Deadline 28 March

The Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, the Hon Karen Andrews MP, has opened the 7th Round of the Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-Ps). The round will prioritise R&D on critical minerals, such as Lithium, cobalt, titanium, in order to help the resources sector growth, and to position Australia as a world leader in this developing market..

Demand for critical minerals such as lithium and rare earths is growing rapidly as they form a major part of commercial technologies like mobile phone chips, laptop computers, solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles.

Read the Minister announcement here

Apply to the CRC-P program here

18-20th September 2019

Conference venue : Université de Toulon

Recent events in Australia remind us that Australia is still caught in discourses on “nation”, “belonging” and “identity” in an environment that fails to produce new alternatives in the “postcolonial”, “multicultural” country. By proposing Alter/Native Spaces the 2019 EASA conference intends to go beyond the postcolonial to examine how the prefix “alter” is thus linked both to the notion of an alternative and to the notion of multiplicity, and how Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledges may interact and form new spaces to reframe the relationship between the settler nation and the Indigenous peoples by instating a presence in place of an absence. The conference also seeks to examine the ways in which the interaction of Indigenous and non-indigenous geographies may construct alter/native spaces, imaginaries or models of inhabitance that can provide new modes of rethinking difference and belonging. Among the new spaces, global spaces of Indigeneity can be scrutinized as a new vision from afar—an alter/native movement of identities.

The conference will examine identity fragmentation, intersectional identities, floating movements in the creation of identities, between coercion and resistance/ reaffirmation, as well as shifting concepts and definitions, between the imposed and the chosen. The blurriness of representation from the perceived to the represented can also be studied with an exploration of the interpretation, the use and aim of images. Virtual identities can be investigated as well. The 2019 EASA “Alter/Native Spaces” conference will thus focus on the flexibility of boundaries, on “in-betweenness”.

This conference aims to explore the following questions:

Inter/transcultural understandingsKnowledges/knowledgeReinventing the past/ Re-visions of historiesHybrid and/or radicant aestheticsCultural reconfigurations and nationalist discoursesColonialism/Multiculturalism/decolonization/neo-colonialismAlterpoliticsAltermodernismEnvironmental sustainability and the anthropoceneGeographies of alter-globalizationGeographical aestheticsRegionalism and localismColonial exploration/postcolonial exploitationRecognition and ReconciliationNostalgiaHeritage and idealsPost-conflict and reconciliationConvivial cultures

Please send your 250-word abstracts for 20 minute papers and 100-word bio notes to Salhia Ben-Messahel and Vanessa Castejon: salhia.benmessahel@univ-tln.fr and castejon@univ-paris13.fr by March 15th, 2019. We do encourage panel proposals. Notification of acceptance/rejection of abstracts will be sent by 15 April 2019.

All accepted participants will be expected to become members of the EASA as a precondition to presenting their papers. Details of EASA membership are available on the association’s website at this address: http://www.easa-australianstudies.net/easa/office.

A call for full-academic-length papers derived from conference presentations will be issued after the conference for publication in the Association’s online journal JEASA (http://www.easa- australianstudies.net/ejournal/call).

The European Association for Studies of Australia, founded in 1989, seeks to promote the teaching of and research in Australian Studies at European tertiary institutions, as well as to increase an awareness of Australian culture throughout Europe. EASA promotes the study and discussion of a wide variety of aspects of Australian culture: Indigenous studies, literature, film, the media, popular culture, history, political discourses, the arts. EASA's area of interest also includes New Zealand Studies. http://www.easa-australianstudies.net/

16 May 2019, University of South Australia

The interest for bilingualism or multilingualism has never been higher in Australia than it has been this past couple of years. Bilingual programs in Australian schools are booming, especially including French-English programs. Language teaching and education need to take into account the new challenges of a connected world.

Focusing on the benefits of bilingualism and multilingualism on social, linguistic and cognitive skills (behaviors, creativity, and openness), the Symposium on Bilingualism and multilingualism in times of change, diversity and opportunity aims at initiating a dialogue that widens the focus on these debates. In this symposium, we propose to bring fresh perspectives on bilingual and multilingual education, focusing on the role of multilingualism as a 21st century reality and priority for “bien vivre – ensemble”.

Please, send your contribution (200 words) and a short bio (100 words) by March 22nd to Ms Flavie Coulbault, Embassy of France, flavie.coulbault@diplomatie.gouv.fr

April 15 – 17, 2019

Hosted by Melbourne Integrative Genomics, University of Melbourne.

Complex microbial networks have a central role in the provision and regulation of ecosystems. Multiple microbial biotechnology applications are contributing to global efforts to achieve sustainability - through purification of wastewater, waste valorisation, bioenergy production, or to understand the role of microbiome in human disease and healthy states. Statistical analysis of microbiome data is challenging due to the inherent characteristics of the data, such as high sparsity and compositional structure. This workshop will introduce major concepts including multivariate dimension methods developed in mixOmics. These methods make no distributional assumptions, are highly flexible for unsupervised (exploratory), supervised (classification) and integration analyses.

