Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires (CRI)

Universidad alternativa

CRI contributes to the development of a learning society, where everyone should be invited to develop sustainable solutions, by:

• Creating pedagogical methods and digital tools to catalyze the questioning and the engagement of learners, the co-creation and sharing of open solutions;
• Exploring open questions at the interfaces of life sciences, learning sciences and digital technology;
• Participating in the transformation of education and research systems towards empowerment and collective intelligence for sustainability at the national and international levels.

Paris, France

CRI is a unique and internationally recognized space of freedom and creativity based on:

Empowerment and engagement;
Collective intelligence;
Interdisciplinarity;
Open science;
Learning through research, play and practice.

Building together a learning society where everyone is invited to take care of oneself, the others and the planet

CRI is a physical and intellectual space dedicated to new ways of learning, teaching, carrying out research and stimulating collective intelligence. CRI encourages the culture of openness and broad personal involvement on all levels and in all contexts.
All of CRI’s programs put the students (even the youngest) in the driver’s seat, developing original approaches that break down barriers between disciplines, redefining problems and finding original solutions.
Thanks to the major support of the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation and other partners, CRI’s activities have grown exponentially, and diversified greatly in the last decade. Today, they range from primary school to doctorate to research. This growth has gone hand in hand with institutional and international recognition, media attention, and an increase in the number of students, researchers and a wide range of partners from private sector, academia and civil society.

In particular, CRI has created leading courses that target a broad range of learners:

University students: CRI offers innovative and interdisciplinary research diplomas in the fields of life sciences, digital sciences and pedagogy, at the level of Bachelor, Masters and Doctorate. These diplomas train students through research to be creative and become architects of change.
Education professionals: Courses for those who wish to break new ground, whether at university, at school or lifelong learning. These courses are aimed at school teachers, but also doctors, researchers and entrepreneurs who wish to revisit their methods of communicating, acquiring or developing knowledge in the digital age.
Children and high school students: the “Savanturiers” (“knowledge-adventurers”), is a program of learning through research for kids, where classes work with researchers. The Savanturiers program has trained more than 30k teachers.

Current CRI’s premises (opened in 2018) are designed to facilitate collaboration and creativity. They include residences for young researchers, research laboratories, technical platforms, teaching areas, and leisure spaces making CRI a unique space of freedom for fruitful collective intelligence.

CRI is now actively involved in the development of the Learning Planet initiative to:

Facilitate the creation, evolution and networking of learning, innovation and research centres that share CRI’s values, vision and mission;
Identify, share and scale the best educational and research programs for SDGs;
Contribute to the creation of events and recognition mechanisms to mobilize collective intelligence and action for SDGs.