The Centre interdisciplinaire d’études sur les enjeux stratégiques (CIENS) is a public academic research and teaching center dedicated to nuclear defense and strategic issues in the broadest sense, with an interdisciplinary approach and as part of a partnership between ENS, the French Ministry of Defense, the National Agency for Information Systems Security (ANSSI) and the Commissariat à l’énergie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives (CEA) which fund two postdoctoral fellowships hosted by the Center.
Belonging to the vibrant Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris Ulm (ENS-Ulm), a public “grande école” integrated in the Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL) Consortium, the CIENS is hosted by the Department of Geography and Territories (itself an interdisciplinary teaching and research unit, including geopolitics, IR and Peace studies, with Master’s specialisations on the contemporary Middle East and Europe (the CIENS being mainly involved in the last one). Its seminars are open to partners of the PSL consortium, including the Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas and the INALCO Institute (National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations).
The CIENS emanates from the common will of academics and practitioners to fill in the gap on nuclear deterrence, arms control and proliferation in the French academic landscape, in a time when these issues are confirmed as central in contemporary IR, and utterly need an interdisciplinary approach of human and social sciences, combining History, Geography, Pol Sci, Economy, Philosophy, Law, but also less visible fields like linguistic and aesthetic studies.
Besides regular publications on strategic issues, especially on nuclear deterrence, proliferation and disarmament, two international conferences, have already been set up, whose topics are tightly linked to the EU Consortium’s mandate:
- “From West Berlin to North Korea : challenge to extended deterrence” in June 2018;
- “Getting rid of Nuclear Weapons: Philosophical Foundation and Historical Circulation of Ideas in Nuclear Disarmament” (forthcoming, May 2019).
- “Nuclear deterrence in Europe. Visions, debates, opportunities, and challenges from 1945 to present” (June 2021)
- See Nicolas Roche Interview : https://eunpdc.test-preprod.com/app/uploads/2021/03/eunpd_e-newsletter_30.pdf