for breaking down walls between education and research across the board, based on excellence in science and in teaching. Member institutions share the values associated with education through the development of new knowledge, and many of them have already implemented innovative teaching methods that take advantage of students’ current skills to meet their needs and realize their aspirations.
The university is building on this dynamic by developing a Graduate Program (GP) ecosystem inspired by the graduate schools that can be found in most of the world’s top universities. These GPs will implement research-based learning at the Master’s and PhD levels of the university and fit tightly into the existing framework of PSL member institutions and research units: students may have the option of a 5-year program that includes both a Master’s and PhD.
These Graduate Programs represent the pillars of PSL’s graduate research and education strategy, which also aims to promote the emergence of bold new scientific topics via IRIS initiatives, support the university’s major strategic efforts in terms of scientific equipment and recruitment, and support novel educational programs at PSL via targeted initiatives at the Master’s and PhD levels. This strategy relies on the significant accomplishments and expertise PSL has acquired since its creation, which demonstrate the university’s ability to shape its research and education landscape by energizing the teaching and scientific activities of its member institutions, associate institutions, and entities that support the undertaking.
This ambitious program, which is unique within the context of French higher education and research, requires PSL to meet several challenges, namely:
- providing access to scientific research by accepting students into fields of study where this research is learned through practice;
- promoting excellence by keeping social and environmental considerations, such as equal opportunity and sustainable development, in mind when recruiting students and high-level research professors;
- building international visibility by reinforcing collaborations with other globally-ranked universities and facilitating the free flow of ideas and talent;
- bringing fresh perspective by stimulating encounters and dialog between disciplines, breaking down barriers to better address the rapid changes and recombinations made necessary by cutting-edge science and societal challenges;
- facilitating the distribution and application of research results by helping research advance to the patent filing or start-up phase.
Focus: Spotlight on the individuals leading research at PSL
Directors of PSL’s major research programs share a few words about the benefits of conducting research at PSL. By highlighting the benefits that they and their teams reap from the ecosystem in which they work, Bruno Goud, Jean-Marie Schaeffer, Serge Planes, and Alessandro Stanziani bear witness to the vibrancy that emerges from cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional collaboration.
Director of Research, CNRS
Designed to strengthen and expand interface-based biological research, the Q-Life “Institut de Convergence” at PSL is host to an unparalleled concentration of high-level teams comprised of physicists, chemists, mathematicians, computer scientists, and other experts. In all, these are 70 teams working together to achieve a shared goal: develop Q-Life into a worldwide leader in research, teaching and innovation in quantitative biology at all levels of the life sciences.
Director of Studies, EHESS
The “Creative, Cognition, Society” (CCS) IRIS seeks to bring a new approach to the study of the arts by considering creative processes, the cognitive underpinnings of creation, and the social dimension of art. Its originality resides in its strong interdisciplinarity. The desired impact is twofold: remove artificial barriers in aesthetics and build bridges between scientific research and the experiential research specific to the arts. It is our collaborative relationships within PSL that are fueling our advances.
Directeur of research, CNRS
Whether we refer to it as the Anthropocene Era, global change, or climate change, there is no doubt that mankind is changing our planet and changing our environment and the environment of all other species. Assessing, understanding, modeling, and integrating these changes form a challenge that must be solved through an embrace of all disciplines to establish sustainable policies that take into account our societies’ environmental transformations. This is the work we are doing with PSL.
Director of Research, Institut Curie
When I was appointed Junior Group Leader at Institut Curie, I was awarded a PSL-funded start-up grant called “Structuration d’Equipes”, which has allowed me to set up an independent team and has opened the exciting opportunity of expanding my collaborations within the PSL research network, allowing the successful accomplishment of our research.