Information on the 2026 Competition for Researcher Positions

IMPORTANT All information listed here should be regarded as unofficial. Only the official CNRS website should be considered officially valid.

There will be four CRCN positions and five DR2 positions available this year in section 5, as confirmed in the Journal officiel and on the CNRS offers page

Instructions about uploading letters of reference are provided to the candidates during the application. In case of queries we can provide the information.

Key dates

• 12 December 2025, 13:00 Paris time: opening of the competition, see the CNRS website
• 12 January 2026, 13:00 Paris time: closing of the competition
• 29 January 2026: Meeting of the bureau
• 12 – 13 February 2026: Decisions on interviews
• 20 – 24 April 2026: Interviews
• 27 – 29 April 2026: Jury of admissibility

Advice for your application

Official instructions are published in the candidate’s guide

Advice for junior resercher positions (CRCN)

Your application should include the following elements, with the advice of the section 05 committee visible when you click on the different:

A curriculum vitae

Free format.

A copy of the diploma you require to apply, or an attestation.

This is expected to be a copy of your PhD certificate. See the official site for instructions.

A report on your research activities up to now.

Make sure to describe your contribution to the advance of the state of the art, the impact of your work, and the creation of new tools or methods.

A list of your most significant publications.

The official requirement is a list of up to 7 of your most significant publications, put in relation with your reports on prior or future research activities. Therefore we recommend that either in your report, or in the list of publications, you describe your contribution and the impact of your work.

We also advise to add a complete list of publications. This can either be in the form of a list in your report of research activities, or link to Google Scholar, INSPIRE, arXiv, ORCID, …

A research proposal

Explain the current challenges you aim to address in the short and long term. What are your career ambitions? Contextualise your project with respect to the global state of the art and its relationship to research in France. What do you seek to contribute? A list of upcoming papers is of less interest than your overall vision. Please also keep in mind that the committee members come from many different fields of theoretical physics, and your project should ideally be understandable to the widest possible audience.

Optional: a copy of your thesis and, if they exist and can be shared, the examination report of your doctorate.

We suggest to avoid uploading large files: you can put a hypertext link to a public pdf rather than submitting the entire thesis.

Candidates recruited by the CNRS will be assigned to a laboratory by CNRS management. When applying, you must have a clear idea of the laboratories you wish to join and how your research aligns with your choice of laboratories – this must be stated in your research proposal. You are strongly advised to contact individuals at the laboratories that could host your work, particularly the laboratory directors and the heads of the relevant research groups. The laboratories you are considering applying to can assist you in preparing your application file and provide advice.

The members of the section 05 committee cannot advise you on your application beyond the information given here and must not be contacted for such purposes.

Advice for senior researcher positions (DR)

Your application should include the same obligatory documents as for the CR applications, except:

The list of significant publications may include up to 10 articles.

A "work experience" form

describing the evolution of your career.

In addition, the section 05 committee recommends to include and detail the following points:

• Administrative responsibilities
• Supervision of theses, internships, postdocs
• Coordination of research grants