CALL FOR APPLICATIONS Junior Professor Chair: Strategies of influence and counter-influence in digital context: concepts, tools, methods

The Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales invites applications for a Junior Professorship on the theme: "Strategies of influence and counter-influence in a digital context: concepts, tools, methods". This is a fixed-term contract (5 years) with a reduced teaching load, leading eventually, and after evaluation, to tenure as a civil servant university professor.

The position is scheduled to take up on December 1, 2025.

The scheme takes place in two stages:
1. A call for applications for a research and teaching project will lead to the signing of a fixed-term contract as a civil servant, for a period of 5 years;
2. At the end of the contract period, a tenure commission will meet to assess the candidate's scientific merit and professional suitability for tenure in the corps of university professors. At the time of tenure, an HDR will be required. At least 4 articles published or in the process of being published (with proof of acceptance) in peer-reviewed journals are expected at the end of the 5-year pre-tenure period. It is also expected, during the pre-tenure period, that the Chairholder will align the Chair's scientific programming with collective projects initiated within Inalco, invest in the valorization of his/her research program (conferences, seminars, research dissemination activities...), and contribute to the supervision of young researchers, in line with the establishment's scientific policy.

Junior professorship contract: 5-year fixed-term public law contract
CNU sections: 71, 04
Key words: Disinformation and international relations; strategic intelligence; anticipation and influence; digital fields, data and methods in multilingual contexts; ob-servatory and areal expertise.

Salary: Indice 735 of the French civil service (approximately €3,680 gross per month)
Amount of associated funding: The Junior Professorship will benefit from a €200,000 research expense package allocated by the French National Research Agency (ANR) for the 5-year period. The Chair program may also benefit from additional funding from other national and international partners. This could include funding for project managers, contract PhD students, post-docs, conference participation, access to databases, equipment, funding for subscriptions to services (algorithms or data), etc.

Candidate requirements: Candidates must hold a PhD, and have a well-established research record showing research activity in areas relevant to the job profile (see below), such as publications in top international journals, scientific involvement in research projects, etc.
The person recruited will need to demonstrate proficiency in one of the languages in his/her area of specialization, as well as the ability to teach in English.

Context

Inalco offers a unique training model based around more than 100 languages and civilizations, combined with professionalizing teaching on the political, social and strategic issues traversing extra-Western spaces.

This CPJ will enable Inalco to consolidate its research and training programs on disinformation and counter-disinformation strategies, information intelligence, and the analysis of influence struggles in physical, cognitive and digital spaces, which are intrinsically multilingual, multicultural and constantly evolving in a context of dilution of centers of power and legitimacy on a global scale. Favoring an approach based on strategic intelligence and the analysis of informational strategies, the incumbent will conduct teaching and research in political science, information and communication science and/or data analysis in one of the establishment's languages of specialization.

The person recruited will work to consolidate Inalco's strategic positioning, on a French and European scale, on these issues of informational struggles and influence, embodied in particular in the steering of the DECRIPT program (AAP France 2030 AMI SHS) on "civilizational narratives", in which she/he will also include her/his research. For several years now, this strategy has also materialized in the consolidation of the establishment's partnerships with the Ministries of Europe and Foreign Affairs and of the Armed Forces, in the funding under the COMP of a "living lab" aimed at developing digital humanities analysis capacity in sensitive areas (ongoing project, funded since 2024), and in the opening in 2024 of a first CPJ in artificial intelligence and automatic language processing. This crossover between technical, linguistic, areal and disciplinary expertise aims to position the establishment among the leaders, both French and European, in research and teaching on informational struggles and influence.

Inalco has put in place an ambitious and dynamic international strategy. In addition to having established numerous academic partnerships in the field of student mobility with higher education establishments in the countries and geographical areas whose languages and civilizations it teaches, Inalco has strengthened its strategy on a European scale by joining the EUniWell European university alliance in 2023. Over the past three years, Inalco has joined a number of European consortia in response to calls for Horizon Europe projects. These include the EUFO (EUropean inFormation manipulation Observatory) consortium, which responded to the call for projects "Detecting, analysing and countering foreign information manipulation and interference" in 2023. Although not selected, the response to this call for projects opened up prospects for collaboration, in particular with Aarhus University and the University of Trier, in the analysis of hybrid threats, information manipulation and counter-interference by illiberal regimes such as China. As part of the ANR Gecko project, Inalco also welcomed Anne-Marie Brady, a New Zealand researcher internationally recognized for her work on Chinese influence strategies. This recruitment will enable Inalco to reinforce its international recognition as a pioneering research institute in a rapidly developing field of strategic importance to French political authorities and those of its European and Western partners. The scientific knowledge of the person recruited will also make it easier to respond to this type of call for projects and to federate Inalco's aeral expertise around a multi-disciplinary and multi-area project.

