Section 17 gives below the criteria to which it pays attention in addition to those displayed on the website of the Comité National. The recommendations below concerning the format of the dossier concern both the CRCN and DR2 application dossiers.

We recommend that applicants who obtained their thesis diploma abroad, in a language other than French, provide a sworn translation of their diploma when applying, in order to avoid any legal concerns.

We strongly encourage all candidates living abroad, as well as pregnant candidates and candidates whose health condition justifies it, to request, as soon as they submit their application file, the authorization to take the interview by videoconference. This request may be made at any time with regard to the health condition (e.g. in case of Covid at the time of the interviews).
The request must be made to the Service Central des concours.
We recommend that you also send a copy of the request to the president of the section.

Content :

• Recruitment criteria
• Criteria for quality research
• Format of the dossier
• Lettres de recommandation

Recruitment criteria

Chargé / chargée de recherche de classe normale (CRCN)

Candidates for a CR position must be able to demonstrate:

• the quality of their scientific production and the scope of their results (publications, development and open access of tools, methodological or instrumental development) as well as their capacity to pursue innovative and quality research,
• their autonomy, long-term vision, and perspective on their research field,
• the scientific relevance of the research project, and the positioning of this project in the proposed host laboratory and the French scientific landscape more generally.

In addition to these three main criteria, we encourage the applicants to describe their activities of scientific outreach and organization, dissemination and valorization, supervision, teaching, or any other activities that benefit the research community.

The assessment of these criteria is open, non-exclusive, non-hierarchical and not strictly cumulative; they are modulated according to the progress in the career.

Directeur / directrice de recherche de 2ème classe (DR2)

Candidates for a DR2 position must distinguish themselves by the impact of their work, scientific stature, and international influence. They must have demonstrated creativity and relevance in their scientific career-path, and must have assumed responsibilities for the benefit of the community, in which they play a structuring role. Obtaining an Habilitation à Diriger les Recherches (HDR) is strongly recommended before applying.

Criteria for quality research

The quality of the research work is evaluated by various criteria concerning, among other things, the originality of the work carried out, creativity, collaborations and risk-taking.

The following are guarantees of quality:

• skills, scientific expertise, methodological expertise,
• creativity and scope of the work,
• potential for innovative research over time,
• originality and relevance of scientific orientations,
• efficiency in collaboration and supervision of young colleagues,
• ability to initiate and/or to lead projects,
• leadership for the benefit of the community.

These criteria are neither exclusive nor discriminating, as the diversity of individual profiles plays an important role in quality collective research. A career can be marked by phases of varied activities or, on the contrary, be homogeneous over time.

Format of the dossier

Section 17 asks candidates to consider the following guidelines when preparing their applications for positions open to the various CNRS competitions.

General recommendations

In order to allow a fair and efficient reading of their application by the members of the Section, we strongly recommend to:

• build a dossier that concisely and relevantly highlights the main research themes, the methods or techniques used, the main results, the strong and salient points of the dossier,
• make sure to provide, especially in the case of work within a large consortium, all the elements that will allow to judge the contribution of the candidate to the advancement of knowledge, to the creation of new tools/methods and to the collective tasks necessary for the good functioning of the research,
• respect the pagination limits, as a synthetic and punchy file is more easily interpreted. We recommend that the font size be at least Arial 11 pt (or equivalent) and that the research report (typically 4 pages) and the research project (typically 4 pages) not exceed 8 pages in total (modulations such as 5 pages of report and 3 pages of project are possible).

Recommended structure for the documents requested on the CNRS application website:

• Detailed CV: free format, but with a detailed summary explicitly distinguishing the various research activities. Remember to mention the following elements (non-exhaustive list):
  • responsibilities regarding research activity,
  • activities of scientific outreach and organization,
  • collective responsibilities including involvement in scientific governing bodies (council, committee…),
  • participation in projects or observation campaigns,
  • successful requests for time or funding,
  • teaching (specify level and hourly volume),
  • supervision,
  • activities of knowledge dissemination and valorization,
  • other activities of interest to the community (e.g. activities in favor of diversity, equity and inclusion, community well-being, environmental transition, open science …).

A period of interruption of scientific activities considered important may be indicated in the CV, for example maternity leave, parental leave, disability or long-term illness.

• List of publications: distinguish explicitly between rank A publications and other publications and communications. Also distinguish articles with major contributions from other publications. Within large collaborations, specify articles as ‘corresponding author’ and those in which a major role has been played, making this role explicit.
• Research report (typically 4 pages):
  • background, past and present activities, skills developed.
• Research project (typically 4 pages):
  • include the overall summary of the application (1/2 page),
  • specify the adequacy of the project with the research activities of the requested laboratory, the French community, as well as its international positioning.

The total length of the research report and the research project combined must not exceed 8 pages.

Letters of recommendation

For the CRCN competition (and external DR2 applications), letters of recommendation must be submitted before the closing date of the competition on this website. We ask that you limit yourself to a maximum of three letters of recommendation, preferably including at least one letter from a person in the proposed host laboratory. Section 17 does not require that a letter of support from the research unit’s director be attached to the research program.

Version of December 6th 2022. Some translations were made with Deepl.com.