This hands-on course is one of the initiatives supported by AFRAN in 2018. It is coordinated by Dr Kim-Anh Lê Cao (University of Melbourne) and Dr Olivier Chapleur (IRSTEA) as a bilateral French-Australian initiative, with the objective to establish an interdisciplinary research initiative to build capacity in best practice statistical analysis.

More information, including registration bursaries for UoM ECR, visit the website EOI applications close: 11 March 2019. Register your interest here

Ministers Frédérique VIDAL (Higher Education, research and innovation) will deliver a keynote address at the Universities Australia Higher Education Conference 2019 on 27 February in Canberra.

Minister Vidal will come to Australia with a research and innovation delegation, to exchange views on opportunities for the further scaling up of the bilateral science and innovation cooperation between Australia and France, at the occasion of the government to government Science and Technology meeting to be held on 28 February in Canberra.

More information on this link

From 29th of November to the 4th of December, AFRAN was pleased to invite Associate Professor Véronique Aubergé in Australia.

Véronique Aubergé is a CNRS researcher in human sciences at the LIG Lab (Grenoble, France) where she heads the Domus Living Lab platform, and is director of the I3L department at the University of Grenoble-Alpes. She also heads the Chair Robo’Ethics at Grenoble National Polytechnics Institute. Expert in human-machine interactions, she studies the social robotics and questions the role of robots in our society, and the impact of the empathic illusion of human for robots.

A/Prof Véronique Aubergé travelled in Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane to start important discussions with Australian researchers, and hopefully initiate future collaborative projects between France and Australia in this promising field.

In Canberra, she participated in a roundtable and a keynote speech at the ANU, co-organized by AFRAN and the 3A institute. During her keynote speech, she shared her vision on the social dimension of artificial intelligence. The panel members of the roundtable could then debate on the role of IA in Industry and ethical concerns in human-machine interactions. She met Dr. Nicole Robinson from the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision, A/PR. Seth Lazar from the ANU School of Philosophy and Dr. Caitlin Bentley from the ANU 3A Institute.

In Melbourne, Pr. Aubergé gave a public lecture at the Monash University. She had the opportunity to meet with Prof Philip Cohen, Director of the Laboratory for Dialogue Research and Prof Sharon Oviatt, head of the Human-Computer Interaction and Human-Centered A.I group. Her Melbourne trip ended with the visit of the SensiLab with Prof. Jon McCormack, its director.

Finally, in Brisbane, Pr. Aubergé gave a public lecture at the Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision, hosted by Pr. Sue Keay, the Centre’s Chief Operating Officer. She met researchers from The University of Queensland, the chair of Digital Economy and QUT Creative industry.

This visit offered many opportunities to meet key players in the social robotic fields. Paths and ideas were identified to consolidate the linkages between French and Australian institutes and labs.

You can watch an interview of Véronique at ANU on this link

A prestigious PhD program for nanotechnology research delivered by Ecole Centrale de Lyon in France and RMIT University in Australia has been awarded €1.6M in European funding.

Ten doctoral research contracts will be offered over the five-year program. PhD students will be trained in a rich biotech and ICT ecosystems, supported by eight industrial partners ranging from start-ups to global players including STMicroelectronics and Thales Group.

This program will foster new synergies between academia and industry as well as strengthen EU-Australia research and innovation collaboration in key areas.

More information on this link

Deadline for application February 6, 2019

LE STUDIUM Loire Valley Institute for Advanced Studies aims to facilitate international exchange among public and private laboratories in the region Centre-Val de Loire, France, to increase research capacity, enhance scientific excellence and to promote mobility and career development of researchers.

To this end, through an annual call for projects LE STUDIUM finances:

Postdoctoral fellowships to attract experienced international researchers to the region;International scientific networking.

In parallel, LE STUDIUM organizes and coordinates numerous scientific events promoting interactions between regional and international scientific communities and transdisciplinary exchanges.

More information on this link

Contact for questions or additional information:

AFRAN is inviting an outstanding French scientist in social robotics, A/Prof. Véronique Aubergé. A roundtable on Artificial Intelligence, ethics and human/machine interactions is organised in Canberra, and public lectures will follow in Melbourne and/or Brisbane.

AI Roundtable:

When: November 29, 2018, 10.30 am-4.00 pm

Where: Australian National University,Centre for European Studies

1, Liversidge Street CANBERRA

Our guest speaker, Véronique Aubergé:

Associate Professor at the University of Grenoble-Alpes (UGA), affiliated to the CNRS LIG Lab (Computer Sciences Lab at Grenoble, France), Véronique is an outstanding French scientist in social robotics. She both heads the Domus Living Lab platform at LIG and the Robo’Ethics Chair at Grenoble National Polytechnics Institute. She has a PhD in Language Sciences and in Computer Sciences. She was a research engineer at the French Company OROS, and a researcher at ICP Lab and then at GIPSA Lab until 2012, where she developed cognitive models, experiments and applications in phonetics, prosody and expressive text-to speech synthesis. At LIG Lab, she focuses on social robotics as instruments to observe and to design models on the human interactional behaviors. She develops co-construction methods for experimenting in Living Lab some real life socio-damaged situations (elderly, children at hospital), for which the robot could be a transitory aid in ethical issues. In particular she is implied in the LIG robotic Social-Touch-RobAir platform developed within the LIG fablab, and in Emox (Awabot Inc) and Diya One (Partnering Robotics Inc.) robots.

