Within the context of NExT, the partners of the Initiative have set a strategic goal to discover, attract and promote the development of talented researchers and professors in Nantes, in particular to strengthen the partenrs’ ability to recruit new profiles, in France and abroad. This objective is a part of an attractiveness policy initiated with Pays de la Loire Region and local authorities and implemented since 2013 via the Connect Talent regional call for the proposals (link).
To strengthen this dynamic, the NExT Initiative is launching a call for expression of interest aiming to identify the researchers and the professors who would like to join one of the NExT’s partners institutions to conduct there research and teaching activities.
The call for expression of interest should allow more projects to emerge on the Nantes site, support the proponents to co-build the mobility projects with the institutions and to propose to local authorities some excellent projects that could be co-funded by NExT.
The profiles contributing to the distinctive excellence of the site on the two priority axes defined by NExT (see below), will be favoured, however projects from all domains of science will be examined.
The candidates’ identification will allow to select the most interesting profiles and to define their arrival conditions. The short term objective is to support the projects that may be submitted to the ongoing Connect Talent regional call for proposals (wave 3, closing in February 2018). The projects that can not be realized within this period will also be examined and may be accompanied within a less constrained schedule.
The applicants are invited to submit a letter of intent using the model provided below.
The letters of intent will be evaluated by a Committee representing partner institutions on the following criteria:
NB : the selection of a project for this call of expression doesn’t constitute a recruitement commitment on the part of the host institution.
The projects will be accompanied by the NExT team to:
If the project is selected for funding by the Connect Talent regional call for proposals, the final budget will be validated by the local authorities, the NExT’s Steering Committee and the host institution, who will then be able to finalize the recruitment process of the applicant.
NB : this call for expression of interest will be open again at the end of 2017, for the project submission early 2018.
Scientific priorities of the NExT Initiative
Future Industry:
based on the scientific excellence in the field of process engineering and material characterization, ocean engineering and hydrodynamics, robotics, numerical modeling, simulation and optimisation, the NExT project objective is to develop 2 following thematics: – Advanced production technologies: energy saving by lightening of the structures (transition from metallics to composites) is a first issue. The replacement of raw materials related to the petroleum sector by sustainable sources (for example: plant fiber) or issued of recycling is a second issue. These gains and replacements require innovative processes. In this context it’s necessary to think of an optimal relationship between man and robotics from the point of view of societal acceptability and technicality. – Ocean engineering: the control of sustainable energy production technologes at a reasonable cost, with the possibility of integrating a multi-use for optimizing land use, is a priority issue. In the naval sector, the drastic reduction of consumption of the ships while maintaining a maneuverability in high seas will have to be allowed in a very short time.
Future Health:
This priority focuses on 3 thematics: – Innovative biotherapies for tretaing a multitude of pathologies, which lead to or are characterized by the loss of organ function, tissues, cells ou genes and thus require replacement (transplantation), reparation, regeneration (cell and gene therapy, regenerative medicine) or reprogramming (regenerative medicine); – The therapies related to oncology and the nuclear medicine,via theranostic approaches for treating different types of cancer: these associated targeted therapies (immunotherapies for example) and/or combined therapies (radioimmunotherapies, combined immunotherapies, for example) and diagnostics (multimodal imaging for example) which lead, more and more, to curing patients or at least significantly lengthening their life survival. – These innovative and preventive therapeutic approaches are supported by the advances in Precision Medicine: multiparametric approaches of massive databasis made possible by new epidemiological, bio-informatics and biological tools that place the patient at the heart of a personalized patient care plan.