2021 News & Events

In its recent goals and objectives plan signed with the government, CNRS has decided to work on six societal challenges. After a year of work, disrupted by the Covid-19 crisis, the plan is moving forward. "Health and environment" is one of those challenges.

Regis Ferriere, Director of iGLOBES, responds to the question "what role can your lab play in resolving the issue of "health and environment"?

iGLOBES and the Pima County Man-Environment Observatory collaborate with the University of Arizona who is at the forefront on the topic of "health and environment". We are in a unique area to treat these issues : the American Southwest's arid climate creates public health and biomedical problems, first by exposing urban and rural populations to extreme thermal conditions (length and high peaks of heat), but also with the quantity and quality of water resources, air quality (tied to respiratory ailments), and the quality of the landscape in all of its sensory dimensions. Read further (in French) in CNRS' Letter...

In 2020, CNRS is 3.5 billion euros in budget, 1000 research units of which 80 worldwide, 26 500 scientists, 55 000 publications and much more. It was a year that was strongly marked by the health crisis. "The CNRS has allocated specific resources to research related to the pandemic in response to the global crisis. All scientific disciplines have contributed – from chemistry to mathematics, to physics, biology, computer science and the social sciences. This means our teams have been able to develop interdisciplinary research projects dedicated to SARS-CoV-2. We have shown that we are capable of finding the right technical solutions in a short timeframe" says Alain Petit, Chairman and CEO of CNRS.

Read about the research CNRS has undertaken, the partnerships it has with private and public companies, how it is tackling important issues of the future. 

A message from iGLOBES Director, Regis Ferriere:

"It is with mixed feelings that I am writing to inform you that François-Michel Le Tourneau is about to complete his term as iGLOBES Deputy Director and will be leaving us at the end of August. On the bright side, I am delighted and excited to introduce iGLOBES new Deputy Director, CNRS sociologist and anthropologist Dr. Sebastien Roux, who has just arrived in Tucson!

Working with François-Michel has been a blast. As you know, François-Michel is a fantastic researcher, and his production in the last four years was amazing. Leading cutting-edge research on American geography, he published many papers and multiple books, including the monumental award-winning "L'Amazonie". At iGLOBES, François-Michel played a critical role in reinforcing and developing multiple lines of collaboration with university teams, including Tumamoc Hill, the Udall Center, the Water Resource Research Center, the School of Geography, Development & Environment, the School of Information, the Data Science Institute, and the College of Law. His contribution to the scientific and strategic positioning of iGLOBES at CNRS and with our university partners, especially Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris Sciences & Lettres University, and Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, has been instrumental. And I cannot emphasize enough how his everyday upbeat presence (when not going for a stroll to the top of our mountains or in the deep of the Amazon) and constant generosity has been a joy to all of us, iGLOBES colleagues and visitors alike. Upon his return to France, François-Michel will join the PRODIG CNRS lab in geography. From there he will stay in touch with iGLOBES and continue to support the cooperation between CNRS and UArizona, especially through the Pima County Human-Environment Observatory.

As we already miss François-Michel, please join me in welcoming Dr. Sebastien Roux, CNRS researcher previously affiliated at the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès, and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Dr. Roux is well known for his ethnographic research on transnational intimacies, affectivities and moralities. In 2020, Sebastien started a new research program, organized around futurities and ecological anxieties in France and the USA, and taking a particular interest in social, gender, and racial inequalities. His work has been published in the primary francophone journals in sociology, political science, and anthropology (Revue française de sociologie, Politix, Ethnologie française), as well as internationally (Ethnography, Social Anthropology, French Politics, Culture & Society). At iGLOBES, Sebastien Roux will develop a broad ethnographic research agenda on "environmental futures". His work will be instrumental to strengthen our connections and collaborations with multiple units across the university, especially the Schools of Anthropology, Sociology, Government and Public Policy, and the College of Humanities. 

With the invaluable support of our iGLOBES Program Manager Ruth Gosset, I can't wait to be part of, or at least facilitate to the best of my ability, all the exciting new research that will happen with Sebastien at iGLOBES, and see this contribute to the scope and impact of our new Arizona-France Institute for Global Grand Challenges. And of course, we look forward to nurturing the spectacular research roadmap that François-Michel has established here." 

--Regis Ferriere, Director of iGLOBES and Deputy Director of the Arizona-France Institute for Global Grand Challenges

"I learned a tremendous amount on illegal gold mining while crossing Guiana from east to west. Though the activity itself remains the same, where it takes place is forever evolving. And crackdowns by the government have created adapted systems to extract the gold as quickly as possible. 