Deadline for application: 3 January 2019

The objective of this program is to develop scientific and technological exchanges of excellence between laboratories in both countries, by encouraging new cooperation and the participation of young researchers.

Submitted projects must be joint research projects involving at least a French and an Australian research partners.

A matching fund from the partnering Australian research institutions is mandatory and will stand as one of the eligibility criteria of the submitted projects. A letter of financial support from the research Australian institutions must be attached to the application.

You will find the general information about FASIC 2019 on this link

This program will be implemented through three specific instruments:

For any query about this program, feel free to contact us: science.canberra-amba@diplomatie.gouv.fr

Australia-Spain Research Forums are aimed at the wider community, and present broad research and cultural topics which are of special interest to the Australian and Spanish societies. This year's forum has been designed to showcase the depth and quality of the research links between Australia/The Pacific and Spain; it focuses on the theme: 'Earth'.

Dr Katherine Daniell, AFRAN President, and Prof Karine Chevreul, Deputy Director of ECEVE, INSERM, Paris, will participate in this Forum, for the PLANETARY HEALTH session.

Date: Friday, 16 November 2018

Time: 8.30am – 05:00pm

Venue: Bob Douglas Lecture Theatre, ANU Building 62A, Eggleston Rd. Acton ACT 2601

The Initiative of Excellence of Bordeaux (IdEx Bordeaux) is launching the Bordeaux International Support Helpdesk to encourage the emergence and strengthening of project with high added-value.

This new scheme will initiate or develop cooperation projects with a special focus on few countries, amongst which Australia.

It is a tool to :

provide seed-funding for the setting up of research and academic partnerships and networks involving partners from listed targeted regions ,strengthen the positioning of Bordeaux as a major HE and research institution on an international level,enable students to enjoy an international environment early-on in their academic path

You can find the October CNRS newsletter on this link

October 15-16th, 2018 This meeting is co-organized by CentraleSupélec and Flinders University, with the participation of the GEMA Group and the support of AFRAN

Program

Monday 15th October

10:00 Registration 10:30 – 11:30 Welcoming and general framework

Presidency CentraleSupélec (10mn)Flinders University (10mn)Officials (10mn)

11:30-12:00 Participants’ short introduction 12:00-12:15 Workshop introduction: Bernard Yannou (CentraleSupélec) and John Spoehr (Flinders University)

Buffet Lunch (free posters display)

14:00-17:00 Session 1: Industry 4.0 in the context of mega-projects, such as the submarine cooperation between France and Australia. What are the key challenging issues? The Australo-French cooperation on submarines is a mega-project in content and in duration. It is of a huge complexity and present challenging issues. To evoke a few of them: Project Management, Design of Complex Systems and its related Technical Data Management and Multidisciplinary Simulation Management, Cost Management, Risk Management, Quality and Value Management and, finally, all the innovation and R&D tasks which remain to be achieved. Session 1 is an opportunity for involved companies to express the numerous challenges they will have to face and for motivated academics to present their advances in this domain.

14:00-15:30 - 4 to 5 speakers for 10 min presentation + 5mn questions

Bernard Yannou (CentraleSupélec): “Illustrations of some challenging issues in the design and management of large technological projects”John Spoehr (FU)Invited speaker from partnersCompany(-ies): Naval Group

15:30-17:00 - Brainstorming and propositions. Is it already possible to identify areas of mutual interest for joint activities between involved companies and motivated academics?

Coffee at disposal

20:00 Workshop dinner

Tuesday 16th October

8:30 Arrival/Welcome

9:00-12:30 Session 2 Open-innovation approach. A full eco-system to work together Working on the design and manufacturing of complex systems needs multiple cooperative stakeholders involved in multiple-scale programs. Cooperation between companies and HEIs, professionals and students, large groups and start-ups, from intensive projects and seminars to internships and joint doctorates… it is necessary to develop a specific environment and to nurture it. Visions and experiences on the Open-innovation approach will be shared and activities proposed together with their mechanisms.

9:00-10:30 4 to 5 speakers for 10mn presentation + 5mn Questions

Margaret Ledwith (FU)/(CS): Student industry co-venturing model – presentation of an example of co-developed CS and Flinders program.Stephane Parcheminal (CS): Open-innovation InstituteHervé Harvard (UTS): Innovation at UTS, the Rapido labCompany(-ies)

10:30-12:15 Brainstorming and propositions. How to convert interest from Session 1 into defined joint activities/actions and to ensure open-innovation?

