Grand Emprunt - INT - Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone - Aix ...

Excellence Academy Call for proposals Excellence Academy call for proposals Project application form General information This project application form is designed to assessing higher education programs of the AixMarseille site applying for their integration in the Excellence Academy (EA), on the basis of the compliance of their projects with the Academy’s Charter. The selected education programs will contribute to promote Aix Marseille University as an international reference for higher education.

Maximum: 25 pages, size11, interline spacing 1, Arial font. Acronym Title A*Midex priority theme

ICN PhD Program in Integrative and Clinical Neurosciences Health and Life Sciences

Name of project manager

Dr. Laurent Vinay & Prof. François Feron

Organization

Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone (UMR 7289, Aix-Marseille Université & CNRS [email protected] [email protected] (+33) (0) 491 32 40 51

Email Phone number

Partners involved in the project

Private Sector Participants

Country

Legal Entity Name

Timone University Hospital

France

APHM


France

APHM


France

APHM

Conception University Hospital

France

Clinical Investigation Center

France

Partners

Eurobiomed

Yes

France

BKIN

Yes

Canada

Department / Division / Laboratory

Scientistin-Charge

Department of Clinical Neurosciences Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Department of Psychiatry

Prof. J.P. Azulay

APHM

Department of Neonatology

Prof. U. Simeoni

APHM & Aix-Marseille Université Eurobiomed

Centre d’invesrtigation clinique

Dr. J. Micallef

BKIN Technologies

Prof. J.M. Viton

Prof. J.M. Azorin

Prof. P. Berta Prof. S.H. Scott

Role of Associated Partner

Training, Hosting secondments Training, Hosting secondments Training, Hosting secondments Training, Hosting secondments Hosting secondments Training Hosting secondments &

Excellence Academy Call for proposals Ltd. Blackrock Microsystems

Dr. Solzbacher

Hungary

Femtonics Ltd

Dr. Balazs Rozsa

Hosting secondments & postdoc

France

NeuroService

Dr. B. Buisson

Hosting secondments postdoc Hosting secondments postdoc Hosting secondments postdoc Hosting secondments postdoc Training

Blackrock

Yes

USA

Femtonics

Yes

NeuroService

Yes

NSRepair

Trophos

VectHorus

Yes

Yes

Yes

The International School for Advanced StudiesTrieste The University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines

France

France

France

NSRepair

Dr. P. Marino

Trophos

Dr. R. Pruss

VectHorus

Italy

SISSA

United Kingdom

Univ. of Edinburgh

Dr. M. Khrestchati sky Prof. A. Nistri

France

postdoc Hosting secondments & postdoc

School of Informatics

Prof. J.A. Bednar

Training

Dpt. Bioelectronics

Prof. G. Malliaras

Hosting secondments

&

&

&

&

Summary (10 lines max.) The Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone (INT) was launched in January 2012 in a new building located on the Timone medical school campus, next to the CHU. This new institute is a tremendous opportunity to bridge the gap between fundamental and biomedical researches in the field of integrative neurosciences. Purposely, we set up an innovative PhD training program with the following goals: 1/ expand the interdisciplinary knowledge of the students; 2/ provide the various skills necessary for building up a postdoctoral research project, applying for grants and communicating in science; 3/ expose the students to the different socioeconomic stakeholders in research (private, charity and clinical centers); 4/ promote international networking. Our main goal is to considerably broaden the career prospects and employability of young researchers.

I. Describe your existing education program’s strengths and your project’s added value. Where do you stand? Where do you want to go? I.1 Program’s background Are you already running this program?

YES

NO

The Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone (INT) is a new Joint Research Unit between CNRS and AMU (see http://www.int.univ-amu.fr). It opened in January 2012 in a new 4000m 2 building entirely dedicated to research on the Timone Medical School campus. With about 120 people (including 30 CNRS/INSERM researchers and 17 academics from Faculties of Medicine and Sciences), it is one of the largest research Center in France dedicated to

Excellence Academy Call for proposals integrative neurosciences. Our researches span a broad range of expertise, going from cellular to behavioral levels but focusing on a restricted numbers of systems: spinal and cortical motor control; sensory systems (vision, audition) and regulatory systems (emotion, motivation). It is associated with the major clinical Departments in Neurology/Neurosurgery, Psychiatry and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in order to promote translational research in several major diseases of the central nervous system (e.g. Spasticity; Parkinson; Addiction; DMLA; Autism..). Through collaborations with engineering and physics, our teams are involved in R&D projects in multi-scale brain imaging (photonic, MRI), signal processing, computational neurosciences and neuroprosthetics. Raising a new generation of scientists and physicians within a strongly interdisciplinary environment is a key element of our scientific strategy. Currently, there is no doctoral training targeting students in neurosciences at AMU. This has several consequences. First, we are limited in our recruitment strategy and its internationalization, despite the strong support we received over the last 4 years through several Marie-Curie ITN networks. Second, we cannot provide additional training to our students to prepare them for a post-doctoral track in different sectors (academic, private, clinical, charity). Third, we cannot improve the visibility of the Marseille neuroscience community, despite the fact that it is the second largest in France. To meet these challenges, opening a PhD program was a pivotal aspect of the INT project evaluated by AERES. The Institute was evaluated A+ and the present Integrative and Clinical Neuroscience (ICN) PhD Program was strongly encouraged by the international evaluation committee. The Committee however pointed out that without opening a significant number of PhD fellowships attached to the PhD Program, it would be difficult to be competitive on the international scene. For this purpose, we applied for an Innovative Doctoral Program (Innovative Doctoral Program; Marie Curie Actions of the European Commission) in November 2012. The current application to AMIDEX fits into the same strategy. A light version of the proposed program started in Spring 2012, with tutored seminars and courses. In 2013, we will start the first lectures and e-learning series as well as dedicated actions for students (PhD Day, PhD workshop). We expect our PhD Program to be fully active in the 2013-2014 academic year. At the same time, we started to open the program to academics from other neuroscience laboratories, as evidenced by the fact that François Féron (Laboratoire de Neurobiologie des Interactions Cellulaires et Neurophysiopathologie, Hôpital Nord) is co-leading this proposal. Our goal is to help AMU to better structure the doctoral training in Integrative and Clinical Neurosciences, complementing other projects that will emerge from the BLRI and Inphorm Labex for instance. I. 2 Program’s overview I.2.1. Academics Our PhD program is dedicated to PhD students in Neuroscience, in the whole Marseille area. Medical residents in the fields of Neurology, Psychiatry and Rehabilitative Medicine will be strongly encouraged to enroll. With 10 PhD fellowships to be recruited through the ICN program, we expect to attract students from the best Universities in Europe and broaden the span of initial training background (e.g. Physics, Computer Sciences, Psychology) as there is a growing need for interdisciplinary background in the field of Integrative and Clinical Neurosciences. Thus, our objective is to enlarge the recruitment basin for the AMU neurosciences community, being complementary to the more classical way of recruitment through the Neuroscience Master. Some of the students enrolled in the ICN program will be supported for a complementary, study-to-work year within one of our private or clinical partners in order to develop new professional tracks for graduated students.

