External research programs at FIAS

General presentation of the institute

The Federative Institute for Advanced Study based in Paris functions in several dimensions which are interconnected but autonomous.

1. As a research institute stricto sensu. A number of permanent researchers are working under its roof. Most of them hold double affiliations with another scientific or industrial institution. In this scope, the institute adheres to the usual academic protocols: conducting research using positivist scientific method, publishing results under peer-review, teaching specialized courses within advanced study programs (french nomenclature « M2 recherche »).

2. As an open-access platform for scientific and academic knowledge dissemination, the institute acts as an editor in reviewing and publishing research materials, research projects and research blogs in natural sciences and humanities. The institute conducts selection of high-quality research content to be presented and ensures that it conforms to the highest scientific standards: verifiability, reproducibility, peer-review, depositing for bibliographic indexing and perennial archiving. We welcome so-called «high-risk-profile» works: atypical, innovative and experimental. As «atypical» projects are identified the projects problematic for mainstream publishing models: unacceptable forms, difficult languages, sensitive areas marginal to art, literature, religion et al., works in the public domain or unavailable contemporary texts.

3. As an academic publisher, the institute publishes some of its results in the form of books. FIAS institute currently uses two imprints for two distinct types of content. The imprint «Scientia Rerum» is being used for academic content and manuals. Our collaborators generally author these works. The imprint «Éditions Vodary Paris» is used to publish literary works appearing in the research projects, usually to demonstrate sample usage cases of litteratures, languages or scripts of a certain style, time or current. With respect to those works, our collaborators usually act as (publishing) editors. In most cases those works are made available in public domain and are accessible at no cost through the institute’s publishing platform Vodary Paris. Finite-file versions (mobile books and printed books) are also accessible through our distributors’ circuits.

You have a research project, research blog or research-related content?

Your project has difficulty fitting into traditional scientific formats?

We might find a way to make it see the world.

1. Send us an email de­scri­bing your project. This will initiate the discussion phase during which you will provide additional information.

2. We (the open-min­ded scientific com­mit­tee) will exa­mine the pos­si­bi­li­ty to include the project in our institute’s schedule of topics as an associated project. The examination will only be based on the quality of scientific production of the project and its content.

If your project is selected, you will dispose of:

1. External research affiliation with the FIAS. Under some conditions (seniority, project quality) this might get eventually converted into an internal research affiliation.

2. FIAS-affiliated subdomain address for your project: yourproject.fias.fr, or several of them if the project needs. The particularities of hosting solution can be discussed. Generally our projects are hosted on the trio {Github, GitLab, Bitbucket} or their on-premises instances such as FramaGit and are deployed by static site generators like Jekyll, Hugo et al. As a project executor, you will be given the credentials to put your materials online yourself.

3. FIAS-affiliated email address, generally of the form name.surname@fias.fr but not necessarily; or several of them if the project needs. You can use them directly or redirect your mail.
4. Access to the publishing facilities of the FIAS. It will be possible for you to publish books through the two of FIAS’s-backed imprints, signing on the institute’s behalf (that is, using it as your research affiliation; and placing it in the header of the frontpage of the publication).

And you will need to accept the duties:

1. Adhere to the institute’s scientific policies (research of quality; peer review; non-discrimination; open access policies etc.). Those are almost identical in any research institution.
2. Elaborate, in concertation with the scientific committee, the reseach statement for the project (examples). It will specify the problematic and the purposes of the project, its methods, scientific motivation, etc. as well as the deliverables (books, content, concepts, models, phenomenology classification). The definition of the deliverables should follow positivistic conventions, i.e. be verifiable and reproducible.
3. Conduct the research. Publish the documentation, the research blog, the content, the deliverables. The factual deliverables can differ from their stated expectations but will always remain in their contractual scope. Such divergence is a normal scientific situation. The project’s defining principles can evolve in time based on the results but should only do that in a documented, responsible manner. The main goal behind these dispositions is to make possible the reproduction and verification of the research even if the only available resource that remains is its documentation. First publication and scientific validation of any original academic result (article, concept, method etc.) should take place outside of the FIAS’s ecosystem at conferences and in peer-reviewed journals of the concerned discipline. To guarantee the quality of the institute’s academic production, it is prohibited to publish previously unreviewed original research on the content platforms operated by FIAS.
4. Participate in the peer-review activities within topics of your competence, on demand of the FIAS.

How to prepare your submission

The Federative Institute for Advanced Study uses Slack (fiasfr.slack.com) as its communication platform.

Joins our Slack platform using the strings str4="k3MDI0NjI0MjM2MjRiMWUwYzIxZG", str1="https://join.slack.com/t/fia", str6="Y4ZjA3OGQ2ODY", str3="I2NDgwMTk0LWFhZTBlZThmMmI1MD", str2="sfr/shared_invite/enQtNTQ5Nj", str5="RjMDE3MTFjMDAyOTRiMWNhOWI5MT". Concatenate them in the right order and follow the link. Upon the registration, wait until the administrators create a Slack channel assigned to your specific project. You will be notified about that. The communication there is confidential.

You should include the documents which:

1. Present yourself or your group, your education, occupation, expertise, languages. Neither of those is eliminatory.

2. Describe the problematic you are interested in. This will then become the reseach statement for your project (examples). Specify the context, the purposes of the project, its methods, scientific motivation, etc. Think about the deliverables that could take place (books, content, concepts, models, phenomenology classification). The reseach statement will progressively become more articulated as the scientific commission and you will discuss and define the project.

3. Present the drafts you have already produced. Those may be documents, webpages, any content that demonstrates your proceedings with the project. It is possible that the project be accepted without any demonstration of a minimal working example, but this would imply possibly stonger correctional interventions during the deployment stage.

4. Explicitate the languages your project will use. FIAS requires that one of the project’s languages be English. In the exotic cases where this is not enforceable, the project deployer should at least agree to provide an abstract in English for any finite portion of content such as blog post, article or document. Still, this condition is not eliminatory and variants may be considered.

5. If the project has deliverables, such as books, their language-use policies may be different from the ones of the project. It may not be possible to host a project in, e.g. Ludic language alone, but a book solely in Ludic can be published if issued from an accepted project.