Antonin Cohen, Claire Bordes and Anne Simonin elected to the FMSH Executive Board

On Tuesday 27 June 2023, the FMSH's Supervisory Board elected Antonin Cohen as President, and Claire Bordes and Anne Simonin as Vice-Presidents. The new President, whose appointment was approved by the Minister for Higher Education and Research on 20 July, and his team officially took up their duties on 9 July 2023.

They succeed Hélène Velasco-Graciet, Pascal Buléon and Flore Gubert, who have been at the head of the Foundation since January 2021.

Antonin Cohen, Chairman of the Executive Board

Antonin Cohen is Professor of Political Science at the University of Paris Nanterre, Law and Political Science Department, and at the CNRS Institute of Social Sciences of Politics.

Previously, Antonin Cohen worked at Princeton University, Oxford University, the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Université de Picardie Jules Verne and the Université de Rennes 1. Since 2016, he has been a scientific adviser to the DGESIP (Direction générale de l'enseignement supérieur et de l'insertion professionnelle), where he has been responsible in particular for the Condorcet Campus and European alliances. A representative of the DGESIP on the boards of the EPCC, EHESS and EPHE, Antonin Cohen is also an elected member of the board of the COMUE Université Paris Lumières and a member of the steering committee of the GIS Euro-Lab.

Antonin Cohen holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. His research focuses on the institutionalisation of the field of European transnational power in the twentieth century.

Claire Bordes, Vice-President, Resource Diversification and Fundraising Strategy

Claire Bordes is Director of Foresight at Université Paris Cité.

A specialist in security and defence issues, she worked for the Ministry of Defence from 2003 to 2009 as an international relations analyst. In 2009, she was appointed head of the educational innovation unit at École Centrale de Paris (now Centrale-Supélec), a post she held until December 2014. She then became head of the ‘strategic research’ mission at the Ministry of Defence's Directorate General for International Relations and Strategy, where she drew up and implemented the Higher Education Pact for the Directorate General for International Relations and Strategy (DGRIS). In 2019, Claire Bordes will join the General Secretariat for Investment as deputy director of the ‘centres of excellence’ programme to help design and implement PIA 4.

Claire Bordes holds a doctorate in political geography and has taught geopolitics at INALCO and the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Anne Simonin, vice-president of publishing, diffusion and distribution strategy

Anne Simonin is a CNRS research director at the Raymond Aron Centre for Sociological and Political Studies.

Previously, Anne Simonin was Director of the Maison française d'Oxford from 2012 to 2016. She then held the position of scientific advisor to the Haut Conseil de l'Évaluation de la Recherche et de l'Enseignement Supérieur (HCÉRES) until 2022. Between 2009 and 2013, Anne Simonin was the coordinator of the ANR ‘La Loi en Révolution (1789-1795)’ project, which involved digitising the 20,000 decrees in the Baudouin collection in collaboration with ARTFL-Chicago University.

Anne Simonin has been a member of the editorial board of the journal Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales and since 2020 of the editorial board of the journal La Révolution Française. Cahiers de l'Institut d'Histoire de la Révolution française. His work focuses on republican and democratic citizenship from 1789 to the 1950s, with an emphasis on the French Revolution and the Liberation, from a ‘Law and Literature’ perspective.

Commending the work undertaken since 2020, the board will continue the reorganization of the FMSH while proposing significant areas for improvement to secure its future. Among these priorities are: a stronger integration into the Campus Condorcet, an increase in public and private fundraising efforts, a clearly identifiable scientific policy, publications committed to digital dissemination and open access, high-quality distribution, and an enhanced audiovisual dissemination platform.

Campus Condorcet: A Strong and Unambiguous Commitment

The board aims to make the FMSH a fully engaged player in the development and influence of the campus by contributing its specific expertise to the design, development, and implementation of scientific projects that will be carried out there.

Fundraising: Diversifying Resources

A key element of the FMSH's strategy, fundraising will be built on the diversification of resources, donors, and types of funding, alongside the development of a partnership strategy with economic actors.

Scientific Policy: New Goals Aligned with the Foundation's Ecosystem

Based on a detailed analysis of ongoing programs and considering the five-year trajectory, the board will determine, in consultation with its bodies and partners, new goals for its scientific policy. These goals will be aligned with current developments in the local, national, and international aspects of its ecosystem.

Knowledge Dissemination: A Stronger Commitment to Open Science

New collaborations will be established to align publishing and dissemination activities with projects and infrastructures related to the development and promotion of open science. In consultation with the publishers distributed by the FMSH, the board will initiate discussions to achieve an optimal level of fund valorization and the distribution of new works.

Canal-U: Developing New Avenues for Knowledge Mediation

The development of the Canal-U platform will continue, with a focus on refining its functionalities. Its role in disseminating scientific audiovisual content will also be strengthened.