Open Letter to the French Ministries of Higher Education, Research, and Innovation, and of Europe and Foreign Affairs

NO to the disappearence of the IRD: let us preserve a unique research model to address the needs of societies

We, the employees of the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), request that the government cancel its plan to integrate our institute into the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).

All of us – scientific and administrative staff – in metropolitan France, the overseas territories and other countries – are driven by a strong conviction: the IRD is not just another research organisation. For decades, the Institute has operated a unique research model, recognised internationally and essential to building fairer, more resilient and more sustainable societies, both in France and across the rest of the world.

We request that this plan – devised without consultation or any demonstration of its scientific, administrative or economic relevance – be abandoned, in order to preserve:

A unique scientific model, at the heart of contemporary challenges

Together with its partner institutions, the IRD conducts interdisciplinary research grounded in local contexts across Africa, the Mediterranean, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and the French overseas territories. This approach, which combines life and earth sciences with the human and social sciences, is fundamental to understanding the complex interactions between societies and their environment, and to responding to contemporary crises.

This research of the highest quality produces context-specific, useful and directly applicable knowledge, resulting from an ongoing dialogue between scientists, public decision-makers, economic stakeholders and civil society. Built on a long-term process of consultation and co-creation, this dialogue is an essential prerequisite for developing responses that are tailored to local realities, and which are both legitimate and sustainable.

Integrating the IRD into a much larger structure, with different missions and a primary focus on fundamental research, would risk marginalising the very factors that make it unique and effective.

International scientific cooperation based on equity

The IRD conducts its research in partnership with academic institutions in partner countries and the French overseas territories, based on a principle of reciprocity, trust and shared responsibility. In doing so, it makes a major contribution to France’s international influence, including in challenging geopolitical and diplomatic contexts.

This model is based on a long-term presence on the field, made possible by a robust network of representative offices and international cooperation mechanisms that help to strengthen scientific communities in places where public research does not always have the resources commensurate with the challenges. This close proximity to its partners enables a detailed understanding of the complexity of social, environmental, political and cultural contexts; it ensures that the responses provided to the requests made by institutions and local populations are relevant. Training students, sharing knowledge and expertise, and supporting the sustainable autonomy of research teams are integral parts of this mission.

Integrating the IRD into an organisation with different practices in this area would compromise these partnerships, break with dynamics built up over several decades, weaken our country’s position in the global scientific landscape and deprive it of our partners’ expertise. 

Open science in the service of societies

The IRD promotes open science that is accessible and directly beneficial to society. Against a context of multiple crises, misinformation and growing mistrust of science, this approach is an absolute necessity.

The Institute generates knowledge closely aligned with the expectations of societies, which informs public policy and fuels democratic debate from the local to the international level. This approach is based on clear principles: respect for local knowledge, the equitable sharing of results, and consideration of social and environmental impacts. It makes science a lever for emancipation, the democratisation of knowledge and the transformation of societies. This commitment is based on the synergy between a wide variety of disciplines, combining scientific expertise, specific administrative and logistical know-how, and unique experience in the dissemination of knowledge, innovation and scientific diplomacy.

Dissolving these vital forces of the IRD into the CNRS would undermine this collective commitment and weaken research that is embedded in societies and mindful of its impacts, at the very moment when it is most needed.

A strategic tool for France and the world

Without a comprehensive plan drawn up in advance to maintain coordination between the various professional groups that ensure the effectiveness of its actions, the integration of the IRD into the CNRS would lead to profound disorganisation: a loss of specific expertise, the undermining of partnership arrangements, a weakening of training and support capacities for early-career researchers, and the dismantling of support teams… It would demobilise communities that have been patiently built up and are indispensable to this approach to science. It would cause a breakdown in trust with our international partners, built on decades of collaboration, and would permanently weaken France’s ability to act, alongside them, in the face of global challenges. It would threaten a strategic tool serving France’s scientific policy and international influence.

The integration of the IRD into the CNRS therefore goes far beyond a simple administrative reorganisation: it constitutes a complete dismantling. It would deal a fatal blow to an institution built up over the long term, whose influence is internationally recognised, and would break an irreplaceable collective dynamic.

We therefore call for this plan to be abandoned, so that we may continue our primary mission: to generate knowledge essential to understanding the world around us and, together with our partners, to develop responses appropriate to the challenges of the 21st century.

We invite all IRD staff, and all those who have collaborated with the institute, been trained within its teams or participated in its activities, to join us by signing this petition.

The following letter was written by a group of administrative staff and researchers at the IRD