Looking from above, the forest seems deserted and yet there are hundreds of miles of crisscrossing trails under the canopy of trees, making it easily accessible. Two thirds of our journey were spent in areas that were impacted by illegal mining. Human presence is significant, and even when they had been long gone, the environmental impact persisted. If left alone, the ecosystem will eventually hide these scars. We did navigate through untouched areas, ignored because there’s nothing of interest (for now), even if sometimes we saw traces of ancient occupation by indigenous peoples.

Though the garimperos use heavily used trails, we insisted on traveling by foot, through dense forest at times. “Why go that way? There is nothing. Why don’t you use the canoe?” They would ask…What can I say? Traveling over 219 miles from east to west was unprecedented. No speed record was set, our goal being to get to our destination at a rate that was comfortable. The difficulty was more in the inherent nomadism needed when on a journey such as this: having to set up and take down daily in order to get to the next stop, dealing with discomfort and inconveniences.

There were memorable moments, meeting people, seeing stunning landscape at the top of a hill after 6 weeks below the trees. And exchanges between team members, learning each other’s unique stories. What hit me the most was the intimate side of this experience. It changed us all and modified our view of the forest. We all grew intellectually and emotionally. And so it begs the question...despite the need for rest...“when can we go again?”.

--- A summary of François-Michel Le Tourneau's article in the CNRS Journal. Read the full article (in French)…

The French Institutes for Advanced Study Fellowship Programme (FIAS) offers 10-month fellowships in five French Institutes and welcomes applications from high-level international scholars and scientists primarily in the fields of the social sciences and the humanities (SSH).

For the 2022-2023 academic year, FIAS offers 17 fellowship positions in Paris. The fellows’ projects at the Paris IAS can be in any discipline and theme in the social sciences and humanities (SSH). There must be a strong interdisciplinary dimension and aim at a major advance on a topic or method. An essential selection criteria is the capacity of the proposed project to show the potential impact beyond their discipline/field and possibly beyond academia. The Paris IAS also welcomes projects at the interface between SSH and the cognitive and neuro-sciences. For more information...

The Office for Science and Technology (OST) of the Embassy of France in the US, in partnership with iGLOBES, is happy to host a series of 3 virtual conferences combining talks and networking opportunities which will explore the scientific knowledge and growing innovations to prepare for better futures. Based on scientific research, we can identify three main innovative fields for the industry: sensors in extreme environments, advances on data mining and tools to improve preparedness, risk management and resilience.

The virtual French-American Innovation Days May 18th-20th will cover these three fields over three sessions with guest speakers from the academia and from the private sector (innovative companies, startups) from both France and the US. This unique event with a collaborative perspective will allow us to open discussions on current scientific issues and present solutions that will benefit from deployment. Each session (2h30) will be a new opportunity to be inspired and to network with other experts and stakeholders! Watch the replay...

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's Diana Daly, Associate Professor in the School of Information, on "They're not viral, they're spreadable: the allure of pandemic memes" and Université Paris Nanterre's Elisa Chelle, Professor in Political Science on "The bat, the pangolin and the Chinese mad doctor: about the hypotheses on the origins of Covid-19".

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's Jason Jurjevich, Associate Professor in the School of Geography, on  "Covid-19 impacts on a fair and accurate U.S. Census".

Though the exact date of its arrival on the American continent is still a question mark, and though the path from first infection to epidemic varied from country to country, Covid-19 has indubitably dominated political, economical, cultural and social life in the Americas for a year. Stuck in denial, pursuing early and aggressive lockdown measures, and even setting up vaccination campaigns of unknown magnitude, all the countries had to deal with the results that continue to be bad with a third (and last) wave that started at the beginning of 2021, and this despite hopes of getting out of the crisis thanks to the continued immunizations...

See program and register. The conference is in French, on France time. 

The National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the University of Arizona, represented by Chairman and CEO Dr. Antoine Petit and President Dr. Robert C. Robbins, signed an agreement for the opening of the first International Research Center, dedicated to environmental sciences and humanities, with the participation of Philippe Etienne, Ambassador of France to the U.S., and Dr. Edith Heard, Director General of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. The IRC's name is the France-Arizona Institute for Global Grand Challenges. Watch the recording of the event.

The CNRS-UArizona International Research Center, the first of its kind, will provide new collaborative opportunities between French academic institutions, their students and researchers, and the University of Arizona and its partners across the Americas. 

Dr. Antoine Petit, Chairman and CEO of CNRS tells us more about CNRS in the world, iGLOBES and this amazing partnership that took place today with the University of Arizona (click on image).

