IEA

Institutes for advanced studies first appeared in the United States (Princeton) in the 1930s and developed in post-war Europe (Berlin, Uppsala, Wassenaar, Budapest). Temporarily released from their teaching and administrative duties residents had the opportunity to pursue their own studies in small communities. These communities offered a mix of subjects and nationalities which was ideal to foster innovation and creativity.

In this respect, the academic policy of the Nantes IAS is no different from that of "first generation" IASs which have already proved their efficacy in the United States and in Northern Europe. In a world in which research is increasingly hampered by the fragmentation of academic work, by budgetary constraints and programmatic research activity, our policy is to enable the best researchers to leave behind their usual national, institutional and disciplinary contexts for a while in order to pursue research which they themselves have conceived, and to do so as part of a community of researchers from different geographical and disciplinary horizons. The temporary research communities which are formed at the Nantes IAS are well equipped to challenge the intellectual habits of their members and are conceived as breeding-grounds for new networks of academic collaboration. So the Nantes IAS does not offer accommodation and resources for researchers to contribute to teams already constituted in Nantes but aims to be in itself an original place for research, which may attract talented researchers to France (or keep them there) and expose French academics to new challenges and contacts. Achieving these goals requires a finely tuned and well thought-out invitations policy in order to enable - while never imposing - substantive interaction between members of each yearly intake, as well as productive links between Fellows and the University that is their temporary home.

As early as 2001 ‘The National Council for the Development of Human and Social Sciences’ recommended that such an institute should be set up in France. Jean-Marc Ayrault, the president of the Nantes Urban Community, was the first to implement this recommendation after receiving financial support from Veolia Eau. This initiative was then backed by the French Ministries of Research and Foreign Affairs, the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), the Political Science Institute (Sciences-Po) and the University of Nantes. The Nantes Institute, along with other institutes currently being set up in Paris, Lyon and Marseille, form the French Network for Advanced Studies Institutes: this is one of thirteen ‘clusters of excellence’ (RTRA) created by the French Ministry of Research in 2006.