by Vittoria Colizza
2017 marks an exciting Academic Year, with important accomplishments. Last July I obtained my first French academic degree, the Habilitation a Diriger la Recherche, or HDR, an accreditation needed to supervise research. Though I supervised already students in France (and abroad before), the French system requires researchers to pass this exam, not quite a formality at the Faculty of Medicine of the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie. The candidate is expected to write a bulky dossier of previous research and supervision activities, as well as future projects. Here’s mine:
Vittoria Colizza’s HDR dossier
After receiving external reviews and an overall internal evaluation, the HDR Committee allows the candidate to defend her HDR, similarly to a PhD defense. And the defense for me has been a great highlight of my 2017. I’m very grateful to all jury members (Prof. Jean-Francois Guegan at IRD; Dr. Jean-Claude Desenclos, Scientific Director of the French Public Health Agency, Prof. Alain-Jacques Valleron, member of the French Academy of Sciences; Dr. Clemence Magnien at UPMC; Prof. Niel Hens at Hasselt University; Prof. Jean-Pierre Nadal at ENS) for creating the steps for such a stimulating discussion on science, medicine, modeling, interdisciplinary approaches and public health, and future perspectives. After more than 3 hours of discussion, and the jury deliberating I got the degree (yay!!!), pizza 🇮🇹 and champagne 🇫🇷 were well deserved.
2017 marks an exciting Academic Year, with important accomplishments. Last July I obtained my first French academic degree, the Habilitation a Diriger la Recherche, or HDR, an accreditation needed to supervise research. Though I supervised already students in France (and abroad before), the French system requires researchers to pass this exam, not quite a formality at the Faculty of Medicine of the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie. The candidate is expected to write a bulky dossier of previous research and supervision activities, as well as future projects. Here’s mine:
Vittoria Colizza’s HDR dossier
After receiving external reviews and an overall internal evaluation, the HDR Committee allows the candidate to defend her HDR, similarly to a PhD defense. And the defense for me has been a great highlight of my 2017. I’m very grateful to all jury members (Prof. Jean-Francois Guegan at IRD; Dr. Jean-Claude Desenclos, Scientific Director of the French Public Health Agency, Prof. Alain-Jacques Valleron, member of the French Academy of Sciences; Dr. Clemence Magnien at UPMC; Prof. Niel Hens at Hasselt University; Prof. Jean-Pierre Nadal at ENS) for creating the steps for such a stimulating discussion on science, medicine, modeling, interdisciplinary approaches and public health, and future perspectives. After more than 3 hours of discussion, and the jury deliberating I got the degree (yay!!!), pizza 🇮🇹 and champagne 🇫🇷 were well deserved.
The HDR was also a first step to a major career evolution. Starting December 1st, I’ve been promoted Director of Research at Inserm – another yay!!! This too was a lengthy and tough process as it required to pass the concours, a national public multi-stage exam open to everybody, similar to the one I passed in 2010 to enter Inserm at the Senior Researcher level. The confirmation of my ranking within the 5 seats available for the Public Health Commission arrived a couple of weeks ago – already time to celebrate with panettone 🇮🇹 and champagne 🇫🇷, followed by an oysters brunch on a fantastic Saturday morning with the lab.
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