The 2025–2026 academic year marks the beginning of a new cycle for the Institute for Advanced Studies in Nantes. Building on fifteen years of existence, the Institute is entering a new phase of development that combines fidelity to its founding values — freedom of research, openness toward the Global South, and interdisciplinarity — with a renewal of its formats for hosting and collaboration.
This transition phase paves the way for the implementation of evolving residency models, combining long-term residencies intended for researchers from around the world, and more flexible residencies designed for young researchers and collective projects. These complementary formats encourage plural, collaborative, and adaptive research, in constant dialogue with the international sphere, while reaffirming its anchorage in territorial dynamics and within the overall Nantes research ecosystem.
The Institute is also continuing the development of its thematic Chairs – Living Within Planetary Boundaries; Arts, Societies and Contemporary Creations; and Commons: Knowledge, Power, Crises – co-developed and carried forward with its partners, while preparing the creation of new Chairs. These initiatives, based on collective thinking and the sharing of experiences and knowledge, serve as laboratories where researchers, artists, and civil society actors explore major contemporary challenges and ways of addressing them.
By strengthening its role as a refuge for research, the Institute continues to embody a space of freedom, hospitality, and intellectual protection. But this refuge is not a fortress: it is open to listening, exchange, and collaboration with its surrounding territory. In this sense, it defends an engaged, curious, and generous approach to research. The Institute envisions itself as a living membrane, attuned to the resonances between local issues and international challenges, bringing together shared causes and imaginations.
By initiating this new momentum, the Institute for Advanced Studies in Nantes reaffirms its mission: to be a place where knowledge circulates, where thought dares to take risks, and where new ways of thinking and inhabiting the world are invented.
