CNRS offices outside France

The CNRS Representative Offices outside France are strategic locations for the promotion of scientific excellence. They support expatriate researchers or those on missions abroad, monitor cooperation agreements along with general monitoring and facilitate relations with foreign partners in liaison with French embassies' scientific and cultural offices.

The Europe sector

The CNRS Office in Brussels

CNRS laboratories are strongly involved in the European Union's research and development programmes which means the organisation is one of the leading European research stakeholders. The CNRS Office in Brussels acts as an interface between the European institutions – the Parliament, Commission and agencies - on one side and CNRS Institutes and departments on the other. Upstream, the Office helps define the CNRS's European positions which are adopted by the European Steering Committee. It then relays these positions to the European Commission and Parliament, along with other European research organisations represented in Brussels and their alliances or thematic groups. Its network of European Project Engineers (IPEs) enable the Office to support the participation of CNRS researchers in European programmes.

The Asia / Oceania sector

The Asia sector develops collaboration initiatives reflecting the diversity of a vast group of countries that are highly economically and culturally diverse.
This sector is divided into two sections and also includes the executive secretariat of the European interest group (EIG) CONCERT-Japan programme. One of these sections focuses on Korea, Japan,  Singapore and Taiwan. The CNRS has long maintained close relations with these four industrialised countries which are major stakeholders in world scientific research and whose economies are largely based on innovation. The other section is dedicated to scientific cooperation with China - a key partner for the CNRS given its exceptional scientific and technological development - and South-East Asia (particularly Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia), an area of the world with considerable human and scientific potential.

The Africa / Middle East / India sector

This sector includes countries with highly different positions in the world scientific landscape. India first and foremost and also South Africa, Israel, Iran and Turkey all stand out at the regional level because of their training and research capacities and scientific output. CNRS research teams also have particularly close links with their counterparts in the countries of North Africa and the Middle East (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Lebanon) which makes them important partners for us. Finally, in sub-Saharan Africa the research situation is not homogeneous but viable cooperation opportunities can be found throughout this area of the world. Kenya and Nigeria are the most visible scientific stakeholders but CNRS cooperation focuses on French-speaking African countries, particularly Senegal.

The Americas sector

The Americas/Oceania sector covers the whole of the American continent along with Australia and New Zealand.
This geographical sector covers areas of the world with very different dynamics. North America is the driving force behind global research while large Latin American countries like Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Chile play an important regional role in research even though their economies may sometimes be unstable. Australia and New Zealand have close links to their neighbours in Asia but are nonetheless reinforcing their affinities with Europe which means there are very strong prospects for scientific cooperation.

Photo credit: © Cyril FRESILLON / ARCHAM / CNRS Images