Excellence Academy Call for proposals I.2.2. Pedagogy The training programme wishes to answer to two fundamental questions: 1/ How to train early stage researchers (ESRs) to make them think in a multi-disciplinary way while they still need to acquire high-level technical and scientific background on a very specific topic that will determine their own future research perspectives? 2/ How to provide all the tools required to i) build up a postdoctoral project, ii) apply for grants and iii) improve their career prospects and employability? A major downside of the current educational system is that students who either do not wish or fail to find a job in the academic system have almost no alternative due to their extreme specialization. We propose the following solutions to tackle these questions: • Interdisciplinary theoretical training. Very often, young scientists have a static view of each brain function. This is partly due to the graduate training programme during which basic knowledge is taught using schematic and classical views. By focusing onto a more dynamical approach of rather old fundamental questions, the three sets of research projects are designed to teach young researchers –while giving them the appropriate technical skills- that the brain is a highly dynamical “machine”. Thus, experimental answers mostly depend on the particular point in time at which the system is probed, which task is used and what neural context is at play. This objective will be reached by providing the trainees with state-of-the-art recurrent courses and seminars in different fields of sensory-motor and cognitive neurosciences. The interdisciplinary theoretical training will be complemented by courses provided by foreign associated partners (in particular computational neuroscience in Edinburgh, see below). • Strong technical/methodological background. Modern integrative neuroscience requires growingly complex experimental tools and data analyses, techniques that necessitate a strong theoretical and practical technical background. The latter will be acquired by elaborating and conducting experiments throughout the PhD training. Moreover, we will organize methodological courses on the main brain imaging techniques (e.g. fMRI and optical imaging) and modern computational approaches for signal processing and data analysis. The in-house training in informatics and signal/image processing will complement the rudimentary training provided to students during their undergraduate education. • Medicine for translational scientists. Clinical perspective is one of the goals of the institute. A major reason that motivated CNRS and Aix-Marseille Université to set up the INT was the strong need to strengthen the interface between fundamental and clinical researches in Marseille. We will take advantage of the location of the INT on the medical school campus, in close proximity to the Timone university hospital and the involvement of 7 clinical units (belonging to the Neurology/Neurosurgery, Psychiatry and Physical Rehabilitation Departments) in the INT to include clinical issues and research in the training program. As each INT team includes clinicians, the clinical dimension is already present in the everyday life (journal and data clubs, seminars...) of the institute. In the future, (i) each Early Stage Researcher (ESR) will choose a physician mentor who will help designing the clinical experience, (ii) a course on the regulatory framework for clinical research (how to submit a research project? How to set the requirements for the recruitment of patients? ...) will be included, (iii) each student will spend a week in clinical units and attend staff meetings/case studies and consultations and (iv) some of the ESRs will make their secondment in clinic. I.2.3. Faculty The program relies on professors, researchers, external speakers and socio-economic partners.

Excellence Academy Call for proposals

Faculty members. Pascal Belin and François Feron are full professors in neuroscience at the Faculty of Medicine. Florence Cayetanot and Dr Julie Peyronnet-Roux are both assistant Professor at the Faculty of Sciences. Researchers. Several INT researchers will be involved in courses. Laurent Vinay, Frédéric Chavane and Anna Montagnini will take part in the coordination of the ICN program. Céline Damon, who is heading the Department dedicated to European Grant Research Unit at the Aix-Marseille Université and who is National Contact Point for the FP7 Health Thematic will give a course on grant writing and summarize the national and international -in particular European- set-ups for support and funding (notably H2020). Mark Bacon, who is Director of Research at Spinal Research, the UK’s leading charity funding medical research around the world to develop reliable treatments for paralysis caused by a broken back or neck, will give a course on the organization of charities (fundraising, calls for research projects, selection of grant applications ...). Courses on the management of the innovation process and business creation will be provided by the Master Biotin in Montpellier (headed by Prof. P. Berta). Seven private companies will host secondments and a study to work training that will provide the ESRs transectorial opportunities. Four of these companies are located in the Marseille area (Neuroservice, NSRepair, Trophos and Vect-Horus) and 3 abroad (BKIN Technologies, Canada; Blackrock Microsystems, USA; Femtonics, Hungary) BKIN Technologies is a leading developer of robotic technologies for probing brain function and dysfunction. Their patented KINARM™ product line enables basic and clinical researchers to explore sensory, motor and cognitive performance in both humans and non-human primates. The robotic and software tools create complex mechanical and visual worlds. BKIN's products are paradigm shifting and hold the promise of being the first quantitative and objective system to assess sensory, motor and cognitive function - critical instrumentation for the effective management of brain disease and injury. The company sold recently such a KINARM device to N. Malfait, an INT researcher. Blackrock Microsystems is a leader and only provider of FDA- and EC-approved implantable high channel count microelectrode, instrumentation/electronics and software solutions for neuroscience and neural engineering research and clinical applications. The company invested $11 million into a new building and cleanroom facilities to allow for the growing demand in the devices, instrumentation and software. The company is collaborating with INT researchers. Femtonics is a research-based microscopy company operating in the field of Two Photon imaging. The company designs and produces highly optimized equipment for neurophysiological research. The two-photon microscopes by Femtonics are tuned for fast 2D and 3D optical measurements in neuronal tissue, both in vitro as well as in vivo. Additionally, Femtonics is also developing novel caged compounds to further enhance and support the quality of optical experiments. The company works in close cooperation with scientists and researchers across Hungary and Europe. Femtonics and Ivo Vanzetta, an INT researcher, have a grant from the French research agency (ANR). Neuroservice is a private CRO (Contract Research Organization) exclusively providing pharmacological recordings of acute brain & spinal cord slices. These assays are performed with the Multi-Electrode Array (MEA) and Patch-Clamp techniques.

Excellence Academy Call for proposals NSrepair is an emerging full-service preclinical Contract Research Organization specialized in acute neurological injuries. Its mission is to accompany preclinical phase to improve clinical success rate of new therapeutic compounds. A unique combination of support in consulting services, preclinical studies and training courses is provided. Trophos is an advanced clinical stage pharmaceutical company developing innovative therapeutics from discovery to clinical validation for indications with greatly under-served needs in neurology and cardiology. Their discovery strategy is based on a unique expertise in cell-based models and imaging instrumentation. The strategy involves screening chemical collections of small molecules on models of sick neurons, using the class of neurons affected in each type of disease. Vect-Horus is a French biotechnology company located in Marseille, focused on developing vector molecules and vectorized drug-candidates that will open new avenues for drug delivery to the central nervous system (CNS, brain and spinal cord) and treatment of CNS diseases. VECT-HORUS’ breakthrough vector technology is dedicated to enhance drug targeting and delivery to the diseased CNS for the treatment of pathologies which represent the second therapeutic area on the pharmaceutical market in terms of sales turnover. VECT-HORUS develops vector molecules for conjugation with drugs or drug-candidates that normally cannot enter the brain. I.2.4. Admissions There are currently 30 PhD students working at INT, about 1/3 of them finishing their medical degrees simultaneously (Interns, CCA - Assistants). About 120 students in neurosciences are currently enrolled in doctoral studies at the Doctoral School in Life Sciences (EDSVS), with on average ~30 new students / year. A survey indicates that about half of them (i.e 15/year) are in the field of integrative and clinical neurosciences. Several laboratories in this field (Laboratoire de Neurobiologie des Interactions Cellulaires et Neurophysiopathologie, Laboratoire de Neurosciences Intégratives et Adaptatives, Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives, Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, Institut de Neurosciences des Systèmes) are interested in enrolling their PhD students in the ICN program. We estimate that about 15 interns (i.e. about 1/4 th of the total number) in the associated clinical units will be interested in attending the ICN program. We can therefore estimate that about 20 students / year will participate (i.e. about 60 students for a 3 years program). All these students are financed (MRT, APMH, research grants…). We plan to enroll 10 additional PhD students the first year through direct ICN funding. With 30 student / year, we can reach a critical mass required to run an attractive yearly program, while being still able to achieve high quality training and elaborate individual training tracks. The different steps of the enrollment process will start by international advertisement, preselection of applications by PhD supervisors, interview and scoring of candidates, final selection by a dedicated committee. We will pay a special attention to gender balance. From our past experience with Marie-Curie ITN, there are on average 5 to 6 applicants for one fellowship that is publicized. Broadening the initial training selection criteria to computer sciences, physics or psychology usually increases the number of applicants. We are therefore confident that a 20% selectivity rate at entry is an achievable and manageable objective. Enrollment will be international, transparent and spanned over the full program period.

Excellence Academy Call for proposals I.2.5. Development of international partnerships Building up a network of international contacts likely improves career prospects and employability. This international networking will, at program onset, rely mainly on an array of 2 research centers and universities located in Trieste (Italy) and Edinburgh (UK), respectively. The supervisory board will recommend a list of courses for each ESR. However, students will freely make their own choice. Some secondments and/or postdocs will be performed in private companies and a hospital located abroad (Hungary, USA, Canada, Israël, ...). Moreover, the graduate students will benefit from the strong network of international collaborations set up by each research team. To note, INT is the coordinator or partner of several training and/or research networks funded through different programmes such as ITN Marie-Curie (CODDE, FACETS-ITN), Integrated projects of IST/FET (BrainScales, BrainScales-Extended), largescale projects of IMI (PharmaCog) and ERA-NET NEURON (DBS-Stim; Ipsoals) networks. These networks provide strong opportunities of exchanges, thematic workshops and additional interdisciplinary training that can be offered to all students. The short-term goal is to develop joint degrees with the two above-mentioned universities and to increase the number of foreign universities that would be partners of the ICN program. A likely possibility, among others, would be Western University (Ontario, Canada) that includes renowned neuroscience centers and has developed exchange programs with AMU. The numerous foreign laboratories that are collaborating with INT teams (see below) are important starting links for partnerships. I.2.6. Outreach and economic impact The goal is to provide the basic tools to enable students to interact with private companies. Courses will deal with the management of the innovation process (innovations and strategies, exploitation of results, protection of innovation, project management, intellectual property and patents) and entrepreneurship (defining a business plan, understanding and mastering the basic tools of project management,..). The inter-sectorial approach is strengthened by the support of Eurobiomed whose involvement will consist in providing the above-mentioned training courses. A salary is requested for ESRs for four years: three years will be dedicated to the PhD thesis in the academics and the first postdoctoral year will be spent in one of the private companies that are associated with our PhD program, either in the Marseille area or abroad (see the list of Associated partners). I.3 Innovation of the education project and compliance with the EA’s Charter I.3.1. Relevance The ICN program focuses on one of the five priorities of A*MIDEX: Health and Life Sciences. Despite the fact that the Neuroscience community in Marseille is the second largest in France, we did not succeed in obtaining the Labex label. Some of the reasons for this failure were the lack of visibility and attractiveness. In contrast to the field of immunology, there is no program in Neuroscience in Marseille dedicated to the training of PhD students, beside their research work, although such additional training markedly increases job opportunities (see below “Professional Insertion”). The ICN project aims at addressing this need for Integrative and Clinical Neuroscience. The INT, due to its size (~130 persons including 30 PhD students and 13 Master 2 students, i.e. ~30% of the Master 2 students in Marseille, currently enrolled) will be able to meet this challenge. Although the ICN program is initiated at the INT level, it will be open to all students in the field, whatever the location of their laboratory in Marseille. ICN prolongs the training provided by the Master of Neuroscience. Medical residents in Neurology,

Excellence Academy Call for proposals Psychiatry, Ophtalmology and Rehabilitative Medicine will also take advantage of this additional training. Lastly, the ICN program is complementary to the training initiatives that will be taken by the BLRI Labex in cognitive sciences. I.3.2. Competitiveness The proposed program has not been evaluated by AERES as it is new. However it relies on the highly evaluated INT (A+). Establishing an attractive doctoral program was presented to the international review board and is a strong recommendation of the evaluation report. All private companies that were contacted agreed to participate because recruiting well trained and skillful postdocs is a challenge for them (for instance, personal communication from Bruno Buisson who is heading the Neuroservice company). In order to help them, granted postdocs will have the opportunity to work in such an environment for a year. Thanks to the Marie Curie ITN networks run by INT teams, we have a strong experience of international recruitment of PhD students. Over the last three years, about 20% of the INT students got their Master degree in another European country, sometimes even in another discipline (Physics, Psychology, Computer Sciences). We want to increase this flow by attracting the best students from leading European universities with a significant number of doctoral fellowships directly managed by the PhD Program with the support of A*MIDEX. With regard to the local recruitment, students of the Master in Neuroscience will be invited to attend the PhD Day to meet potential supervisors and older students. The ICN doctoral program is original and will be attractive for foreign students for several reasons. First, it is based on laboratories with strong tracking record in research. All of them have been evaluated A+/A at the final evaluation round. Second, interdisciplinary programs spanning from cellular to behavioral levels, from basic to clinical training, are not common in Europe, and there is certainly no equivalent program in France. Third, we propose a training strategy to help fellows to find jobs outside of the academic/research field, something that is barely found in exciting PhD program and that is a challenge faced by all of them. I.3.3. Selectivity To objectively and fairly select the students, a recruitment process will be set up, according to the rules of the Code of Conduct for Recruitment in the European Charter for Researchers. PhD positions will be internationally advertised, on a dedicated INT web page, but also through international societies (such as FENS or SfN) and CORDIS websites. To apply, students will have to provide a description of their academic courses and records, at least two reference letters, a motivation letter and three PhD projects in decreasing order of preference among the list proposed. PhD supervisors will then pre-select and rank the applicants who chose their project according to the formal requirements for admittance. Suitable students will be invited for an interview, either personally if travelling appears feasible, or otherwise per video-conferencing or telephone. PhD supervisors will score each interviewed students. The final selection will be performed by a selection committee (in which each INT team will be adequately represented) according to the final averaged score. Although we are quite optimistic about the gender balance (16/30 PhD students actually working at the INT are women), the gender issue will be considered in case of equivalent applications/records/scores in order to preserve this balance. In addition, the INT has state of the art facilities for candidates with special needs. Students passing the selection process will be offered a Ph.D. position (subject to the formal admission which will be done by the host university).

Excellence Academy Call for proposals I.3.4. Pedagogical innovation While traditional training is focused on research, we propose a complementary training centered on the student. What are the theoretical tools he/she needs to find his/her way in a constantly and rapidly evolving field? How to help the students to build up doctoral and postdoctoral programs? How to provide the best chances to find a job not only in the academic sector but also in the business world? Which kind of clinical training would give our students to a decisive advantage compared to others on the the job market? The ICN program aims at tackling these questions. We will innovate in the field of education by providing: • tutored seminars to help students to acquire a critical reading of articles and to increase their scientific culture. In coordination with selected external speakers, we will prepare the students for the seminar by discussing with them about two selected articles on the day before the talk; after the seminar, students will have the opportunity to spend one hour with the speaker. • a dedicated help for the use of online learning tools (e-learning), both in French and in English; • specialized training in the fields of law, business management, science dissemination, public health. For example, students interested in dissemination and teaching will be invited to take part in the preparation of the Week of Brain and write a blog on the university website or letter that would comment on recent discoveries in neuroscience; • intensive preparation and financial support for students who wish to attend summer schools (eg, Cold Spring Harbour, Woods Hole, Ecole de l’Inserm Liliane Bettencourt); • training, called "Ethical Conduct in Research", which will educate students about problems of plagiarism, fraud, conflicts of interest, animal rights and responsibility with regard to patients. I.3.5. Internationalization The internationalization of the ICN program has three dimensions: 1/ Working environment at the INT. About 20% of the permanent researchers working at INT are coming from abroad (Italy, Norway, Germany, Canada). Scientific projects of most INT teams are involved in large networks of partnerships. In 2012, the INT was taking part in two Marie-Curie ITN networks, 1 Integrated Project from the EU, 2 ERANET-Neuron and 1 ANRBlanc International, representing as many as 25 laboratories/Universities throughout Europe. Such collaborations imply that foreign students from these partner labs come to Marseille and that French students go abroad to run collaborative work. This should shortly lead to cosupervision of thesis. 2/ Enrollment. This year, 30% of the PhD students working at INT have obtained their Master Degree in a foreign country. As a result, the official language of the ICN program will be English. The broad advertising of the available fellowships will obviously increase the percentage of foreign students over the targetted 30%. 3/ Specialized courses in foreign universities. As described below, all PhD students enrolled in the ICN program will follow complementary specialized courses abroad with the International School for Advanced Studies-Trieste (Italy) and The University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics (United Kingdom). I.3.6. Interdisciplinarity Doctoral programs, especially in the life sciences, are not adapted to the growing awareness about non-academic job opportunities. As described below, the ambition of the ICN PhD program is to give students all the skills required to later work at the interface of basic

Excellence Academy Call for proposals sciences, clinic and industry. It is critical to provide them with high-quality training regarding the socio-economic actors as well as management. Such complementary training is provided in engineering schools but remains largely absent from training in Life Sciences. The ICN program is highly interdisciplinary as integrative and cognitive neurosciences sit at the interfaces between neurosciences and psychology, computer sciences (modeling, signal processing) and physics (instrumentation for brain imaging). For this reason, we have been involved in a first attempt to build a Physique-Biologie Master cursus which failed given the small number of physics students. Our teams are involved in collaborative research program with European and non-European laboratories outside the field of neuroscience, in particular through interdisciplinary networks (FACETS-ITN, BrainScales…) to which our students are exposed. As stated above, 25% of our current students have an initial training outside the field of neuroscience. Each year we welcome undergraduate students from Engineering schools to work on Instrumentation/Signal processing for brain imaging. Note that an INT team is collaborating with the Department of Bioelectronics of the Ecole Nationale des Mines. Another key aspect of interdisciplinarity is the strong commitment of INT to train altogether scientists and clinicians through the ICN program. We encourage undergraduate students in Medicine to perform a Master 2 degree at the INT. The program will level off the difference in training skills between these students by giving these complementary theoretical and practical skills as well as through the opportunity to select courses in one of our international partners (Edinburg & Trieste). We will also broaden the perspectives in terms of career tracks thanks the partnerships with clinical units and private companies in biotechnologies. I.3.7. Professional insertion The ICN program is dedicated to provide employment opportunities. European economy is in crisis. Both academia positions and R&D industry jobs are in low number and prospects look grim. However, the number of PhD graduates grew by nearly 40% between 1998 and 2008 (up to 34,000) in countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, data from Nature 472 (2011), 277). As a result of this mismatch between the rising number of PhD laureates and a poor job market, exceptionally bright science PhD holders from elite academic institutions are slogging through five or ten years of poorly paid postdoctoral studies, slowly becoming disillusioned by the ruthless and often fruitless fight for a permanent academic position. Some of them keep going, aligning recurrent postdoctoral fellowships; others accept underemployment or even leave science. Even more importantly, the situation is dissuading some of the brightest candidates from taking the PhD route. The system of PhD education is broken and unsustainable, and needs to be reconceived. “Most doctoral-education programs conform to a model defined during the Middle Ages, in which education is a process of cloning that trains students to do what their mentors do. The clones now vastly outnumber their mentors. The academic job market collapsed in the 1970s, yet universities have not adjusted their admissions policies, because they need graduate students to work in laboratories and as teaching assistants. But once those students finish their education, there are no academic jobs for them” (M.C. Taylor, Nature 472 (2011): 261). Researchers trained on the academic track are increasingly pursuing job opportunities outside academia (Nature 490 (2012), 571). Yet conventional PhD programs don’t provide the practical experiences and skills needed to make a transition to industry. One reason that many doctoral programs do not adequately serve students is that they are overly specialized. As a result of this inability of doctoral programs to adapt the training of doctoral students to the labour market, new programs are launched that are intended to improve and broaden the training of young scientists after their PhD (for instance the Postdoc Professional Masters at the Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) of Applied Life Sciences in Claremont, CA, USA). Only a few

Excellence Academy Call for proposals nations, including Germany, are successfully tackling the problem by redefining the PhD as training for high-level positions in careers outside academia. The translation of scientific advances to clinical medicine remains a formidable challenge. The translational effort used to rely on physicians but the number of physicians who are trained in the biological and/or physical sciences and the number of physician-scientists who participate in both clinical medicine and academic research have decreased dramatically in the early 1980s (Nat. Med. 8 (2002) 433). Another group has the potential to be at the forefront of translational medicine: the non-physician scientists. Accepting the idea that PhD scientists can make highly significant contribution to medicine, the question becomes the degree to which we should train basic scientists in clinical medicine. The possibilities range from a full clinical program, as for MD-PhDs, to in-depth experience in patho-physiology and clinical medicine, to short, targeted exposure to patho-physiology/patho-biology. Until recently, MD-PhD programs represented the only systematic effort at medical education for translational scientist. However, these programs educate a small number of clinician-scientists and that approach is expensive and neglects the needs of many PhD scientists who wish to do translational work without becoming clinicians. The in-depth experience is not realistic considering the short duration of the PhD in France, as compared to the US. It is important to underscore the fact that a short exposure to clinic, such as one semester, influences career decisions as much as an in-depth experience (25% and 28% of the graduate students find an academic position in a clinical department / medical center, respectively; compared to 8% for typical PhDs, without clinical experience and 43% for MD-PhDs; data from Nat. Med., 8 (2002), 433). Moreover, under-graduate students in life science tend massively to select a biomedical research topic for completing their Master and Doctoral degrees. Lastly, more and more paramedical professionals (i.e. clinical psychologist, neuropsychologist..) are seeking for research training once they obtain their professional degree as the positions offered at the main University Hospital involves more and more research activity aside of the clinics. These facts demonstrate that investigators without an MD can become actively involved in “bench-tobedside” applications. One of the conclusions of the above-mentioned article is that giving students first-hand knowledge of human disease through direct interactions with patients is crucial. To conclude, the ICN program is conceived to address major societal needs, giving the ESRs the “bridging” skills needed to work at the interface of basic sciences, clinic and industry. The INT was launched quite recently by CNRS and AMU to stimulate translational research. Its location on the medical school campus, next to the university hospital, the involvement of clinicians in all the INT teams, and the relationships some INT members already have with private companies make the INT an ideal place to undertake this ambitious project.

Excellence Academy Call for proposals I.4 Competitive analysis and position in the international higher-education environment

Strengths - The only international Neuroscience program in Marseille - Strong links between basic and clinical research - Involvement of clinicians in all INT teams - International network of collaborators - 20% students graduated in a foreign country - Fully dedicated lecturers - Innovative pedagogy - Research training on well-identified key neuroscience questions using cut-off edge methods - Solid support of Eurobiomed - Study-to-work transition in a private company

Weaknesses - Lack of framework agreements with top international universities

Internal origin

Negative

External origin

Positive

Opportunities - High international demand for training in neuroscience - High level of funding by European community - Marseille Is the second largest center for Neurosciences in France - Many local biotech companies focus their activities on neuroscience issues - Location on a medical campus - Other neuroscience teams in Marseille wish to move on the Timone campus

Threats - Other international PhD programs set up by European universities - Financial issues after the fusion of three universities in Marseille - No Neuroscience Labex in Marseille

II. Required means to develop and implement the education program Set up and budget for the different stages and milestones to implement the project.

II.1 Specifications and operating plan

II.1.1. Set-up In addition to the practical training attached to each research project, the 3-year PhD program will be organized as described below and will take advantage of Aix-Marseille Université (AMU) Doctoral School in Life and Health Science. Students will have to participate to the training organized by the Graduate School, in particular on scientific communication skills. This mandatory workload is however limited to about 2-3 days per year. The ICN program will deliver 40 European Credits Transfer System (ECTS), in accordance with the rules of the Doctoral School stipulating the amount of theoretical training requested for obtaining a PhD in Neurosciences. The training proposed is ambitious, intense but feasible. In terms of workload, we estimated that about 50 days will be taken for training/courses the first two years (12% of the annual working days) and only 11 the last year (less than 5%). The 6-month secondment

Excellence Academy Call for proposals may not be considered as an additional load as the research that will be performed during this internship in private or clinical sector is an integral part of the ESR’s research project.

First Year Welcoming day (1 day) The welcoming day will be organized by the students of the INT (2 nd and 3rd year level). The Institute and the PhD programme will be presented by the Director of the Institute and the PhD program supervisor, respectively. Each newcomer will briefly present himself, his background and the main lines of his PhD project, on an informal basis. The person responsible for hygiene and safety will provide all the instructions. A member of the ethical committee will summarize all the INT guidelines relative to experiments on human subjects and animals (that are in accordance with the European legislation). Each ESR will have to attend the welcoming day of the Doctoral School. CNRS internal training The fellows, as well as other fellows in the lab, will have access to the training courses organized by the CNRS. First, French language teaching lessons will be organized (once a week, 20 weeks/year, starting in March) for foreign researchers and students. Second, for students having research projects involving animals, a mandatory 3 weeks training session will be organized by the CNRS in order to get accreditation from the French authorities to use animal models. This training covers animal welfare and handling, ethical and legislation issues, surgery and basics in animal care and ethics related to animal experimentation. To note, the in-house veterinarian of the Institute is appointed by the CNRS as the head of these training courses which are open to students and researchers nationwide. Our students will thus have privileged access to this mandatory training. When needed, supplementary training will be available on more specific topics that cannot be organized at the Host Institution such as C-programming, training school in brain imaging and so on. AMU internal training Students will be asked to enroll at Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/), a prominent company that partners with top world universities to offer courses online for free. ESRs will have to choose a 5 to 8 week course focused on one of the following topics : Neuroscience, Clinical neuroscience, Artificial intelligence, Vision, Statistics and data analysis, Scientific Computing. Foreign students will follow courses delivered in French while French students will choose courses delivered in English. The faculty of Medicine includes a renowned department of Ethics. Lecturers from this department will interact with students on hot issues such as animal rights, patients’ consent, clinical trial guidelines, plagiarism, fraud and conflicts of interest. Students willing to share their passion for science will be strongly encouraged to join the local board of the “Brain Awareness Week”. They will also be offered to write a blog on the university website that would comment on recent discoveries in neuroscience. Meetings with the other INT groups (8 days spread over the first year) During the first year, students will learn about the research field of each of the INT teams. Once a month, students will spend one day with an INT team (a.m.: concepts and techniques; p.m.: experiments and/or tutorials). To promote their interdisciplinary culture, young scientists will perform a poster presentation of a virtual project on one of the topics of his/her choice (of course different from the one of the team he/she belongs to). All posters will be presented in June to INT researchers, technicians and students. To devise the project, the student will have to interact with the members of the concerned team. The purpose of this event is manifold: to make students learn about another field developed within the INT, to encourage the spirit of

Excellence Academy Call for proposals initiative and creativity and to learn how to present a poster. This poster will be constructively criticized and evaluated by the local management board (Milestone n°1). Based on the observation of all posters, the day will end with discussion and general advices on how to prepare and present a poster. Basic courses (5 days) Students are coming from different background and educational systems and, hence, have quite a heterogeneous knowledge across the different areas of neuroscience and their specific techniques. The goal of the basic courses is to standardize the levels. Courses will be given on: Functional neuroanatomy. The goal of this course is to provide comprehensive insights into the neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, and functional aspects of the major brain structures and their interconnections. The core elements consist of courses covering the anatomy, cellular and synaptic organization of the spinal cord, brainstem, basal ganglia, hippocampus and neocortex. These brain systems will especially be related to the motor, visual, emotional, and cognitive processes. Biostatistics. This course offers a comprehensive training on biostatistics with relevant examples that include data collected in studies of the field of neuroscience. The programme will provide an intensive introduction to biostatistical approaches and research by presenting the principles, methodologies, uses, and applications of statistical methods in biomedical and clinical research. The students should then know how to design and conduct an experimental protocol according to biostatistics rules. Computational neurosciences is an expending field that is proving to be essential in neurosciences. The aim of this course will be to provide a common solid background in computational neurosciences. The course will comprise historical recall of the field and a description of the different modelling approaches that are currently developed, including details about their specificities, limits and advantages. A more specialized course will be chosen among these two options: Computer programming. In integrative neurosciences, basic skills in computer programming are getting more and more mandatory. The emergence of new brain imaging and recording systems, such as the one used in the INT, has led to a large increase in the amount and complexity of information to be processed. In order to provide PhD students with those basic skills, a course will be provided with two objectives: (i) an initiation to standard programming languages (such as Matlab or Python) and (ii) an introduction to basic signal and image processing methods. The course will comprise a hands-on project. Techniques in molecular/cellular biology, immunohistochemistry. Publishing in high impact factor journals most often requires the combination of complementary techniques. Many researchers in the field on integrative neurosciences still do not dare to use these techniques although they would improve the interpretation of their data and enable them to better target the mechanisms. This course will give the principles of antibodies binding specifically to antigens in biological tissues, the use of secondary antibodies and point out some of the pitfalls of these techniques and the use of confocal microscopy. Transferable complementary skills. The basic techniques of communication (oral presentation, poster presentation, article writing, grant writing, thesis writing, outreach activities, science communication and dissemination) will be explained. These techniques should be mastered at the earliest stages of the training but it is more motivating for ESR to be trained with their own results. Since the end of first year most often corresponds to the presentation of the

Excellence Academy Call for proposals first results to international conferences (in particular Society for Neuroscience), we will organize rehearsal sessions of poster and oral presentations. Moreover, ESR will be asked to present their work at the Annual PhD Day of the Institute. Lastly, we will organize two lectures on article writing and literature search by experienced mentors. These actions will complement the training (results presentation, rehearsing of presentations…) received through weekly Journal Clubs organized by each team independently. Career development. ESRs will learn about the different career options across sectors in and outside Europe, the resources available to help them to clarify about their professional priorities and values-based career goals.

Second Year Mid-term thesis progress committee (0.5 day) The interview of PhD students by a thesis progress committee is mandatory in France. Such committee does not provide a scientific evaluation of the work but enquires about the progress of the thesis, the relationship between the student and his/her supervisor, the availability of experimental set-ups and technical and methodological supports, the participation to international meetings. Having one article published as first author and material for two other articles (usually at least one of these two being submitted) is a pre-requisite to get the approval for PhD defence by the Doctoral School in Life Sciences. A goal of the mid-term thesis progress committee is therefore to evaluate whether enough data have been collected so that an article is in preparation (if not yet submitted/published) and that the thesis will end up within three years (milestone n°2). The Management Committee will determine the composition of the progress committee: the supervisor, the non-academic mentor(s) who are the person(s) responsible for the secondment(s), an external researcher (among a list proposed by the supervisor of three names with whom he/she is not collaborating), a researcher from the institute and a student representative (2nd or 3rd year). The student will present the progress of his thesis (~30 minutes presentation), answer the questions and will then be interviewed without his/her supervisor. Before closing, the committee will interview the supervisor in the absence of the student. After deliberation, the progress committee will give a list of recommendations that are forwarded to both the student and the supervisor. In case of difficulties, the PhD program Committee will follow-up the progresses with a second interview within six months. Tutored seminars (1 day) Throughout the course of their PhD, students will have to attend the external seminars (usually once a week) on topics related to basic or clinical research. In some seminars, selected by the Local Management Board (4 per year, one every three months), a "tutorial" will be organized. The host (INT researcher or student) will assist and prepare students for active and critical listening of the seminar by sending articles related to the presentation one week ahead. The day before the seminar, the papers will be discussed between the students and the Local Management Board. After the seminar, a one-hour discussion between the INT PhD students and the speaker will take place. The objective is to encourage students to speak in public and prompt them to ask questions on topics that are far from their research area, thus expanding their general culture. At the end of the second year, each student will be asked to propose an ambitious research project on the topic of one of the tutored seminars that he (she) will have selected. This project will be presented as a poster in English. The presentation will be evaluated by the Local Management Board (Milestone n°3).

Excellence Academy Call for proposals Advanced courses (10 days) The student will have to spend two weeks abroad to attend the courses provided by one of the associated partners, either in Trieste or in Edinburgh. A full list of options will be provided to students in September at the beginning of the second year. The SISSA partner in Trieste offers courses during the first semester and the Doctoral training Centre of the University of Edinburgh offers courses during the second semester. It is required that all external courseworks are confined to the second year of the ICN. The supervisory board has identified courses in Trieste and Edinburgh and will attribute them for each ESR. Nevertheless, students during the course of their research frequently identify weaknesses in their backgrounds that need to be filled. In this case, students may choose to take different courses in agreement with the supervisory board. We strongly encourage them to do so, and will continue to support and advise them in this process. The advanced courses in Trieste that are recommended are the following: the module 1 of the Neurobiology sector devoted to “neuron to brain; sensory system; synaptic transmission; basic electrophysiology, ionic channels; understanding motor control”, the courses in Cognitive Neuroscience sector devoted to “evolution of neural computation; interface between the motor system and cognitive processes” and “introduction to cognitive science; social neurosciences”. The advanced courses in Edinburgh that are recommended are as follows: the module devoted to ”Computational Cognitive Neuroscience; Topics in Cognitive Modelling; Neuroscience of Vision; Machine Learning and Sensorimotor Control; Introduction to Vision and Robotics Neuroinformatics Research”. In parallel, students willing to attend summer schools (eg, Cold Spring Harbour, Woods Hole, Ecole de l’Inserm Liliane Bettencourt) will be be intensively trained by members of the ICN committee. Successful candidates will be financially supported by ICN.

Third Year Course on the design of grant proposal (1 day) A course will first provide the major tips for reading a call and writing a grant proposal. In addition, a summary of the different national and international/European schemes for funding will be given. Then, the students will have to build a project of grant proposal. The guidelines will be provided by the local Advisory Board and by the head of the European Research Grant Unit. In most cases, the PhD work will be the background for grant proposal. The student will summarize the state of the art, the major questions of his/her thesis and the cost of his/her experiments. This work should help the trainee for the subsequent writing of the thesis. In the case of PhD students having already chosen the laboratory for the post-doc training, the grant proposal may be done on the post-doc project. The grant proposal will be evaluated by the local management board (Milestone n°4). Bridging clinical and basic researches (one week) A course will be given by a clinician of the INT on clinical research, its legal framework, its constraints, the difficulty of selecting the patients taking into account their diversity... In addition, each student whose secondment is not in clinic will spend 4 days (or 8 half-days when necessary) in a clinical unit of his/her choice among the units that are associated with the INT (see the list above). Students will attend staff meetings, case studies and consultations. A clinician, belonging to both this unit and the INT, most often the physician/mentor, will serve as a tutor and will take care of the students, by giving explanations, answering to questions...


Course on the management of the innovation process: application to the biomedical field (2 days) This course will be provided by Eurobiomed Day 1: Innovation and strategies; technology transfer, protection of innovation Introduction to the management of innovation Technology transfer, a key process of innovation (actors, the different professions) Innovation strategies Technology transfer principles (key concepts, what to value? how to value? Practical exercise) Day 2: Property (intellectual and industrial) and patents Reading the front page of a patent Procedure for obtaining a patent in France and abroad Different contracts to innovate Strategies in industrial property Laboratory notebooks The different jobs of the industrial property field. Course on business creation: SME development and simulation (3 days) This course will be provided by Eurobiomed Day 1: Raising awareness of entrepreneurship, defining a business plan, support for business start, growth and perpetuation. 1/ Business creation: a/ Project definition; b/ steps in setting-up; c/ support 2/ Funding by the venture capital: a/ the stakeholders; b/ the preparation; c/ the mechanics; d/ practical exercise 3/ Case study Day 2: Project management 1/ Introduction to project management according to international standards 2/ Definition of project management: to plan, to achieve and to monitor 3/ The different steps of a project: start (concept), planning, implementation, development, evaluation. 4/ What is a good project manager? Day 3: Management of a “simultrain” project. Simultrain is a project management simulator used in project management training programmes. This computer-based multimedia tool enables to simulate all the phases of a medium-sized project. 1/ Experiencing the different aspects of project management by means of SimulTrain: management of resources, planning, motivation of teams. 2/ Understanding and mastering the basic tools of project management: PERT, Gantt, budget monitoring... 3/ Making decisions in stressful situations taking into account all aspects (time, financial, human...) of the project. Meeting of project completion: return on experience (2 days) At the end of the project, a concluding conference will be organised by the X ESRs including all the members of the project (INT members and associate partners) and selected renowned experts in the field will be invited to give a keynote lecture. All 10 ESRs will be asked to present their work. The meeting will end with a large round-table discussion about the program to outline the success of the program but also to pinpoint potential improvements to be made regarding the relationships between basic research, private sector and clinical research.


Fourth Year: study to work transition in the Private sector According to guidelines from the Ministry of Education, ESRs are supposed to complete their PhD within 3 years. After PhD defense at the end of their 3 rd year, all ESRs will spend a first year in a private company that is a partner of the program. II.1.2. Implementation Organisation and management structure The overall program will be managed by a supervisory board, coordinated by L. Vinay and F. Feron with the help of INT researchers and professors (F. Chavane, P. Belin, A. Montagnini, J. Peyronnet-Roux, F. Cayetanot) and a central office (T. Iherti, INT secretary and I. Pellegrin, INT administrator). The supervisory board will be composed of the above-mentioned key persons and all associated partners. The functions of the supervisory board include: • Write the call for thesis proposals in the field of Integrative and Clinical Neuroscience. Note that this call will be sent through the Aix-Marseille area. Any laboratory will be able to send a thesis subject in this field. • Select the candidates • Design mentors from the private and clinical sectors to all ESRs • Validate the student’s choice regarding the courses abroad and the secondments • Facilitate the technical and managerial operation of the network based on fair principles of partner inclusion and even distribution of workload and responsibilities • Approve Personal Career Development Plans (CDPs) and ensure that fellows’ skills training enhances employability across sectors • Monitor the progress of individual fellows and research tasks via reports from subcommittees and recommend specific actions when required • Approve the finances and agendas for training courses and network workshops • Facilitate communication between partners in skills training, sharing of techniques and expanding projects in new directions based on inputs from committees • Evaluate and provide a final decision on the ICN label to the PhD student. A Central Office consisting of the INT administrative manager (I. Pellegrin, University engineer) and an engineer assistant (T. Iherti, CNRS) will coordinate and facilitate organization, communication and quality control. The Central Office responsibilities are the following: • Check the applications at the time of recruitment, and distribute them to the Supervisory Board. • Help the organization of the different events. • Maintain a central project database. It will contain for each student: the original study plan, mid-thesis progress report, courses taken, and feedback from supervisors and Board. • Keep a track record of outreach activities and joint academia-industry exchange events and make sure that such events are organized regularly. • Update the content of the ICN page on the INT website. II.1.3. Development and monitoring Students will be evaluated 4 times in the course of their PhD. The overall goal of the supervisory board is to provide recommendations/advices to students to correct minor mistakes. There will be two options: “passed” or “failed”. In the latter case, a second session of

Excellence Academy Call for proposals examination will take place 3 months after the initial exam. A label “ICN PhD program” will be given to the PhD students who passed all the exams. 1/ Project on the research of another INT team (poster). Each student will present a poster on a topic of one of the INT teams (different from his/her own team). A key element of the programme will be the development of skills of communication, interaction with scientists and clinicians of the INT. The committee will examine the ability of the student to conceptualize and organize a poster and to collaborate with other team members. 2/ Mid-term thesis progress: see above. 3/ Research project on tutored seminar (poster). Students will present a research project on one tutored seminar of his/her choice. The committee will examine the ability of the student to analyze and integrate the discussions during the seminar. The student should be able to propose new strategies of research based on the seminar discussions. 4/ Grant proposal. Student must present a grant proposal on either the thesis work or the postdoctoral project (in case he/she has already decided where to go after the PhD). The purpose of the exam is to assess the student’s ability to write a grant application. The student should demonstrate that he/she is able: - use all the knowledge he/she has acquired during the 3 years (basic courses, etc…), - review the literature relevant to a research area, - define the questions of the project, - plan the experiments enabling to tackle these questions, - estimate the equipment/consumables necessary to run the experiment - evaluate the costs of these experiments. II.1.4. Schedule overview Then follows the overview of each PhD thesis within the ICN program Semester 1

Semester 2

- CNRS internal training - AMU internal training - Basic courses - Meeting other INT groups (milestone n°1)

Semester 3 Mid-term thesis progress (milestone n°2)

Semester 4 - Advanced courses - Summer school

Semester 5 - Course “building a grant proposal” (milestone n°4) - Bridging clinical and fundamental researches - Course “Management of the innovation process”, “business creation” - Course on business creation

Semester 6 - thesis defense - Debriefing on experience

Tutored Seminars (milestone n°3)

II.2 Budget forecast The ICN project aims at recruiting 10 PhD students and 3 postdocs per year. Because the program is open to all PhD students in Marseille in the whole Marseille area the number of thesis fellowships should be sufficiently attractive. The one year grants for study to work transition will be dedicated to PhD students having defended their thesis work in the last few

Excellence Academy Call for proposals months and willing to perform a one year post doc in one of the associated private companies. These grants will be attributed as early as the first year of the program. The educational costs include travels for external speakers (tutored seminars, summer schools, …). Estimated budget per year: 10 grants for PhD students (30 k€ each): 3 grants for study-to-work transition in private companies (40 k€ each): Educational costs : Total: The estimated budget for the next three years is therefore:

300 k€ 120 k€ 50 k€ 470 k€ 1410 k€

III. Expected outcomes of the project and impact of the finalized education program Describe the tangible results expected from the implementation of the project.

III1. Goals, delivery process and expected results Describe the anticipated results following the 7 criteria of the EA’s Charter on the short, medium and long terms. Exemple : « pedagogical innovation » section : Goal: set up e-learning courses for continuing education. Priority actions: select the courses’ format/credits/teachers/operations. Expected result: Opening of e-learning classes for university year 2013/2014 with X number of students.

Education project supporting the application for the EA label

Relevance

Goals (defined in II.1)

Priority actions to implement (according to the timeline)

- set up a PhD program in Marseille in the field of integrative and clinical neuroscience

- open the program to medical residents in Neurology, Psychiatry, Ophtalmology and Rehabilitative Medicine

Expected results

- a fairly large proportion of ICN students after their PhD are willing to be involved in translational research. - A significant percentage of MDs are interested in performing basic research and start a PhD

Competitiveness

- increase the visibility of Neurosciences in the AixMarseille area

- set up an attractive training program at the interface between basic, clinical and private research

- About 50% of the students get their Masters degree outside Marseille - private partners consider the ICN as a high quality program for the training of their future employees. As a result the number of potential partners increases


Selectivity

Pedagogical innovation

- set-up a selective and transparent recruitment process

- large web-based advertisement - follow the rules of the Code of Conduct for Recruitment in the European Charter for Researchers.

- application and selection of most promising and motivated students from many different countries - start of a virtuous cycle, the success of the selected students attracting more and more good students - seminars are planned every month with high ranked scientists

- set up tutored seminars

- invite prominent neuroscientists

- co-organise training with international collaborators

- enlarge the current network of international collaborations

the number of active collaborators is tripled by the end of the current program

- use e-learning tools in French and English

- enroll students at Coursera lectures

- all students follow Coursera lectures and ICN lecturers set up Coursera courses in French

- train students in the fields of law, business and management

- work closely with Eurobiomed and all partners involved in neurosciences

- a fairly large proportion of ICN students find a job in a biotech industry

- promote the dissemination of science

- select two top priorities for the students

- ICN gets credit for its Neuroscience blog on AMU website and participation to “Brain Awareness Week”

- teach the main rules of Ethics in science and medicine

- include this overlooked topic in the lectures

- clinicians and scientists work closely and faithfully on clinical trials

- train students for attending Summer schools

- provide information and training on Summer schools

- a fairly large proportion of ICN students attend Summer schools

- Internationalize the PhD training in Neurosciences

-Provide a positive environment for foreign and French students (including broadening the teaching in English)

- Yearly enrolment of foreign students up to 50% of the whole class

Internationalization

- Student will follow high-level international classes given by our foreign partners (Edhimburg and trieste) but also through elearning - Promote the internalization of the Master in Neurosciences

- Encourage the current direction of the Master in Neurosciences to move in the same direction

- Application lodged by the Master of Neurosciences to the next call of A*MIDEX.

- increase the knowledge of PhD students

- visit of the different INT teams

- job opportunities of ICN students are better

Interdisciplinary

- training courses on a wide range of techniques/approaches from computational neuroscience to molecular/cellular biology - tutored seminars

Study to work transition

- Improve career development

- tutored training in a clinical unit - Course on the different career options across sectors in and outside Europe

- improved career-decision process of the students

- provide several transferable skills (techniques of communication, design of grant proposal,…) - Improve employability of PhD students in the private sector

- courses on the management of the innovation process and business creation - Financial support for a study-to-work transition to be performed in a private company

- a fairly large proportion of ICN students find a job in a biotech industry.


Final summary: Sum up the 5 key points that define your education program the best. 1/ First PhD program in Neuroscience in the Aix-Marseille area 2/ Interface between basic and clinical researches 3/ Promoting all career opportunities not only in academics but also private and clinical sectors 4/ Innovative and dynamical pedagogy 5/ Hosted primarily by a new Institute offering a large span of research interests with brand new facilities and state-of-the-art methodologies