Coffee at disposal Buffet Lunch (free posters’ display)

13:30- 16:30 Session 3 Co-Developing innovation eco-systems and competencies, and ventures. Which collaborative platforms and activities best support competency development in innovation and entrepreneurship in the same context of submarine project? Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have developed different strategies in term of project- or problem-based learning and in Innovation Methodologies. A diversity of learning situations are experimented in academia for developing students skills in innovation and entrepreneurship: team or individual projects, with company clients or research-oriented, year-long or intensive hackathon challenges, within university design lab or the company’s one. This session is the opportunity to share best practices and to propose common adapted forms of collaborations.

13:30-15:00 - 4 to 5 speakers for 10mn presentation + 5mn Questions Innovation competency building programs (Academic and Professional/ Executive) – examples

Margaret Ledwith (FU): Innovative manufacturing, Professional Certificate, UG education etc.Franck Richecoeur (CS) / Eléonor Mounoud (CS): Project based learning and Competency evaluationENSTA-PT/Polytechnic: Innovation based curriculum

15:00-16:30 Brainstorming and Discussion. Which forms of collaborations do you think adequate for developing skills in innovation and entrepreneurship?

Coffee at disposal

16:45-17:15 Wrap-up and final conclusion

The Athenian Funeral Oration: 40 Years after Nicole Loraux

9-11 July 2018

This international conference took place at the University of Strasbourg (France). Once a year, in democratic Athens, a funeral oration was delivered in honour of the war dead. For the Athenians it was a vitally important speech, because it reminded them who they were as a people and why they had sacrificed their sons in war. This conference aims to undertake the most thorough study of this genre in 40 years. The resulting book will be published by Cambridge University Press.

I am delighted to report that audio recordings of 5 papers from this Strasbourg conference are now available on an open-access basis.

The details of these 5 free podcasts are as follows:

Podcast 1

Peter Hunt, ‘Imagining Athens in the Assembly and on the Battlefield', First Keynote Address, with Opening Remarks by David M. Pritchard (in French)

Podcast 2

Dominique Lenfant, ‘The Funeral Oration as the Self-Portrait of Athenian Democracy (in French)’, Second Keynote Address, with Remarks on the Louis Gernet Centre by Violaine Sebillotte Cuchet (in French)

Podcast 3

Sophie Mills, ‘Making Athens Great Again’

Podcast 4

Bernhard Zimmermann, ‘“Back Then, When the Persians Came”: Old Comedy and the Funeral Oration (in German)’

Podcast 5

David M. Pritchard, ‘The Standing of Sailors in Democratic Athens’, Audio Recording with PowerPoint Slides

https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:6072cec.

Conference Program

http://www.usias.fr/fileadmin/upload/DUN/usias/Agenda/Various_events/2018-07-09_Pritchard/Booklet_Athens-conference.pdf.

CSIRO and GISHEDD organized a workshop on "surface waters" in Sydney on October 5th, sponsored by the French FASIC fund, with the financial support of CSIRO, ANU, Monash and La Trobe universities to encourage French and Australian researchers to build solid and long-term collaborations. The workshop was the opportunity for researchers from both countries to meet and present their research.

The workshop was organized in order to encourage active brainstorming on the following topics:

Sediment dynamics in estuarine and coastal areasBiomechanicsApplied MathematicsField Data Assimilation – ensemble predictionEnvironmental Policy Analytics

After several presentations on each of these topics from both French and Australian sides, a session of collective intelligence allowed concrete projects to be identified: Applied mathematics in hydraulics, Data driven modelling, Comparison of CFD methods used in biomechanics, Risks and policy. Possible French and Australian funds have also been identified to initiate the following types of collaboration: exchange of students and researchers, joint supervision of Ph.D. students, organization of additional workshops both in France and in Australia, and using existing conventions between two organizations. One champion per theme will be identified and will be coordinating these initiatives.

Researchers with an interest in getting involved should contact

Jean-Michel Tanguy: jm.tanguy@shf-hydro.org

Vincent Lemiale: Vincent.Lemiale@data61.csiro.au

French and Australian researchers at the surface waters workshop beginning their 'collective intelligence' session.

Deadline: November the 29th, 2018 (12 am Canberra time)

A call for projects is launched by the permanent Secretariat for the Pacific, with the view to select projects susceptible to be funded by the "Fund for economic, social and cultural cooperation for the Pacific ", or "Fonds Pacifique". The selected projects will contribute to the regional insertion of the French communities: New Caledonia, French Polynesia and islands Wallis and Futuna.

Projects submitted for this call by Australian partners shall be submitted to the Embassy of France in Australia, by November the 29th, 2018 (12 am Canberra time).

The projects must be co-financed at least at 50 % of the total amount of the eligible expenses.

