Why join Institut Curie Research Center
Institut Curie Research Center promotes a vision of science and research ambition that you can be a part of.
A scientific environment of excellence
Notably labeled a Comprehensive Cancer Center since 2018, the Research Center is known and recognized for the excellence of its scientists and their work. At Institut Curie, 45 % of team leaders were ERC laureates.* Since the start of the program in 2007, 62 ERCs were awarded to researchers at the institute, representing 10% of all ERCs for life sciences in France, even though the teams at Institut Curie only represent 1% of researchers in the field.
Beyond the successes obtained in international requests for proposals like CoFUND and the collaborative Horizon Europe projects, Institut Curie researchers are awarded numerous distinctions each year: CNRS medals, Inserm prizes, Cercle FSER prizes from the Fondation Schlumberger foundation for education and research, prizes like Physics, Instrumentation & Data Sciences Council Young Investigator Award of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (Canada), Grand Prix Junior Researcher from the Fondation de France, the international L’Oréal-UNESCO prize for women in science, and more.
Join the first French cancer center
First physics degree, first in her class in physics, first woman to receive a Nobel Prize and first person to receive two, first woman professor of the Sorbonne and first woman admitted to the Pantheon. Marie Curie, the illustrious founder of Institut Curie, was a woman of firsts. Carried by her pioneering spirit and scientific excellence and alongside Claudius Regaurd, she laid the foundations for the first French cancer center.
The Curie spirit: a knowing mix of Curie-osity, of sharing and innovation which marks the DNA of the Research Center. Here, it’s all about sharing, interdisciplinarity, multiculturalism and surpassing oneself.
Marie Curie
Interdisciplinarity and multiculturalism
What makes Institut Curie even more unique is its culture of interdisciplinarity. To decode the mechanisms like those of cancer and to open the path to the implementation of new treatments for patients, the research conducted at the institute connects all aspects of biology in complement with chemistry, physics, technology and mathematics. The close collaboration between the Research Center and the Hospital Group of Institut Curie also favors medical-scientific synergy.
We are certain: It is only through working together, at the intersection of our disciplines, with the top experts in their fields, that we can keep progressing faster against cancer.
Fundamentally international, the Research Center welcomes over 70 nationalities. Over half of our collaborative publications are produced with international partners.
Institut Curie is also part of several European initiatives:
- The EU-Life initiative, grouping 15 research institutes of excellence from 15 European countries
- The CoreForLife alliance, a union of technological platforms from 7 European institutes in the life sciences
Strong programs and partners
Institut Curie has implemented programs that stimulate collaboration like the Sabbatical program which welcomes international researchers in its research units for three-month periods. We also have strong partnerships with institutional, university and industrial actors in France and around the world,
Research, a crucible for innovation
Marie Curie
Institut Curie promotes high-level research with a strong impact in terms of producing new essential knowledge. This ceaseless enrichment of knowledge constitutes an inexhaustible source of innovations with multiple applications.
As such, Institut Curie is committed to stimulating creativity and freedom in research, which are at the origins of the most innovative ideas. Also, thanks to project-based financing, it ensures its researchers personalized support allowing for the development of innovative programs.
The numerous internal requests for proposals are an illustration of the Research Center’s will to encourage projects, however audacious.
Programs to encourage risk-taking
At Institut Curie, we offer specific financing programs for the development of projects:
- Calls for emerging or high-risk projects to stimulate new ideas in particular from young researchers, with a potential budget of 20,000 to 60,000€ per project.
- Calls for structural projects for the development of collaborations represent financial assistance of 150,000€.
The research-care continuum as philosophy
A true hallmark of the Foundation, the research-care continuum established by Marie Curie and Claudius Regaud is what has made Institut Curie unique and renowned for over a century.
This continuum guides all activities on a daily basis. For this, Institut Curie relies on an integrated incubation program. Its goal: To accelerate the transformation of research results into innovative care for patients through the creation of start-ups, anticipated detection and registration of patents.
A cutting-edge research environment
To nourish the success of research projects, Institut Curie relies on a cutting-edge research environment.
The Research Center includes 19 technological platforms, grouped together in the CurieCoreTech network, a member of the European network for excellence of technological platforms, CoreForLife.
To goal? To guarantee access to the most advanced technological tools and resources: microfluidics, super-resolution imaging, high-throughput sequencing, bioinformatics, artificial intelligence.
Train with guidance at the Research Center
The employees of the Research Center are guided throughout their careers and benefit from custom administrative support, to free up their precious time and abilities to better focus on the heart of their work.
A vast training offer is also proposed at Institut Curie: seminars, symposiums, conferences, MOOC, qualifying trainings, university degrees, are also tools in service of our employees. A must for an institute with a mission to transmit knowledge!
Training for the future of research
Almost half of the Center’s staff consists of doctoral or postdoctoral students across the different teams. Several programs are dedicated to them, like the Curie international postdoc program that finances the first year of an international postdoc; the Junior Principal Investigator (JPI) program that offers young team leaders a starting package to begin their research and build their team; or the medicine science program for students of medicine and pharmacy interested in research.
Enjoy true life balance
Quality of life and workplace conditions are one of the pillars of the “Curie 2030 - hopes against cancer” strategic plan. The quality of life at work has been promoted at the institute for years, demonstrated by the HR Excellence in Research designation, obtained in 2018: an award for establishments committed to the European HR strategy for researchers.
Join a committed Institute
Fighting cancer. Doing it in line with the foundations laid by Marie Curie over a century ago, by placing innovation, the research-care continuum, transmission, sharing and openness at the heart of our model. Respecting strong values, those of solidarity, humanity and kindness, drives us to be strongly committed to equality between men and women, with diversity and inclusion at the core of our organization.
See our gender, equality, diversity and inclusion plan (GEDIP)
In sum
Joining the Research Center of Institut Curie means:
- Walking in the footsteps of an emblematic figure of modern science
- Evolving in a multicultural environment, with the most talented profiled
- Innovating and creating wonder around science
- Benefiting from exceptional quality of life and work conditions, in the heart of the Paris region
- Being an actor in the fight against cancer
*ERC: scholarship awarded by the European Research Council