Apply for the research leave program at Iméra as part of the annual national CRCT (Research or Thematic Conversion Leave) campaign for 2025-2026.
Hosted in an international and interdisciplinary context: a residency specifically designed for faculty members of Aix-Marseille University.
Iméra, Aix-Marseille University’s Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), is a sanctuary of intellectual freedom where a temporary community of high-level international scientists and artists can find the time, space, and resources necessary to discover new meanings and content for their research. Since the academic year 2021-22, such an environment has been open to faculty members of Aix-Marseille University to reconsider their relationship to their discipline and other fields of knowledge during a six-month period and possibly embark on a thematic conversion in contact with residents from diverse geographical and disciplinary backgrounds.
As part of the national CRCT campaign, this research leave provides a full teaching release for its duration (either in the first or second semester). Four research leave residents will be hosted during the 2025-26 year. They will have an office available in one of Iméra’s co-working spaces shared with other residents. Additionally, they will have a budget of 2,500 euros to support their projects (missions, event organization, etc.).
From this campaign onwards, candidates who wish to submit an application under the annual “AMU Fellow” call for applications at Iméra must do so during the national phase. No applications will be accepted during the local phase in January-February.
Research projects must align with one of Iméra’s four scientific programs: “Arts & Sciences: Undisciplined Knowledge,” “Interdisciplinary Explorations,” “Mediterranean,” and “Necessary Utopias,” in which they will actively participate by taking part in workshops and seminars, with the possibility of organizing events and original exchange formats.
In parallel, participation in the Community Building Seminar allows for weekly exchanges with all residents and members of Iméra’s scientific team, enabling the confrontation of questions and methods and possibly experimenting with research and/or creative formats developed collectively. The two exchange languages are French and English. In a spirit of conviviality, the seminar is always followed by a lunch with all residents and the institute’s team.
Interdisciplinary Explorations Program:
This program addresses all issues related to the theory and practice of interdisciplinarity in research and university teaching. Residents’ projects collaborating in this program may concern all disciplines and must have an interdisciplinary dimension.
Priority will be given to cross-sectoral interdisciplinary projects, i.e., interactions between disciplines from at least two of the following research fields:
- Exact Sciences (mathematics, logic, and computer science)
- Natural Sciences (physics, biology, chemistry…)
- Social and Human Sciences (psychology, sociology, anthropology, history…)
- Health Sciences (medicine, neuroscience, psychiatry…)
- Humanities (literature, arts, philosophy…).
For more information about this program, please contact Gabriella Crocco, Director of the Interdisciplinary Explorations Program: gabriella.crocco@univ-amu.fr.
This program addresses all issues related to the development of the concept of the Mediterranean from antiquity to the present day in research and university teaching. Residents’ projects collaborating in this program may cover all disciplines.
Priority will be given to projects that fit within the following research areas:
- Migration and mobility narratives across and around the Mediterranean, from antiquity to the present day.
- The complexity of colonial and post-independence legacies that shape contemporary identity reconfigurations around a shared sea.
- The question of religion in the Mediterranean, particularly Mediterranean Islam.
- The Mediterranean in the Anthropocene era, addressing issues related to climate change, water management, and the patrimonialization of Mediterranean spaces.
- Archives of Mediterranean societies and urban lifestyles, including digital archives and those shaped by artificial intelligence.
- The invention of the Mediterranean: the problematization of Mediterranean studies.
For more information about this program, please contact Marie-Pierre Ulloa, Director of the Mediterranean Program: marie-pierre.ulloa@univ-amu.fr.
Necessary Utopias Program:
This program is aimed at scientists from all disciplines, artists, social actors, thinkers, and creators in the broadest sense. Candidates should be driven by a passion for intellectual risk-taking in their field of research and/or action. Their project should propose new ideas and practical perspectives to address the challenges that contemporary society considers crucial but impossible to tackle without truly thinking and acting differently. The fields of invention and application of these necessary utopias include, among others, the ecological crisis, health, migration, labor, economic and social inequalities, habitation, education, and the crisis of political participation.
For more information about this program, please contact Enrico Donaggio, Scientific Director of Iméra and the Necessary Utopias Program: enrico.donaggio@univ-amu.fr.
Arts & Sciences: Undisciplined Knowledge Program:
This program is transversal in the sense that each research project hosted within it is also linked to one of Iméra’s three other interdisciplinary programs: Mediterranean, Necessary Utopias, and Interdisciplinary Explorations. Therefore, it is important to also select one of these programs in the application form and to propose a relevant project at the intersection of the “Arts and Sciences: Undisciplined Knowledge” program and the selected thematic program (see descriptions above). This program represents a space for collective reflection on research in and about art, recognizing the specificity of art, including its freedom to not be a discipline in itself, by combining knowledge from different fields and eras, for example. This program is therefore collectively driven by all members of the Iméra scientific team with diverse disciplinary profiles. The term “art” here encompasses all existing modes of artistic expression.
