The 2025–2026 academic year was a period of transition, consolidation, and renewed momentum for the Nantes Institute for Advanced Study. Sophie Halart, the Institute's Director, reflects on the initiatives that shaped the year, the partnerships that were forged, and the principles that will continue to guide the Institute in the years ahead.
There are years that test our limits, shape our character, and strengthen our convictions. This has undoubtedly been one of them for the Nantes Institute for Advanced Study: a time of concern and uncertainty about the future, but also a pivotal year marked by reflection, dialogue, openness, new partnerships, and new initiatives.
Fragility can affect an institution in two ways. It can lead it to withdraw into itself, driven by a survival instinct that is often self-defeating. Or it can provide the impetus to take risks and embrace new opportunities. At the Institute, we chose the latter.
This year, the Institute completed its transformation into a foundation under the auspices of the Nantes Université Foundation. This change in status is more than an administrative milestone. It reflects a scientific and collaborative vision, one of deeper integration within Nantes' research ecosystem while preserving the independence and international outlook that define our identity.
Building on these renewed foundations, the Institute continued to pursue its core mission without interruption: fostering scholarly hospitality. Although the international call for applications and the FIAS residency programme could not be launched this year, the Institute nevertheless welcomed ten researchers, artists, and invited guests over the course of the year.
The academic programme was structured around three main themes, all guided by a shared conviction: research achieves its greatest international impact when it is firmly rooted in a local context, through scientific and cultural partnerships developed in close connection with the Nantes region.
Living.
The Chair Living within Planetary Boundaries, developed in partnership with the Nantes Urban Planning Agency (AURAN), the Nantes National School of Architecture (ENSA Nantes), and the SCE-KERAN Group, welcomed its second resident, anthropologist Verónica Calvo Valenzuela. Her inaugural lecture, Habitability and Ancestrality, held in October 2025 in partnership with Le Chronographe, opened a reflection on habitability through the lens of the long term and in dialogue with Critical Zone studies. Throughout the year, the workshop series Where to Land? brought together researchers, urban planners, and students to rethink how we describe the places we inhabit and the interdependencies that shape them.
The project Towards an International of Rivers and Other Elements of Nature (2023–2026), conceived by Camille de Toledo and developed in partnership with Le Lieu Unique, the association Notre Affaire à Tous, and with the support of the City of Nantes, reached the culmination of its three-year programme with a third major event, The Grand Assembly. During this gathering, researchers, citizens, artists, and elected representatives debated legislative proposals drafted by the Council of Witnesses, calling for the Loire River and its estuary to be recognised as legal subjects. These proposals, championed by Member of Parliament Charles Fournier, were formally introduced as a bill in the French National Assembly in June 2026.
Commons.
The Chair Commons. Knowledge, Power and Crises launched its inaugural edition on 13 April 2026 with the lecture Rethinking Food Systems as Commons. The event brought together local food initiatives from the Nantes region and the Institute's three Mexican resident researchers, Paola Abril Campos Rivera, Claudia Rosina Bara, and Karla Nicol Hernández Puente, for a transatlantic dialogue on food as a common good.
This research area was also embodied in Diaspo'Roots, the research-creation project led by Ma-Woury Cissé, which explores the intangible commons of African diasporas. Its first phase culminated in June 2026 with the Diaspo'Roots Festival, dedicated to the shared memories and archives of Nantes' Senegalese community. Ma-Woury will continue this research at the Institute from next September as the second resident of the Chair Commons. Knowledge, Power and Crises.
Protecting Academic Freedom and Strengthening International Collaborations
A key priority this year was to strengthen the Institute's international collaborations, particularly within the network of Institutes for Advanced Study. At a time when science and academic freedom face growing challenges around the world, the Institute became co-organiser, alongside the Collegium Helveticum in Zurich, of the Scholars at Risk working group within the European NETIAS network. In March 2026, it hosted a workshop in Nantes bringing together representatives from around ten European Institutes for Advanced Study to develop joint initiatives aimed at reinforcing the role of these institutes as places of refuge for scholars at risk.
For the Institute, this international outlook is meaningful only when it is firmly rooted in the region that hosts it. Throughout the year, the Institute further strengthened its scientific and cultural partnerships across Nantes: with Nantes Université, its principal academic partner; with the ONEVU Observatory (Gustave Eiffel University) on research into the urban Critical Zone; with the City of Nantes' Department of Heritage and the Nantes History Museum; with Le Lieu Unique and Le Cinématographe, notably through the IDÉAL Festival organised by the TU; with NEF Animation and Novelarium; with the Maison Julien Gracq; and with the Sea More Blue research network on Blue Humanities.
These three areas of work reflect a vision of research that refuses to turn inward, especially in times of crisis. Instead, it engages with the realities of a place and the voices of the wider world, while contributing to a form of scientific diplomacy that enables researchers from across the globe to engage in dialogue with one another and with Nantes.
None of this would have been possible without the unwavering commitment and dedication of a team that has been fully engaged from day one, or without the support of those who have stood by us throughout the year: Nantes Métropole, our longstanding partner, which has renewed its confidence in us; Nantes Université and its Foundation, which have provided the Institute with a new institutional home; our Board of Directors and Scientific Advisory Board; the friendship of our partners; and the patience and professionalism of our service providers.
It is alongside all of them, and with the same sense of purpose and commitment, that we look forward to the year ahead.