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's Joellen Russell, Professor in the Department of Geosciences "Global Environmental Impact of the Pandemic, Implications for Climate Change Modeling and Mitigation".

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's Katalin Gothard, Professor in the Depts. of Physiology and Neuroscience on "Automatic States Predict the Response Properties of Tactile Neurons in the Brain".

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's Samara Klar, Associate Professor in the School of Government and Public Policy on "Who is to Blame? how Political Polarization Distorts Governmental Accountability During the Covid-19 Pandemic".

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's Sabrina Helm, Associate Professor in the School of Family and Consumer Sciences on "How Covid-19 Reshaped Consumer Behavior and Retailing" and Université Sorbonne Nouvelle's Vera Chiodi, Associate Professor in Economy, on "Short-term Effects of Covid-19 Pandemic in Latin America".

At the Geopolitical Festival, David Blanchon, a visiting research scholar at iGLOBES will talk about his book Géopolitique de l'eau which was published in October 2019.

Water as a resource is often compared to oil whose shortage would create a pending "water crisis", permanent, local and global. It would not take  much to shift from this alarming assessment to war, as some have predicted. And yet the issue water plays in conflicts is not certain. Those it makes them worse, it is rarely the main reason, and could even be a source of cooperation when wanting to make peace. More so than a "water crisis" brought on by a natural shortage, geopolitics of water is governed by inefficient water policies and by not being able to guarantee water safety, all this made worse by climate change. There are solutions for a "new water culture", but this would mean having to put them in place. Register (Webinar will be in French)

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's Ute Lotz-Heumann, Associate Professor in the Department of History on "Toward a Comparative Cultural History of Epidemics or What Can the Experience of a 17th Century Englishman Tell Us About Ourselves in the Age of Covid-19?" and Université de Paris' Marie-Jeanne Rossignol, Professor in American Studies, on "African Americans and the 1794 Philadelphia Yellow Fever Epidemic: From Respectability to Protest and Today's Consequences".

The CNRS & University of Arizona new International Research Center (IRC) is issuing this call for proposals to support joint, collaborative research in areas including (and not limited to) social sciences and humanities, biodiversity and earth sciences, space sciences and high energy physics, material and optical sciences, and mathematical and information sciences. Each project will be co-directed by one CNRS team and one UArizona team and submitted jointly as one proposal. Selected projects will be awarded two graduate student (PhD) three-year fellowships, one granted by CNRS to the CNRS team, and one granted by UArizona to the UArizona team. In addition, each student supported by a fellowship will receive travel funds to visit the collaborators’ team at the partner institution. Up to five collaborative projects will be selected through this call. For more information...

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's Eleni Hasaki, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Classics on "The Parthenon and The Plague: Pandemic Perspectives From Classical Athens" and EHESS' Patrice Bourdelais, Emeritus Professor in History on "Mankind Facing the Great Pandemics".

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's David Enard, Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology on An Ancient Viral Epidemic Involving Host Coronavirus Interacting Genes More Than 20,000 Years Ago in East Asia

The ultimate symbol of untamed nature under threat, the Amazon inspires anxiety and fantasy in equal measure. Numerous French humanities and social sciences journals are endeavoring to tease out the issues at stake, calling on the voices of Latin American specialists. These voices reveal a complex, uneven, and much more nuanced reality than is suggested by the simplistic narratives that filter through the media (...). Contrary to popular belief, it is not a sanctuary for “virgin nature” but a continuum of spaces modified and regulated by humankind for millennia. Read more...

Join iGLOBES-ENS International Seminar Series for a session with University of Arizona's Joceline Lega, Professor in the Depts. of Mathematics and Public Health on Modeling and Forecasting the Spread of the Pandemic. 

Come join us as UA Professors discuss various topics related to COVID-19, with the participation of UA students and international students from partner French institutions in this weekly webinar organized by iGLOBES in collaboration with the École normale supérieure (ENS) school, within Paris Sciences & Lettres University. The general public is welcome. For more information...

The COVID-19 pandemic that erupted in early 2020 has not spared higher education and research. Like all French educational establishments, the École normale supérieure (ENS) school, within Paris Sciences & Lettres University, has had to suspend most of its international exchanges and many students have seen their plans for study or research abroad cancelled. For more information...

After a full year of being unable to travel because of the Covid-19 pandemic, François-Michel Le Tourneau, Deputy Director of iGLOBES, was able to go back to French Guiana and continue his research on illegal gold miners.

In his new blog posted in the Journal du CNRS, he talks about an "internet revolution" which is spreading in the forest and how cyber cafes are flourishing, "a thoughtful mix of high-tech, DIY and total lack of security". Read the full blog (in French)....