ANR Publishes 2023 Action Plan

The 2023 Action Plan sets out France’s research priorities for the coming year.

The 2023 Action Plan details the actions and calls for projects that are offered by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR – National Research Agency) for the coming year. The action plan provides the scientific communities and all public or private stakeholders involved in French research with a general overview of the agency’s funding offers. The plan is part of the 2021-2030 Loi de programmation de la recherche (LPR).

Particular attention will be given to the entire research continuum in terms of ‘disciplinarity’ (mono-, multi, inter and transdisciplinary research), especially within the axes of transversal research that are conducted through several disciplines, and which are registered in the seven fields of the 2023 Action Plan.

The 2023 Action Plan also details the French strategic priorities, such as: artificial intelligence; humanities and social sciences; quantum technologies; autism within neurodevelopmental disorders; and translational research on rare diseases. These priorities will be further detailed within the ‘France 2030 investment plan’ and the ‘Priority research programmes and equipment (PEPR)’ which are part of the fourth programme d’investissements d’avenir (PIA4).

The 2023 Action Plan also aims to consolidate France’s participation in the Horizon Europe programme. The plan will also encourage the intensification of multilateral and bilateral strategic collaborations, particularly the consolidation of the European Research Area (EER) and the Franco-German bilateral cooperation.

Components of the 2023 Action Plan

Following on from the previous edition, the 2023 Action Plan is maintained in four cross-cutting components, each with its specific budget and funding instruments, calls for projects and programmes.

The components ‘Specific calls outside the Generic Call for Proposals (AAPG)’, ‘Building the ERA and international attractiveness’ and ‘Economic impact of research and competitiveness’ have not been modified for the 2023 edition. A few minor changes have been made to the ‘Research and innovation’ component of the AAPG. Further information regarding each component can be found in the document published by the ANR.

The ANR will maintain the 56 scientific axes and the five funding instruments for the 2023 edition of the AAPG. All the research axes have been renewed but the texts and/or keywords of certain axes have been modified to provide a better definition of their scientific scopes. 37 research axes are thereby presented within seven disciplinary fields, and 19 axes correspond to cross-cutting issues.

The five funding instruments that constitute the AAPG (PRC, PRCI, PRCE, PRME and JCJC) remain unchanged. Only the application conditions for the Single-Team Research Project (PRME), instrument created in 2022, have been slightly modified. If successful, the restrictions on submitting a project to the AAPG is now limited to one year, compared to two years in 2022. In addition, although the PRME instrument supports a single research team, ad hoc collaborations are now authorised which is similar to the JCJC instrument. The requirements regarding the personnel mobilised on PRME projects are changed to 1.5 full-time research equivalents in 2023 (including study engineers), compared to two in 2022.

ANR Tour

In order to support scientific communities, managers and institutional research stakeholders, the ANR is organising the seventh edition of the ANR Tour from 6 September to 5 October 2022. As part of this annual event, the Agency’s teams will lead around thirty thematic webinars on the 2023 Action Plan, the funding instruments and calls for projects, the axes of the AAPG by scientific department, the financial regulations, the open science policy and project monitoring tools. Three face-to-face meetings will also be arranged.

Further information regarding the ANR Tour and on how to register can be found here.

ResearchConnect will monitor the launch of new research projects and continue to report on the latest development from the ANR.

(This report was the subject of a ResearchConnect Newsflash.)