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Paris, January 16, 2009

International Joint Unit brings together CNRS and Western Africa

The International Joint Unit called Environnement, santé, sociétés (ESS, or Environment, health and societies) has been created to build an effective interdisciplinary scientific instrument bringing together researchers from the North and South, in order to answer questions about environmental transformation and its impact on health and society in Western Africa. The agreement to create the International Joint Unit (UMI) was signed in Paris at CNRS headquarters by Catherine Bréchignac, CNRS president, Basile Guissou, delegate general of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique et technologique (CNRST) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Abdou Salam Sall, president of the Cheikh Anta DIOP University in Dakar (UCAD), Senegal, and Ginette Siby Bellegarde, president of the University of Bamako, Mali.

The creation of the International Joint Unit « Environnement, santé, sociétés » (UMI ESS) arises from the long-standing and strong partnership between African and French researchers. It will lead to the development of a large-scale interdisciplinary project bringing together the humanities and social sciences and environmental sciences and sustainable development in Western Africa. There is already a good deal of work on the impact of the environment on health in Africa, but this will be the first joint laboratory involving African and French researchers and with the goal of describing and analyzing in a systematic and structured way the complex relationship between the environment, health and society in Western Africa.  At CNRS, this new unit will be under the authority of the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (INSHS), but will also receive support from the Institute for Ecology and Environment (INEE).

The research projects of the UMI ESS will be carried out by five teams with interdisciplinary research areas: pollution, health and society - environment, cognition and society - pathocenosis, social dynamics, prevention and society – technical care spaces and society – ways of life and health, influence of migration and demographic transition..

Researchers from France, Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal will work for the UMI. One of the main features of this unit is that it is at four geographical sites : Marseille(1), Ouagadougou, Bamako and Dakar. Initially, the UMI's directors will be based at UCAD, in Dakar, then will alternate between CNRST in Ouagadougou and the University of Bamako. The other unique feature of the UMI is that it is directed by both French and African researchers, with a director who will be assisted by project directors at the four geographical sites. The agreement creating the UMI is for four years, renewable.

“This first large-scale program of CNRS in Africa will create a strong and balanced partnership between researchers from the North and South”, says Bréchignac.

Notes:

1) Together with Université de la Méditerranée.

Contact information:

CNRS l Gilles Boetsch, director of the International Joint Unit « Environnement, santé, sociétés »
l T 06 19 97 73 65 l Gilles.Boetsch@univmed.fr

CNRS press office l Muriel Ilous l T 01 44 96 43 09 l muriel.ilous @cnrs-dir.fr

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