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Investments for the Future The Investments for the Future program amounts to 35 billion euros, of which 22 billion euros are earmarked for higher education and research to strengthen France’s competitiveness on the global stage. Of these 22 billion euros, nearly 18 billion take the form of competitive calls for proposals. The University of Montpellier is heavily involved in this program through numerous projects in which it serves as the lead institution or a partner. Learn more ERC Grants The European Research Council coordinates and funds scientific projects “at the frontiers of knowledge” within the European Union through grants that recognize scientific excellence. This program is open to all disciplines. Current European Research Council projects: ERC Starting Grant    Erika Burioli (Host-Pathogen-Environment Interactions Laboratory) with the HYPERCAN project, which focuses on transmissible cancers in mussels. Profile of Erika Burioli Paul Antonio (Géosciences Montpellier) with the UBEICH project, which proposes a new experimental method to refine the dating of the Earth’s inner core. Profile of Paul Antonio ERC Advanced Grant David Mouillot (MARBEC), whose BLUE-AFRICA project will conduct transdisciplinary research to assess the potential of coastal marine resources to reduce poverty and emigration in rural regions of East Africa affected by land aridification. Read the press release ERC Synergy Grant Daniele Di Pietro (Alexander Grothendieck Institute of Montpellier) with the NEMESIS project, which aims to understand how to overcome current technological barriers in numerical simulations of complex physical problems. Profile of Daniele Di Pietro Past ERC Grants Sara Cavaliere (Charles Gerhardt Institute of Montpellier) with the SPINAM project, which focuses on electrochemical devices for hydrogen energy conversion and storage. Video feature with Sara Cavaliere HORIZON EUROPE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Actions TERRA-MED is a European doctoral program aimed at addressing challenges related to water, land, and energy in the Mediterranean. Coordinated by the Pyrenees-Mediterranean Euroregion and funded by Horizon Europe, this program—with a budget of €8.1 million—will enable the recruitment of 33 doctoral researchers s in Occitanie, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands, including eight at the University of Montpellier. At theUM, this project is led by Mathieu Sicard (Montpellier Institute of Evolutionary Sciences). Read the press release Key Initiatives To continue its strategy of supporting the scientific communities that define the site’s unique identity, the I-SITE Program of Excellence (PEI) designated five new key initiatives in April 2024. Three of them are internationally focused and funded by the UM2030 project under the France 2030 program – IDéES “Integration and Development of Idex and I-SITE,” while the other two, funded directly by the PEI, aim to bring together communities from various Montpellier-based research institutions around interdisciplinary themes to give them greater visibility. Key International Initiatives under theUM 2030: Foods: Nutrition and Food Systems Vect-OH: Infectious Risks and Vectors in a One Health Approach Water: Water Key PEI Initiatives: KIPPT: Public Policies for Transition CLAPAS: Local Collaborative Research Initiatives on Plant and Agrosystem Health

Contemporary societies face numerous, complex, and cross-cutting challenges that call into question the longevity of our development model, its sustainability, and our ability to function as a society. Whether these changes are environmental and climate-related, demographic, political, or technological (particularly in the digital realm), they challenge our ways of life, as well as our models of development, production, consumption, work organization, education, healthcare, urban planning, and mobility. These changes present opportunities but also generate risks, particularly for the most vulnerable populations. They thus pose risks of social, political, and economic disruption that directly challenge the governance of our societies. Facilitating the transition toward new, more sustainable and equitable development models has become a challenge for public actors. To address this challenge, the Montpellier campus offers a dynamic, high-level social science research environment across various disciplinary fields: economics, law, political science, geography, education and training sciences, management, and sociology. The objective of the Key Initiative on Public Transition Policies (KIPPT) is to enhance visibility and foster local, national, and international interactions among researchers at the Montpellier campus whose work in the social sciences is related to public transition policies. On the one hand, this involves bringing researchers together and establishing a sustainable network among them. The KIPPT will thus help to drive and stimulate exchanges and synergies and to highlight the collective expertise of the Montpellier campus on transitional public policies. On this basis, the KIPPT also aims to foster a “science/society” relationship by serving as a bridge between researchers working on transitional policies and public and civil society actors. To this end, various partners—such as local governments (notably the Occitanie Region and Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole), businesses, and nonprofit organizations—are involved in the project. A Broad and Multidisciplinary Definition of Public Transition Policies KIPPT advocates for a broad definition of public transition policies, centered on the three pillars of I-Site—feeding, protecting, and caring—and extending beyond them. It approaches public policies, public action, and governance from a multidisciplinary perspective. It brings together numerous laboratories within the I-Site’s Social Sciences cluster around three main areas of focus: Area 1: Fostering exchanges between laboratories and disciplines on key sector-specific themes at the site, such as climate and energy transition, ecological transition, digital transition, agricultural and food transition, mobility and transportation, and health… Axis 2: Fostering reflection on the coherence and articulation between public transition policies and integration issues. Particular attention is paid to the cross-cutting issue of inequalities, on the one hand, and to territorial projects as vectors of integration—to address, in particular, the tensions between sectoral and territorial logics—on the other. Axis 3: Address cross-cutting issues related to the governance of transitions. Issues related to the design of public transition policies (PTPs), their public debate, and their evaluation Issues related to the implementation of PTPs: cooperation among stakeholders, sectors, and levels of government; financing; citizen and civil society participation; and more Issues related to conflict and the acceptability of transition policies Issues related to the methods and instruments employed: cost-benefit analyses, multi-criteria approaches, incentives, regulations, pricing, planning, trajectories, etc. Issues related to changes in stakeholders’ perceptions, opinions, and behaviors regarding transitions Initiatives to foster the creation of a scientific community A call for multidisciplinary and multi-laboratory research projects “Structuring” Projects “Impulse” Projects A platform dedicated to KIPPT [link] Project monitoring and promotion Resource center for the community Three scientific conferences

A researcher at the Laboratory of Mechanics and Civil Engineering (LMGC) in Montpellier, Katerina Ioannidou was awarded the CNRS Bronze Medal in 2024 for her work in statistical physics on porous concrete. Her research contributes to the development of materials capable of storing energy and sequestering carbon.