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Our scientific board
IFP’s scientific board counts 15 expert-assisted members and plays a hands-on role in our research programs (selecting dissertation themes, coaching doctoral researchers, assessing laboratories, etc.).
It counts eight active members from foreign laboratories, and contributes to IFP’s efforts to conduct research to the highest international standards.
Coaching and monitoring research
- Research-division scientific assessments and research-program reviews
IFP runs its ten research divisions through regular assessments in order to ensure projects meet high scientific and efficiency standards. It reviews two or three divisions a year (i.e. every division every four years). In 2006, for example, it reviewed Technology, Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, and Catalysis and Separation.
Review committees count scientific board members and respected researchers working in relevant fields, who use a report drawn up by the division under review as the basis for its day-long meetings with management and research staff. The main issues they discuss include:
- whether projects tally with established goals,
- to what extent findings lead to industrial applications,
- how many dissertations were defended and how many patents were filed by the division,
- the division’s scientific publications and their impact in terms of quotations.
The scientific board also takes part in workshops during which it shares its views on particular research topics.
- Dissertation-topic and mid-term reviews with each doctoral researcher
The PhD student’s supervisor, an academic holding a national accreditation to direct research (HDR) and the IFP sponsor discuss doctoral-thesis topics and submit them to the scientific board for approval.
This is a way of ensuring themes blend in with projects which further IFP’s agenda. Topics usually focus on basic research, with links between fundamental issues and applications.
Once young graduates are hired, they spend the three years they need to write their dissertation in close contact with scientific-board members.
- Juries
Scientific board members sit on juries reviewing:
- IFP professor and IFP assistant professor candidate applications,
- Yves Chauvin Dissertation Award submissions, rewarding the best project from IFP’s doctoral pool.
+ IFP > Governance > Scientific board (members)