Presentation

The Institut Jean Nicod is a multidisciplinary CNRS research unit created in 2002, with two university-level affiliations : the Ecole normale supérieure (ENS) and the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS). It is an interdisciplinary research centre at the interface of philosophy, social sciences and cognitive sciences. It has about one hundred members, of whom half are doctoral students, the other half including about twenty researchers affiliated with the CNRS, along with university faculty, post-doctoral associates, and support staff.

While its core discipline is analytical philosophy, the Institute also hosts state-of-the-art research in linguistics and the social sciences, with, as unifying theme, the human mind and the nature of its representations (linguistic, mental, and social). At the ENS, the Institut Jean Nicod is attached to both the Department of Philosophy and the Department of cognitive studies (DEC).

The IJN, whose director is Roberto Casati, is located at 29 rue d’Ulm, in the Department of Cognitive Studies of the Ecole normale supérieure.

[November 2017]

Report by the High Council for Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (HCERES) for the unit :

"Specialized in the study of the human mind, considered both conceptually and empirically in its relationship with the world, the IJN is a very active laboratory. The unit includes many researchers who are both prolific and innovative, who participate in societies and journals, have received prestigious awards and many significant funding. They make of their unit a very important place for international analytical philosophy and a research centre of excellence for linguistics.

The unit specializes in closely associating philosophical and scientific research. The ambitious research project follows on from the previous one, while proposing innovative models ; it is entirely reasonable in view of the quality of the work carried out in the unit.

The researchers are involved in the unit, which is a true working space in common : many of them belong to several subjects, a sign that their research has many points of intersection. The researchers are also involved in the socio-economic world and in training through research, from Master to post-doctorate, in various forms."

Evaluation report by the HCERES (PDF)

Report for the HCERES (PDF) 

[Mai 2013]

The Institut Jean Nicod has been awarded the grade A+, for each of its six categories, by the French Agency for the evaluation of research and teaching in higher education :

- Scientific quality and output

 Academic influence

 Relation to the social, economic, and cultural environment

 Unit’s Internal organization and life

 Involvement in research training

 Five year strategy and projects

[November 2012] Report by the French Agency for the evaluation of research and teaching in higher education (french version) :

"L’Institut Jean Nicod (IJN) est certainement un des fleurons de la recherche française et internationale en linguistique, en philosophie du langage, en philosophie de l’esprit et de la cognition - cognition sociale comprise - ou encore en ce qui concerne les aspects logiques et ontologiques liés à la cognition …"Rapport de l’AERES (PDF)