Presentation

One of the Collège de France's missions is to promote French research and ideas abroad, and to participate in debate on major world issues. The Collège is therefore open to international exchange through its teaching and dissemination of knowledge, as well as the research programmes of its Chairs and laboratories. The fact that a fifth of its professors are currently of foreign origin bears witness to this policy of openness.
The main international activities in teaching and knowledge dissemination are:

Teaching abroad
Collège de France professors are entitled to carry out up to a third of their teaching assignments (lectures and seminars) in foreign institutions that request their collaboration. About one third of these teaching missions are set in the framework of partnership agreements.
Access the programme of teaching abroad

Invited Lecturers
On proposal by the Chairs, the Assembly of the Professors of the Collège de France invites top-level foreign scholars and scientists to deliver lectures at the Collège. There are two types of invitation:
- guest professors (up to 24 per year) stay for one month and deliver four lectures (exceptionally two months and eight lectures);
- guest lecturers stay for one or two weeks and deliver one or two lectures.
The lectures are summarized in the Collège de France's Yearbook and may be published on its website.
The Hugot Foundation of the Collège de France supports this programme and provides accommodation the guests.
Access the list of invited lecturers

Partnership agreements
Through its teaching missions abroad and its invitation to foreign lecturers, the Collège de France nurtures strong ties with certain foreign institutions (universities, institutes for advanced studies). Some of these partnerships have led to agreements on the creation of Chairs to host professors from the Collège de France in institutions abroad. A Chair can host up to three professors annually, depending on their availability and the partners' requests. In these cases a professor's lectures and seminars (between one and four) cater for a public of specialists and advanced PhD students.
Access the list

Hosting of young foreign researchers
The Collège de France's Chairs and laboratories host young foreign researchers (advanced PhD or post-doctoral fellows) for periods of varying durations. These researchers are remunerated either by the Collège de France, which has a quota of research fellow positions for this purpose, or by their home institutions, or else by outside organizations.
Very careful attention is paid to scientific supervision and the conditions in which these young researchers are hosted. They have priority at the Marcelin Berthelot Residence (consisting of 58 flats), opened in 2008 in Meudon near Paris, for Collège de France researchers (Résidence Marcelin Berthelot du Collège de France à Meudon).
A club (ChADoC / Associate researchers and PhDs from the Collège de France) has been set up to animate the network of young researchers and to maintain contact with former researchers at the Collège de France.
Every year the Hugot Foundation of the Collège de France awards a prize to a foreign post-doctoral researcher whose work is deemed to be particularly promising.
From autumn 2009 calls for applications for several post-doctoral positions at the Collège de France will regularly be advertised abroad.

The Collège de France lectures series and symposia abroad (access the list)
In partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' cultural and cooperation network (cultural centers and research institutes), and in liaison with local universities and research institutions, the Collège de France organizes lectures series abroad, by its professors (partnerships with the French Embassy in Tunisia, the Institut Français in Madrid, the Maison Française in Oxford).
In the framework of the Year of France in Brazil in 2009, the Collège de France and the French and Brazilian Science Academies have organized scientific seminars in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.
Likewise, with the support of its Scientific and Strategic Orientation Committee/COSS, composed of 12 scientific personalities from abroad, the Collège de France has organized several multidisciplinary symposia on topics of current interest (e.g. Brussels, 2006; Berlin, 2000).

Dissemination via Internet
One of the Collège de France's priorities is to put its inaugural lectures and an increasing number of its other lectures and seminars on line (audio and video). The institution's website is thus proving to be a powerful means of knowledge outreach, as the downloading statistics attest.
The Collège de France also collaborates with the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie which has a network of "digital campuses" in universities in the French-speaking world. Inaugural lectures (especially those of the annual Chairs "Knowledge against poverty" and "Sustainable development") are broadcast in the “digital campuses” and followed by videoconference debates.