- The projects submitted by Australian partners have to be sent by email at the service of cooperation and cultural action of the Embassy of France in Canberra (science.canberra-amba@diplomatie.gouv.fr), and their description must be drafted in French

More information on the Embassy website

Thursday 11 - Friday 12 October 2018, The Convention Centre in Brisbane

Island States in the Pacific have unique Earth observation needs. These islands are often small and remote and are developing their capacity to access and use Earth Observation (EO) data. This information is used to assess climate change impacts, for land use and environmental planning, and to report on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This initial workshop will be a good opportunity to anyone interested in building a shared understanding of the EO needs of the island states and cooperating to meet these needs in the future. The workshop will be supported by key stakeholders and attendees will include policy and technical leaders from the Pacific along with representatives from CSIRO, Geoscience Australia, New Zealand, the French Embassy, the EU and regional and international EO agencies amongst others.

Objectives

Identify the EO needs of Pacific Island states for environmental monitoring and reportingIdentify areas of common interest and expertise between Australia, New Zealand, UK, France and the EU in regards to EODiscuss opportunities and develop an action plan and/or proposals for implementation of a common data platform or distributed but interoperable data platforms, that meet the needs of the island states in the region and are linked to the common interests of EO providersSet up an action plan for implementation of the EO Data platform(s)

Communicate the outcomes to high-level fora e.g. CEOS, GEO and APEC meetings.

Thursday 11 October 2018, 12.30–2pm at The Nye Hughes Room, ANU Centre for European Studies, The Australian National University

There is a strong trend to considering that risk assessment is ‘science based’ and risk management and governance are ‘based on politics’. This leads many to assume that science and policy are done separately, or at least should be. When politics capture science there is a risk of political obscurantism that could lead to endanger common and public goods. This Europa Policy Lab seeks to establish a cross-cultural diagnosis on the way science and policy interact in Australia, France and more largely in Europe.

Professor Myriam Merad is an associate member at UMR LAMSADE, Dauphine University, France. She leads research in risk governance and decisions in safety, security and health and environment. Professor Merad is primarily interested in expertise framing, policy analysis and participative/deliberative decision analysis.

More information on this link

14-25 January 2019

This summer-school, organised by Cedric Simenel, head of the theoretical physics department at ANU and AFRAN member, will welcome postgraduate students from across Australia and New Zealand as well as senior undergraduate students and early career researchers.

The school will cover the following current research topics explaining both fundamental theoretical concepts and prospective applications:

Gravitational Waves (2017 Nobel prize)Dark MatterDark Energy (2011 Nobel Prize)Neutrinos (2015, 2002, 1995, 1988 Nobel Prizes)

In addition to the regular lectures there will be other activities such as lab visits, Science in the Pub, and social events.

More information on this link

The Australian Academy of Science invites Australian research organisations and businesses to apply for funding for multi-partner projects and/or non-project aligned, multi-partner workshops under round two of the Regional Collaborations Programme. The programme will fund Australian participants from eligible organisations to collaborate with regional and international science, research and innovation partners on solutions to shared regional challenges within the Asia–Pacific region.

Funding of up to $1.38 million is available for collaborative, multi-partner projects. Projects are expected to commence between 1 April 2019 and must be completed by 31 December 2020.

Funding of up to a total of $250,000 is available for non-project aligned, multi-partner workshops. Up to $100,000 per workshop is available for workshops held between 1 April 2019 and 31 December 2020.

Early- and mid-career researchers working on projects eligible to receive funding are encouraged to approach their workplace to apply to the programme.

The application deadline for both the projects and non-project aligned workshops is 30 November 2018.

More information on this link

On 24th of September, Pr. Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, president of the European Research Council (ERC), gave a presentation at the Australian Academy of Science to promote the ERC programs and the opportunities available for the Australian researchers.

Horizon 2020, with a budget of €77 billion over 7 years (2014-2020), is the biggest European research and innovation funding program ever. It is implemented via multi-annual work programs, amongst which the ERC schemes cover 17% of the budget (€13 billion).

The main characteristic of the ERC grants is that it is focused on the principal investigator. It offers grantees independence, recognition and visibility for 5 to 6 years, and attracts top team members and collaborators (European or not) and additional funding, as ERC is a quality label. The grants are portable, and offer the possibility for the grantees to negotiate the best conditions of work with the host institution, or to move to any place in Europe.

Australian researchers are eligible for all the ERC Schemes with the condition that they spend 50% of their working time in a European research institution. Additional funding is available to cover ‘start-up’ costs for scientists moving to Europe (up to 500k€ for Starting grantees, 750 k€ for Consolidator grantees, and up to 1 M€ for Advanced grantees). Dual affiliation is also possible.

The Synergy grants scheme is fostering international collaboration: The aim of Synergy Grants is to address ambitious research questions that can only be answered by the coordinated work of a small group of two to four principal Investigators and their teams, bringing together their complementary skills, knowledge and resources.

The ERC grants have no constraints on eligible costs as long as they are for the execution of the project, and request very light reporting. They are also very flexible, for example, the aims of the project can be modified through amendments to the grant agreement.