From a thematic standpoint, the affiliation with another program and one of its scientific axes allows research and questions raised by art (research on art) or constitutive of art (research in art) to be nourished and questioned through regular dialogue with other residents and associated researchers working on a common thematic field, and vice versa.
Researchers working on and with art can come from all the human and social sciences, including: art theory, art history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, geography, etc. Moreover, it is also open to the exact and life sciences as long as the research project has a close link with art and/or artists. In all cases, the research concerned here must be able to problematize the impact of art on society or its commitments to society and/or its position at the crossroads of several bodies of knowledge, in connection with one or more issues of the thematic programs (see suggestions below and their general descriptions).
Regarding artists, Iméra can host several phases of their project insofar as these phases require sustained dialogue with researchers from academic disciplines during the conception of a work, a thought, a writing (whether theoretical, poetic, or of another nature) very early in the process or a little later in a phase of development of a work, but situated before production.
For any information regarding this program, please contact Constance Moréteau, scientific coordinator and head of the development of the arts and sciences axis: constance.moreteau@univ-amu.fr
After receiving the opinion of the applicant’s affiliated component, eligible projects will be evaluated by two external academic experts, identified for their level of scientific qualification and relevance to the project, based on the following evaluation criteria:
Relevance of the project’s alignment with Iméra (score out of 5, coefficient 1)
- Integration into one of the institute’s scientific programs, and consideration of one or more of its axes
- Degree of openness to the institute’s collegial dimension (potential dialogue with its scientific team and other residents)
Quality and ambition of the project (score out of 5, coefficient 1)
- Relevance of the scientific approach and rigor
- Originality of the method and/or subject
- Risk-taking and experimentation
Interdisciplinary approach (score out of 5, coefficient 1)
- Proven practice of interdisciplinarity by the candidate
- Feasibility of this approach within this project
Candidate’s background (score out of 5, coefficient 1)
- Candidate’s scientific expertise on the presented subject
- International experience
Total : score out of 20
This call is open exclusively to tenured faculty members of Aix-Marseille University – associate professors and full professors – regardless of their discipline. Eligible applicants are those who have not obtained a CRCT in the last three years.
The delegation lasts six months, either in the first semester (September 2025 to February 2026) or the second semester (February 2026 to July 2026).
Given that this program is integrated into the national CRCT campaign launched by the HR department of Aix-Marseille University, you must respond directly to this campaign, attaching the following documents:
- The individual form
- A curriculum vitae
- The Iméra application form, including the research project
Candidates who have submitted an “AMU Fellow” application during the CRCT campaign under the CNU contingent do not need to resubmit an application under the local campaign. Applications not selected by Iméra are automatically transferred to the contingent of applications to be examined locally. Please note that it is not possible to submit an application to respond to the Iméra “AMU Fellow” call during the local campaign.
The project must therefore be submitted on NAOS by the deadline (before October 18, 2024, at 4 PM), and the entire file (CV + individual form + Iméra form including the research project) to your component (also before October 18, 2024).
| September 23, 2024 (10:00 AM) | NAOS opens (mandatory submission for Iméra “AMU Fellow” candidates) |
| October 18, 2024 (4:00 PM) | NAOS closes |
| October 18, 2024 | Submission of files to departments (transmission procedures set by the structures). |
| October 30, 2024 | Deadline for departments to send opinions to HR |
| November 7, 2024 | CAcR: opinion before sending to the CNU. Transmission of files of “AMU Fellow” candidates (Iméra) with a favorable opinion to Iméra for the start of the expertise |
| March 25, 2025 | Results of CRCT CNU allocations. |
| April 25, 2025 | Deadline for departments to send opinions to HR and return of Iméra opinions to HR. |
| May 2025 | Expertise by CAcR members of CRCT files for candidates in the local phase |
| June 5, 2025 | CAcR: local CRCT allocations and officialization of results for Iméra files |
| July 2025 | Notification of CRCT decrees |
Information
For comprehensive information on the CRCT campaign, please consult the following dedicated page: https://drh.univ-amu.fr/crct-2025-2026
For general information regarding the research leave program at Iméra and the transversal program Arts and Sciences: undisciplined knowledge, please contact Constance Moréteau, scientific coordinator of Iméra and head of the development of the arts and sciences axis: constance.moreteau@univ-amu.fr
For any information regarding one of Iméra’s thematic scientific programs, please contact the program director (see box above).
For any general information regarding the AMU CRCT campaign, please contact Guylaine Racouchot, head of collective campaign management and bodies. HR: Guylaine.racouchot@univ-amu.fr HR copy: drh-ec-gestion-collective@univ-amu.fr
