For faculty and staff interested in funding opportunities with French institutions

To facilitate partnerships with French institutions, the ACES Office of International Programs hosted the Attaché for Science and Technology Consulate General of France Tatiana Vallaeys on February 12. She presented a seminar to faculty and staff who are interested in funding opportunities for collaborations with French institutions. 

OIP 2018 workshop French

“My job is to promote contacts between researchers in the Midwest and your peers and potential collaborators in France,” explained Dr. Vallaeys who is currently on sabbatical from her professorship at the University of Marseille to work in this position.  

She listed her two major aims in speaking to Illinois scientists as:

1. Reconnecting them with INRA, the world’s second largest agricultural research center. “We have a long history that has fallen off, but now we need to see where we can reconnect,” she said. She worked at INRA for 15 years.

2. Finding potential collaborators for Pasteur Institute where she also worked for several years.

Vallaeys noted that most opportunities with these institutes would require an Illinois researcher to first establish a strong relationship with a French host institution or colleague.

“Please use me as an intermediary to help you find a French colleague who may be doing similar work,” she said.

She highlighted several initiatives and opportunities potentially of interest to ACES faculty and students including:

  • Make our Planet Great Again

    • An initiative of the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron that contains a series of ambitious and innovative measures to embed the objectives of the Paris Agreement in public action and to involve all actors in this global fight. Dr. Vallaeys said this is a great opportunity for sabbaticals to work with French scientists in France.

  • Thomas Jefferson Fund 2018 Call for Proposals

    • The 2018 Call for Proposals of the is now open until March 12. This program, launched by the Embassy of France in the United States and the FACE Foundation, aims to  to encourage cutting-edge, multidisciplinary research projects of the highest quality and especially seeks to support emerging collaborations involving a team of younger researchers. Each selected French-American project will receive up to $20,000 over a period of two years.

  • Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowships

    • The Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions support researchers at all stages of their careers, regardless of age and nationality. Researchers working across all disciplines are eligible for funding. The MSCA also support cooperation between industry and academia and innovative training to enhance employability and career development.

  • French Innovation Week 2018

    • The 5th Annual event will take place during May 2018 with a variety of events throughout Chicago that showcase the best of French science, technology, innovation, and more.

  • Fulbright Grants for U.S. Citizens

    • The Franco-American Fulbright Commission's US Scholar Program offers grants to US academics, university and college administrators, professionals, and artists to lecture and/or pursue research in France.

  • Erasmus+ - Key Action 1 - Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degrees

    • Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degrees (EMJMDs) are international study programmes delivered by a consortium of higher education institutions (HEIs) from different countries and where relevant other partners with specific expertise and interest in the study programme.   

Vallaeys encouraged faculty and staff with questions about finding collaborations in France can contact her at attache-agro@amboscience-usa.org or (312) 327-5237.

The website for her consulate office in Chicago is https://www.france-science.org/-Homepage-English-.html, and all the opportunities she discussed are available there.

More about the speaker: Tatiana Vallaeys was appointed as attaché for science and technology at the French consulate in September 2017. She is Professor of microbial ecology and biotechnology at the University of Montpellier, France. She holds a HDR (DsC) in Microbial Ecology from the University of Dijon France, a joined PhD degree from the University of Lille (France) and Cardiff (United Kingdom), a master degree in statistics from the Lyon university (France) and a second master in biology –biochemistry from Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France. She also graduated in Management from IAE Montpellier France. She worked for over 15 years for INRA, the French Agronomic research institute, mainly on bioremediation and spent 5 years at the Institut Pasteur working on a NIH funded project to develop multipathogen screening techniques in biological fluids and aqueous environments.