The main selection criterion for the ERC grants is the scientific quality of the projects. Researchers must prove they can achieve challenging research with scientific and/or industrial impact.

The projects are assessed by 25 panels distributed in 3 scientific domains (10 Physical sciences, 9 Life sciences and 6 Social sciences and Humanities) through a peers review procedure.

The ERC president also announced that an arrangement should be signed soon between ERC and NHMRC and ARC to foster the visit of Australian researchers to participate in principal investigators research. This kind of arrangement exists already with a number of countries (USA, Republic of Korea, China, Japan, Argentina…) and is implemented with an annual procedure:

More information on: https://erc.europa.eu/

National contact points in your country: https://erc.europa.eu/funding/national-contact-points

From 19 to 23 November 2018 in Tahiti.

France holds a very special place through its overseas territories comprising 80% of its biodiversity, mainly found in the tropical islands of Antilles, Indian and Pacific oceans.

France possesses the second largest exclusive economy zone (EEZ) in the world and French Polynesia represents more than 40% of the French marine area.

There are more than 12 900 endemic plant and animal species in the French overseas island territories. More than 70 medicinal plants from overseas are now registered in the French pharmacopoeia.

The valuation of this terrestrial and marine biodiversity is an innovative driving force of economic development in which science plays a major role.

More about the symposium on this link

The French-Australian Forum on Policy Analytics was held on 10-12 September in Paris at the Université Paris Dauphine. It focussed on the conceptual and practical challenges of recoupling knowledge, values and process for improved public policy in the 21st century. Over 20 participants – approximately half from Australia and half from France – participated in a range of presentations and panel discussions, interactive workshops and institutional-level cooperation building discussions.

Participants discussed the impact technologies emerging through the fourth technological revolution will have on public policy. They explored how sensing capabilities, big data availability and artificial intelligence techniques may in fact provide opportunities for the design of more innovative public policies and that we must be thinking about this approach now, even before the technologies have been created. In particular, they discussed how these technologies will enable a never-before-seen level of individualisation and granularity in service delivery and program evaluation.

A strong focus of the workshop was how researchers and policy analysts within and outside of government can play a key role in policy support. Participants prepared specific examples to showcase to the group, and then facilitated discussions to build on these. The showcases demonstrated how to use cutting-edge data analytics integrated with a range of carefully crafted participatory and collaborative methods, for the purpose of bringing different communities and stakeholders of policy processes together.

The forum included participants from researcher, policy practitioner and industry backgrounds (e.g. IBM, SUEZ) representing a range of disciplines including computer science, anthropology, engineering, sociology, management sciences, economics, environmental studies, history and political science. A follow-up forum as a part of the inter-disciplinary research program will be held at the Australian National University in early 2019. A range of other ongoing works have been planned including joint publications, co-tutelle PhD programs, researcher visits and designing a summer school.

The forum and research program has been supported by the Australian National University through its Global Research Partnerships Scheme and the 3A Institute, the CNRS GDR on Policy Analytics and IRSTEA. Anyone with an interest in the ongoing activities can contact Katherine.Daniell@anu.edu.au

You can find the September CNRS newsletter on this link

The International Associated Laboratory CANECEV, signed off by the French president Emmanuel Macron at the occasion of his visit in Australia in May 2018, has been awarded 536,133.60 € by the French National Research Agency (l'Agence Nationale de la Recherche- ANR) for its project “Ecology and evolution of transmissible cancers”, but has also been selected by the ARC linkage projects program for its project on evolution of immune capabilities in response to disease threats in the wild, project awarded 300 000 Au$ over 3 years.

Prof Frédéric Thomas (CNRS) and Dr Beata Ujvari (Deakin University), co-directors of the LIA and AFRAN members, will investigate to understand why transmissible cancers emerge, how they evolve, what their ecological and evolutionary impacts are, and how to manage or mitigate them… They will study particularly the abundance of transmissible cancers in the Tasmanian devil population, a vertebrate host with small population size, and relatively low genetic diversity, and in mussels, an invertebrate host with large host populations, and high genetic diversity. Collected data will identify common and specific traits of emergence and evolution of transmissible cancers. They will also assess the immune adaptive capabilities of Tasmanian devils in response to facial tumour disease. They plan to determine how the expression of immune genes differs between wild and captive populations to understand the role of host genetic and phenotypic adaptations to disease threats.

These projects will combine oncology, immunology, epidemiology and evolutionary biology, fields which haven’t, until very recently, developed many links with one another. Applying evolutionary principles and ecological approaches to cancer studies will allow another understanding of the disease and its evolution, but will also improve cancer prevention and therapies. These transdisciplinary studies should disclose the ecological and evolutionary components of cancer biology, and will gather specialists working in mathematics, cell biology, evolutionary biology, or behavioural ecology.

