“This UNESCO Center will enable us to take a major step forward.”
On October 15, the University of Montpellier, the Ministry of Higher Education, Research Innovation, andUNESCO signed a six-year agreement to establish an international center dedicated to water. This is a first in France and a great victory for Eric Servat, director ofthe Mediterranean Institute of Water and the Environment and leader of the project. Interview with this leading figure in the water science community in Montpellier.
The University of Montpellier will host an international UNESCO center dedicated to water. It is called Icireward. What does this acronym mean?
It was my colleague and friend Olivier Barreteau, director of the UMR G-EAU, who came up with this acronym. It stands for "International center for interdisciplinary research on water system dynamics." In French, this would translate as Centre international de recherche interdisciplinaire sur les dynamiques des socio-hydro-systèmes (International center for interdisciplinary research on socio-hydro-system dynamics). And that perfectly sums up who we are and what our project is all about.
It is a UNESCO Category 2 Center. What is the difference between this and a Category 1 Center?
In practical terms, this means that we have more autonomy to define our strategic directions than a Category 1 Center. In fact, in the field of water sciences, only the Delft Center in the Netherlands was in Category 1, but it too has requested to move to Category 2. Nevertheless, we will have a UNESCO representative on the Strategic Orientation Council and, of course, we will produce the required reports every two years. We work with UNESCO in a climate of mutual trust, which will enable us to implement our project with confidence.
How many UNESCO centers dedicated to water are there in the world?
There are around thirty in total, and we are the first in France. The French scientific community, particularly the water science community in Montpellier, has been working with UNESCO for a very long time, so it made sense to formalize these ties.
We're talking about the water community in Montpellier. Are there really that many of you?
This UNESCO Center brings together fifteen laboratories in Montpellier (in the broad sense, since it includes Narbonne and Alès). These are large structures that are 100% dedicated to water sciences, such as HydroSciences, which I directed for 14 years, but also G-EAU andLisah at the Institut Agro – Montpellier Supagro. And then there are all the other laboratories where water is part of their activity. If we take stock of all this, it represents around 400 scientists and nearly 150 doctoral students. When you are able to mobilize so many people, it creates a significant critical mass which, in the field of water sciences, is the largest structured community in France.
In all disciplines?
Yes, at HydroSciences you will find physicists, modelers, hydrologists, but also chemists, geochemists, and microbiologists. At G-EAU, you will find economists, sociologists, anthropologists, political science specialists, and more. At Lisah, you will find agronomists, pedologists, and more. And in other laboratories, you will find geographers, remote sensing specialists, and more. We cover an extremely broad and diverse spectrum of scientific disciplines.
There is also a long history of water sciences in Montpellier.
Yes, it's history that has given us all these skills. Even back in the days of the USTL, the University of Science and Technology of Languedoc, there were already laboratories for mathematical hydrology and hydrogeology. In the 1960s, people were working on the source of the Lez, such as Professor Avias. There was a high level of expertise, and all the national organizations working in the field of water set up in Montpellier, including the CNRS,IRD,CIRAD, BRGM, INRAE, andothers. This history means that, perhaps more than anywhere else, we have the ability to bring together people with different but highly complementary skills and areas of study.
Is that why Montpellier was chosen to host this Center?
The strength of the water science community in Montpellier lies in its multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach. This is what sets it apart from other sites in France, which do excellent work but do not have the same specificity. This interdisciplinarity was already the basis of the Mediterranean Institute for Water and the Environment (IM2E), and it is this particular feature, which is our main asset, that we have transposed into our project to create a UNESCO Center.
And isn't it difficult to get all these people working together?
We have worked hard to establish this collective and coordinate the activities of these teams. An IFR (Federal Research Institute) laid the foundations for this collective before closing in 2010. We then completed this work by creating IM2E on January1, 2015, which provided a meeting place for all these players to define collective strategies. And, of course, there was the creation of Muse.
What role did Muse play exactly?
In a way, the UNESCO Center is somewhat the result of the Muse project. Through Kim Waters, Muse encouraged us to identify actions and projects capable of increasing our attractiveness and visibility internationally. More directly, Muse gave us the financial capacity to set up research projects that typically foreshadowed what projects carried out by the UNESCO Center would be like. I'm not sure that without Muse's help, we would have been able to establish this Center. It's the trust and support that makes us believe in it. And in return, I hope that with this Center, we will be able to contribute to the long-term success of the Muse project.
What are the main points of the projects you will be working on now?
When you work with UNESCO, you work with the United Nations, so the imperative framework is the Sustainable Development Goals.SDG 6, of course, is 100% dedicated to water supply and sanitation issues, as are a number of other SDGs. Today, more than 2 billion people have no access to safe drinking water or reliable sanitation systems, which contributes to water being the leading vector of disease—a paradox, to say the least, given its essential importance.
And do you have any specific areas of focus?
We have built this research project around five main areas, ranging from the characterization of elementary processes to approaches focused on the functioning of societies. This is what we call socio-hydro-systems. Examples include the vulnerability of systems to anthropogenic pressures, and the availability and quality of water resources in relation to climate change. But it also includes work on social dynamics and the compromises to be found between, for example, land use and water resource management policies. We make the most of this diversity of scientific expertise that characterizes Montpellier. This is the challenge we have decided to take on: promoting interdisciplinarity in order to tackle the crucial issues that will arise in the field of water in the coming years.
This agreement is signed for six years, and then what?
The Center has been established until October 14, 2026, but after that there is no reason why it should not be renewed. The Delft Center has been in existence for around 60 years.
We imagine that this agreement will open many doors for you...
Yes, the recognition and international visibility provided by UNESCO is something very powerful that will enable us to take a big step forward. Our goal is to play a significant role in the network of UNESCO Centers and Chairs, known as the "UNESCO water family." This gives us the ability to interact with all the other Centers, in Delft in the Netherlands, Lodz in Poland, Dundee in Scotland, the United States, and Japan. This openness will strengthen our networks and offer us opportunities for exchanges through students or scientific visits.
With the South as well?
UNESCO has a very strong impact in the South, where it helps to structure scientific communities through the international programs it implements. We already have the IRD and CIRAD networks, which are highly structured and often long-established, and here again UNESCO will provide us with facilities to develop these networks. This is all the more true because many of us are heavily involved in major UNESCO programs, particularly the Intergovernmental Hydrological Program (IHP).
In terms of training, what will this Center offer?
The issue of training is very important to UNESCO. So, as far as we are concerned, the idea is not to create additional training programs, but to promote the excellent training programs offered at the Montpellier site to make them even more attractive than they already are, whether it be the Master's in Water,Polytech/STE, Institut Agro – MontpellierSupagro,AgroParisTech,École des Minesd'Alès, etc. In particular, we want to make them even more accessible to students from countries in the Global South.
And financially, does UNESCO provide any support?
UNESCO has limited funding capabilities, but it will probably be easier to seek funding as a UNESCO Center. For example, it is not the same thing to approach major national and international foundations as the "mere" director of IM2E as it is to do so as the director of a major UNESCO Center. For us, this should change a lot of things.