Mathematics: a new research programme to help address major issues

Just when the Abel prize, equivalent to the Nobel Prize for mathematics, has just been awarded to a French researcher, the French government announced the launch of a new research programme in mathematics that will answer “the needs in mathematics modelling, simulation, data processing, methods and tools”, needs that “keep growing”, according to the French ministry in charge of research.

A multidisciplinary programme

As the ministry explains, “these needs originate from the world of research, but also other stakeholders of the economic sector and all society”. Hence the need of a new research programme on mathematics, but also other disciplines, to help address “major issues”, such as “understanding climate change, the change of biodiversity, the spread of epidemics, the transformations of urban planning and mobility, and more”.

And to tackle all these issues, French mathematical research, “which quality is internationally recognised” acts alongside other sciences “by developing the necessary interactions with physics, biology, computer science, geoscience, ecology and human sciences”. Such “multidisciplinary collaborations” should contribute to “improving innovation and the transfer of technology”.

Three pillars of research

According to the French General Secretary for Investment (SGPI in French), which supervises the programme and the investments for the France 2030 plan, this research programme relies on three pillars:

• Environment, which will lead to “design and analyse new models for environmental issues” in relation with climate change, biodiversity change and new energies;
• Life and the living, which aims at “better understanding and manage issues related to networks and interactions at all scales of life on Earth”. On this matter, the programme may concretely contribute to “diagnostics, monitoring patients and early stages interventions to detect health anomalies”;
• Society, with research focusing on several social subjects, such as mobility and circulation of goods and knowledges, collective behaviours or urban planning.

The programme will receive investments up to 50 million euros over 10 years with France 2030 plan. Thanks to the France 2030 plan, the French government will indeed dedicate 3 billion euros to research through programmes driven by institutions to “reinforce the French leadership in key fields” in relation with tech, economic, social, health or environmental transformations considered as priority issues at national or European.

A new museum of mathematics

Mathematics are really under the spotlights in France! To celebrate the world day of mathematics on 14 March, the ministry of higher education offered a guided and digital tour of the museum of mathematics, opened and inaugurated in September 2023. The museum offers “a new experience of mathematics” made possible by the joint efforts of the CNRS and Sorbonne Université.

The Maison Poincaré, named after the famous French mathematician, is indeed a museum that “wants to make mathematics loveable”, thanks to an original scenography which has benefitted from the contribution of a team of 14 women and men mathematicians to “provide an original experience of scientific questions difficult to observe pr represent in our world”. As the CNRS also indicates, this new museum “invites to understand processes of scientists, discover their career and understand the influence of mathematics on our everyday life with fun and original tools”. The interactive tools and experiences available are the result of the work led by scientists to “present mathematics as a varied and living matter, in permanent interaction with other sciences and society”.