The research grants awarded to the International Associated Laboratory are a great recognition of this French-Australian collaboration, and of the importance of the research led. The grants will allow to build the transdisciplinary capacity of both Australia and France by involving several postgraduate students in bilateral projects.

Round 6 of the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Project (CRC-P) grants is open to industry organisations, small and medium-sized businesses, and research organisations including, for the first time, Medical Research Institutes.

This scheme provides new opportunities for AFRAN researchers to link with French companies subsidiaries in Australia.

CRC-P funded research has resulted in the commercialisation of technologies, products and services that assist Australian and international businesses across industries as diverse as agriculture, clean technology, infrastructure, IT, mining, manufacturing, aerospace and health.

This program provides industry-led collaborations with short term (up to three years) matched funding of up to $3 million to develop important new technologies, products and services.

Deadline to apply: 13 September 2018 5:00 pm AEST

More information on this link

The Australian-French Association for Research and Innovation (AFRAN) has awarded $25,000 in grants to support member-led collaborative initiatives tackling major societal issues facing Australia and France. Seven laureate projects have been selected through a competitive selection process, demonstrating the excellence and dynamism of French-Australian research collaborations.

Dr Katherine Daniell, AFRAN President, emphasized the importance of building on successful French-Australian links: “These grants are designed to support initiatives that federate and build thematic, cross-sectorial communities around research and innovation areas of strategic importance for France and Australia, including Artificial Intelligence, data and society; Health and Space.” The areas covered by the submitted project proposals illustrate the breadth and depth of the French-Australian collaboration and the involvement of researchers from a wide range of institutions in both countries.

AFRAN is an incorporated non-for-profit association launched in Sept 2016 with the mission to initiate, foster and scale up collaborations in research and innovation between France and Australia. “AFRAN has grown significantly since its launch and we encourage researchers, entrepreneurs and policy-makers to register for free at http://afran.org.au to access the information, support and networks the association has to offer,” noted Thomas Biedermann, AFRAN Secretary.

AFRAN funding will support the following initiatives:

Australia-France Mycobacterial Research Network, May 2019, Centenary Institute, Sydney (CNRS IRIM, Montpellier – University of Sydney)

Advancing environmental biotechnologies through advanced microbiology and cutting-edge computational statistics,1-17 April 2019, Melbourne(IRSTEA France, University of Melbourne)

First Australian-French workshop on Innovation for Industry of the Future, 15-16 October 2018, Centrale Supélec Saclay campus Gif sur Yvette (Ecole Centrale Supelec & GEMA Group – Flinders, UQ, UTS- French primes)

Research School on Statistics and Data Science, 24-28 June 2019, Institute of Advanced Studies, La Trobe University, Bundoora (Université de Caen – La Trobe)

10-12 December 2018, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane (QUT, ARC Center for Robotic Vision, UQ-QBI, Institut Polytechnique de Bordeaux, Université de Montpellier, SoftBank Robotics Europe)

Workshop ‘Healthy Happy Cities in Tropical Environment’, 13-15 February 2019, Griffith university, Gold Coast (French School of Architecture of La Reunion -ENSAMR, Indians Ocean network of Architecture school, IONAS, Griffith University and James Cook University)

14 September – 17 November, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne (Philippe Rahm Architectes – France, Swinburne, RMIT)

Thales Alenia Space gives us its review on the satellites use for climate change mitigation.

Satellites data are playing a key role to evaluate to what degree the environment, business activites, and communities are exposed to climate change. They can measure the atmosphere composition and temperature, the oceanic currents, the snow covering, and help us to calculate weather forecast and climate evolution… But they can also help us to save ecosystems by bringing precise data in activities such as agriculture or energy…

The TAS review on this link

A second call for projects is launched this year by the permanent Secretariat for the Pacific, with the view to select projects susceptible to be funded by the “Fund for economic, social and cultural cooperation for the Pacific “, or “Fonds Pacifique”.

The selected projects will contribute to the regional insertion of the French communities: New Caledonia, French Polynesia and islands Wallis and Futuna.

Projects submitted for this call by Australian partners shall be submitted to the Embassy of France in Australia, by September the 2nd, 2018 (12 am Canberra time). To be eligible, the selected projects will have to fit in one of the following field:

Project allowing the French communities to be associated with the fight against climate change and with the risk prevention of disasters. Projects contributing to the respect for the obligations of States as well as to the implementation of the decisions which were taken in the COP 21 as well as of those who will be during the COP 22 will be particularly appreciated.Economic and industrial project (studies of feasibility, impact, training initiatives…)Sanitary safety or Food safety project (fight against the endemic diseases (non-contagious or transmitted by infectious vectors, management of halieutic resources, actions with great potential of economic development and increase of the regional exchanges).

Beyond these themes, preference will be given to the projects underlining communication efforts, measure of efficiency, follow-up by indicators and outcomes in mid and long terms.

