Societal challenges
The CNRS has identified six major societal challenges, areas in which it aims to make a significant contribution.
Our challenges
The CNRS as a stakeholder is fully committed to the life of the community. As such, it plays an active role in responding to the challenges facing us all today. Going beyond this commitment, the CNRS has a genuine responsibility to ensure scientific research and innovation serves the cause of sustainable progress for the benefit of society as a whole.
The CNRS's challenges
From exploring living beings, space and matter to the study of human societies, the CNRS is committed to leveraging all the fields of science to shed light on and gain insight into current global challenges in all their complexity.
Sustainable development
The CNRS plays a role in a global dynamic structured around the sustainable development goals defined by the UN.
Sharing knowledge
The CNRS steers and participates in countless national research programmes in a range of different fields of science.
Open science
The CNRS has been heavily involved in the development of open science for many years now.
Making scientific knowledge and processes accessible to as many people as possible
Knowledge sharing consists of a range of initiatives that aim to inform various audiences (schools, decision makers, general public, interested parties) about scientific knowledge and enquiry. It is in part connected to the democratisation of knowledge, and the role of science and scientific enquiry in our daily lives.
Protecting the oceans
From continents to the deepest seas, from a molecule to the global system, via ecosystems, human societies and the myriad ways in which they use the ocean: sharing knowledge with decision-makers, professionals and citizens to offer the oceans the very best protection requires coordination that goes well beyond just the marine sciences.
To understand our oceans in all their aspects, the CNRS brings together researchers from across all disciplines.
The Ocean needs science - all the sciences in fact. By its very nature this is an interdisciplinary subject and the CNRS encourages people to think of this as a crucial sustainability issue to ensure the long-term preservation of the Man-ocean system
Scientific expertise
Institutional scientific expertise initiatives are founded in a rigorous approach that is a guarantee of quality and objectivity and aim to shedding light on given subjects to inform public decision-makers and debates about the major issues facing society.
The CNRS Foundation
The purpose of the CNRS Foundation is to support ambitious and unrestricted research that gets to the heart of modern social and economic issues. You can get involved too!
Photo Credit: © Christian MOREL / LISN / CNRS Images
