Mobility

Today mobility appears to be an essential requirement (sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit) for any academic career and it is increasingly the case that professional careers must include at least one stay in another institution. This generally comes after the thesis and includes postdoctoral research. In the human and social sciences, this extended research stay abroad can also take place at a very advanced stage of the doctorate.

In addtion to having access to specific datas or research tools, arguments in favour of geographical mobility underline the benefits in terms or experience and the opening-up of new scientific, professional and personal horizons.

New contacts created during a stay abroad or in another institution are considered as key elements in building a researcher network, and expected to materialize into collaorations, new research projects, publications.
 

Mobility experiences can happen at different stages of an academic career:

• during undergraduates studies
• during the doctorate
• during the postdoctoral phase
• as a professor

And take different shapes:

• a few weeks
•  a few months
• 1 to 2 years
• migration

But also:

• inviting foreign researchers
• « professionnal » mobility: passage in the private sector, etc.
• setting up collaborative projects
• setting up a « virtual mobility » process