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The University of Orléans is Awarded a Junior Professorship

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The Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation announced the awards for “junior professorships” (CPJ).


 

The Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation announced the prizewinners for the “junior professorships (CPJ)” call for applications, to which the University of Orléans applied along 33 other French higher education institutions. 

 

The project submitted by the University of Orléans in order to obtain this professorship entitled “ABC:MARS” (Assessment of Biosignatures of Chemolithotrophs on Martian materials) focuses on research regarding life on Mars and its potential as a habitat for past or future life, which is the main objective of the current and future Martian exploration missions. ABC:MARS also explores the microbial interactions with extra-terrestrial materials in space within the International Space Station. 

 

This professorship will attract talented teachers-researchers and researchers on an international level. Its holder will carry out his or her research at the Centre for Molecular Biophysics, which has a convention with the University. He or she will strengthen the research and teaching activities within the internationally renowned “Exobiology” group. This project will result in publications in high-level scientific reviews and will also be subject to regular communication for the general public.

 

This junior professorship, which is unique in the Centre-Val de Loire region in its status and in France in the scientific field of exobiology, is an example of the collaboration between the University of Orléans and the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research). It shows the joint ambition of a strong involvement in the conquest of space and the search for life in the universe. 

Beyond the research project in itself, this professorship will contribute to the visibility of the two partners and will strengthen the attractiveness of Orléans as a place of teaching and research in sciences of life and earth, in chemistry or even in robotics and instrumentation. 

Photo credits: Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation