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The Montpellier Institute for Water and Environment (IM2E), a member of the French Water Partnership, becomes an international water-related Centre under the auspices of UNESCO

Update 2020-10-27

The creation of the ‘International Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Water Systems Dynamics under the auspices of UNESCO’, hosted by the University of Montpellier, marks a major milestone for the international projection and recognition of the French water community. 

The French Water Partnership is pleased to announce the signature on October 21, 2020, of the tripartite agreement between UNESCO, the French Ministry of Research and Innovation, and the University of Montpellier formalizing the creation in Montpellier of the International Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Water Systems Dynamics (ICIReWaRD-Montpellier).

 

 

This international recognition sees the Montpellier Institute for Water and Environment (IM2E), a member of the French Water Partnership, become a ‘category 2’ water-related Centre under the auspices of UNESCO, making it the only UNESCO water-related Centre in France, and only the second UNESCO ‘Category 2’ Centre to be located in the South of Europe (together with Nice’s International Centre for Pure and Applied Mathematics).

The international research center will provide expertise, carry out research, and train future water professionals in the areas of water resources management and governance, and water sciences and technology applied to vulnerable regions with a particular focus on addressing global challenges linked to rapid urbanization, demographic pressure, and the foreseeable impacts of climate change.

Since 2015, IM2E has coordinated and facilitated the most important water sciences hub in France and has been awarded the MUSE I-Site label of excellence. Thanks to the diversity of its research output and training programmes and to the influence of its teams, today ICIReWaRD brings together over 400 researchers and 150 doctoral students across 16 research units and aims to establish itself as one of the most important scientific centres in its field at the international level.

Mr Jean Launay, President of the French Water Partnership, welcomed the news of the creation of the Centre: “This is excellent news for the French and international water communities. We look forward to the Centre’s contributions to advancing research and knowledge in the water sciences, to the training of future water professionals – especially by leveraging South-South and North-South partnerships – and to its contributions to the achievement of the SDG water-related targets and to addressing current and emerging water-related climate change challenges”.

 
Read the joint press release by the French Ministry of Research and Innovation, UNESCO and the University of Montpellier here.