The projects must be co-financed at least at 50 % of the total amount of the eligible expenses

– The Pacific Fund is meant to initiate projects and not to support the development of a project through time. In case you foresee that the project you are submitting might lead to a potential re-application later on, this has to be mentioned from the start. – The projects submitted by Australian partners have to be sent by email at the service of cooperation and cultural action of the Embassy of France in Canberra (science.canberra-amba@diplomatie.gouv.fr), and their description must be drafted in French –for Australian partners

To apply, you must fill the project form: Project Form 2018 EN

… and the provisional budget:Provisional Budget

For any request, thank you for contacting us at:

A large dimensional global trade model has been developed by scientists from the American Geophysical Union, the University of Melbourne, the Australia National University, and the CSIRO to better account for various effects of global warming on national incomes for 139 countries. This new economic model shows a US$23 trillion loss in global GDP, with the economies of many countries collapsing, if we allow global temperatures to rise by 4 degrees by 2100.

Read the media release on this link

You are warmly invited to the seminars & the public lectures in Classics & Ancient History at the University of Queensland (UQ) in 2nd semester 2018.

For many of you, Australia is simply a very long way away. Even within the country, Brisbane often seems beyond the oikoumenē gē (‘the inhabited world’). In Queensland itself there are teachers of Ancient History whose high schools are hundreds or thousands of kilometres from this state’s capital city. For all of you UQ Classics & Ancient History is resuming the podcasting of our seminars and public lectures.

In due course podcasts of the talks by A. Brown (Queensland), S. Harrison (Oxford), A. Kotsonas (Cincinnati), D. M. Pritchard (Queensland) & J. Quinn (Oxford) will be made available here.

Please find attached the program of our talks: Classic & Ancient History seminars

The Professor Frederic Hollande, Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of Melbourne is co-directing the first International Associated Laboratory between INSERM (French National Institute of Health and Medical Research) and Australia. Invited at SBS for an interview, he explains his research, investigating causes of diseases, especially cancer, and he gives us his view of the medical research collaboration between France and Australia…

on this link and in French!

INRIA, the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control aims at encouraging international projects to develop its international links. This year, INRIA has a particular focus on Australia to foster new collaborations.

An Associate Team is a joint research project created between an Inria project-team and a research team from abroad. The two partners jointly define a scientific objective with a clear added value for each of them, a research plan and a program for bilateral exchanges. To promote and develop such scientific collaborations throughout the world, by supporting high quality research projects, Inria’s European and International Partnerships Department-EIPD annually launches a call for proposals.

Deadline: 26 September 2018

For more information and to apply, follow this link

The ANU Translational Fellowship Program aims to advance promising researchers and promote enhanced opportunities for diverse career pathways within and alongside government, end-users and industry. This program, aligned with the ANU Strategic Plan, aims to break down the barriers between universities, society and industry, and to provide the support and incentive for researchers to take their ideas outside the University.

The Program is designed to allow and support researchers to move seamlessly between industry, government, business and academic settings.

Congratulations to Associate Professor Celine d’Orgeville (RSAA) who has been awarded $600,000 over 3 years to develop translational research with partners outside academia. Celine develops novel laser technologies for laser guide star adaptive optics applications in astronomy, space surveillance, and laser communications.

Drinks, food, fireworks and science!

Come and watch as our fresh, young scientists present their work at a pub event, in the time it takes a party sparkler to burn out. Join the ACT Fresh Science in the pub, when the ACT’s freshest young scientists strut their stuff in King O’Malley’s on Wednesday 11 July 2018 from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm

Tickets are free but bookings are essential.

On his arrival, on 1st of May 2018, French President Mr. Emmanuel Macron has met Australian political stakeholders, along with our association’s president Dr. Katherine Daniell, who briefly briefed him and Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull on the Association’s mission.

Dr. Katherine Daniell, Prof. Pascale Quester, President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull

AFRAN was also present at an official dinner, on the 2nd of May, with the French high education, research and innovation delegation: French Ministers Vidal, Buzyn, Blanquer, Girardin and Secretaire d’Etat Lecornu. AFRAN’s president, vice-president, A/Prof. Kondo-François Aguey-Zinsou, and 35 scientists members of the association had the opportunity to exchange on their experiences of scientific cooperation between France and Australia, but also to showcase the association’s activites, its potential for structuring the bilateral cooperation, as well as its development objectives, in particular in France.

The French Minister for Solidarity and Health, Agnes Buzyn with AFRAN scientist

On the 15th, 16th and 17th of May, the University of South Australia, Flinders University and the University of Adelaide hosted the “French Days on Campus”, a special event conceived by the Embassy of France and aiming to promote France and the opportunities it has to offer to students, teachers or researchers of the Australian Universities.

Many activities were organised around a “French stand”, gathering many institutions. This stand included representants of a dozen of French Universities and Grandes Ecoles, as well as French companies, Alliance Française, and FACCI (French-Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry).

Dr. Maxime François, AFRAN Hub leader for South Australia, run a booth on this occasion to allow both students and professors from the universities to get to know the association and its opportunities linked to France.