CERI 2025 Inaugural Ceremony
For its 73rd anniversary, CERI celebrated the opening of the 2025–2026 academic year with its researchers, friends, and partners. Festive and unifying, the occasion heralded a productive year and provided the momentum to confront a formidable task: understanding, with humility, creativity, and rigour, the fractures of the contemporary world.
As tradition dictates, the ceremony began with the welcome of 13 new doctoral students, whose work will shape the laboratory’s future. The arrival of 5 new faculty members, more than 20 visiting scholars from across the globe, and the transition of a colleague to emeritus status reminded us that science is built through human connections across generations. Progress is always achieved by standing on the shoulders of those who preceded us.
We traditionally hold our opening ceremonies off-site, preferably in museums that highlight non-European histories. This year, the Institut du monde arabe hosted the event, in conjunction with the “Cleopatra” exhibition, with the friendly complicity of its chairman, Jack Lang, a former Minister of Culture and the inventor of the famous “Fête de la Musique”. We heard a masterful lecture by Professor Lorraine Daston, which showed how the concept of diversity is a relatively recent phenomenon, often instrumentalized, and only recently valued positively. Treating diversity as a common goal truly worthy of our time would be a vibrant objective for all of us.
Our photo contest celebrated research conducted at the heart of the field, highlighting our identity: climate negotiations where the absence of the U.S. delegation was both deafening and revealing, and fieldwork in Mauritania, Chad, and Ghana, where the realities of war, fragile public services, and the vibrant energy of social mobilizations intersect.
This opening embodies the ambition that distinguishes CERI: exploring international relations and comparative politics while embracing their dialogue, mastering comparison and decentering, and re-examining disciplines through critical perspectives to illuminate contemporary crises. Is this ambition too great? In physics, one pushes theoretical boundaries; in medicine, one invents new vaccines. In our field, we strive to produce rigorous, historicized analyses that capture the full complexity of reality.
Last year, CERI organized over 350 public scientific events and published an equal number of works, a testament to its vitality and quality. This year, our horizon will be defined by the first CERI Biennale, to be held on June 2–3. We look forward to welcoming you there!
Stéphanie Balme
