On 11 December 2019, the ENS de Lyon welcomed a delegation from the East China Normal University (ECNU).
Renewal of the PRoSFER Agreement
Second row: ZHOU Yunxuan (Director of International Relations of the ECNU), Philippe Maurin (Director of International Affairs of the ENS Lyon), Ms. LU Qingjiang (Consul General of China in Lyon), Jean-Michel Roy (Scientific Coordinator of the Prosfer Doctoral Program) and Séverine Dalynjak (Head of International Promotion at the Université de Lyon).
ProSFER (Program of Sino-French Education for Research) is a program that began in 2002 and has been coordinated, on the French side, by ENS de Lyon since 2010. It offers a continuum of pre-doctoral and doctoral training from ENS and the ECNU.
Selected before starting their Master's, talented Chinese students follow a specific pre-doctoral training program at the ECNU. This includes courses taught by ENS staff.
At the end of their Master's degree at the ECNU, they are selected for joint supervision theses in ENS laboratories, as part of a specific agreement with the China Scholarship Council.
There are nine disciplines in total: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Computer Science, Sociology, Philosophy, History, Education and Sports Sciences.
Over 17 years, with more than 100 doctoral degrees supported and 50 currently underway, PRoSFER has become one of the main doctoral programs in the Franco-Chinese bilateral relationship.
This renewal, following those of 2005, 2009 and 2014, includes several significant developments. For example, a three-month mobility program in one of the ENS Master's courses for students to better prepare their thesis applications; classes in French as a foreign language in certain disciplines; and exchange programs in both countries at doctoral level.
Earlier in the afternoon, Professor QIAN Xuhong co-chaired with Yanick Ricard (Vice-President of Research at ENS de Lyon), the annual steering committee of the Joint Research Institute for Science and Society (JoRISS) to select projects supported from 2020, as part of the 2019 call for projects.
He then addressed some 60 guests attending the fifth JoRISS Lecture on the theme "World-Class Universities for Global Intercultural Communication: ECNU Mission and Practice".
* The PRoSFER and JoRISS programs have historically, strongly supported the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region.