Research project

The research project, which will be specified in collaboration with the person recruited and according to his or her preferred objects and areas of research, must nevertheless meet the following criteria. It will integrate mastery of at least one of the languages taught at Inalco, areal studies, international relations and information and communication sciences (strategic communication, digital influence, disinformation, massive data and AI). Research will focus on strategies of informational influence in digital spaces, linked to the elaboration of extra-Western diplomatic and strategic narratives, in a comparative and historical dimension, with possible expertise on French and European counter-influence. The candidate will contextualize these data with regard to his/her area of study, and master the tools and methods for collecting, archiving, analyzing and valorizing digital data, including OSINT (Open Source Intelligence), massive data analysis, AI and open science. As these fields are constantly evolving, and the person recruited is expected to teach, in addition to qualitative approaches, the basics of quantitative methods for collecting, analyzing and visualizing data, he or she will need to demonstrate an appetite for updating technical skills and/or the ability to work with experts possessing these skills and capable of bringing them to students and researchers at the establishment.

The person recruited could, for example, register his or her research in EA 4514 PLIDAM, which brings together expert teacher-researchers from various cultural areas and disciplines. Axis 6 focuses on data processing and discourse analysis (semiotics, information mapping, use of open data, influence strategies), linking them to in-depth knowledge of languages and civilizations. PLIDAM has initiated a reflection on how struggles for influence in an aerialized context can be the subject not only of analysis, but also of pedagogical experimentation (OSINT, production of arealized narratives in a digital context on social networks, the use of serious games, AI, etc.) and as such is conducting research with the ERTIM team as part of the GECKO project on cognitive struggles (ANR-AID funding 2023-2025). The person recruited may, if he/she so wishes and depending on his/her geographical area of specialization, request to be attached to one of Inalco's aerialized research teams.
The candidate will consider the convergence between his/her work and Inalco's intellectual and scientific identity, as embodied in the collective projects carried out by the establishment and its research units. Depending on his or her specialties, the recruited teacher-researcher will be able to join the research unit of his or her choice from among Inalco's own teams and UMRs under the (co)supervision of Inalco, notably:

Unités de rattachement : PLIDAM
Location: Inalco, 2 rue de Lille, 75007 Paris
Laboratory director: Thomas SZENDE
Laboratory director's e-mail: View e-mail 
Laboratory URL: https://www.inalco.fr/plidam

Teaching project

The candidate will teach primarily in the Intercultural and International Communication (Com2i) and International Relations (RI) streams. He/she will contribute to training in digital influence policies and the positioning of France and the EU in relation to this issue. He/she will teach strategic intelligence and geostrategy of information and communication, regulation of international norms in cyberspace, anticipation, information warfare, as well as public diplomacy and communication of influence, in a multilingual and digital context (massive data, AI, humans augmented by digital technologies). He/she will use teaching methods designed to professionalize students: case studies, simulations, student projects, digital techniques and tools, particularly OSINT (Open Source Intelligence). He/she may also be called upon in both fields for assignments in line with his/her expertise: cross-disciplinary research seminars or workshops in research methods or specialized on these themes, development of links between Inalco and its public (MEAE, Minarm, AFD...) or private partners, etc.

Within the framework of the models currently being rolled out (accreditation 2025-2030), the CPJ incumbent will be required to teach the following courses in particular: 
- Introduction to strategic intelligence and geopolitics of information - 3rd year Bachelor's course, common to the International Relations (IR) and Intercultural and International Communication (Com2i) streams (18h CM)
- Introduction to open source information gathering (OSINT) - 3rd year Bachelor's course, common to RI and Com2i streams (18h CM)
- Data, visualization and digital applications - Licence 3e année course, Com2i stream (12h TD)
- Methods of data collection and analysis - Master 1 course, Com2i stream (12h TD)

Related departments: 
Intercultural and International Communication department
Practice location: 65 rue des Grands Moulins (Paris)
Department director: Mylène Hardy
Department director's e-mail: View e-mail 
Department URL: https://www.inalco.fr/communication-interculturelle-et-internationale

Filière Relations Internationales
Practice location: 65 rue des Grands Moulins (Paris)
Department director: Sébastien Colin
Department director's e-mail: View e-mail 
Department URL: https://www.inalco.fr/relations-internationales

Conditions for recruitment

At the end of the 5-year pre-tenure period, the person recruited must have demonstrated that he/she is eligible for the title of university professor in terms of taking on collective responsibilities, initiating and/or participating in collective research projects, supervising students, trainees, supervising or co-supervising PhD students and, finally, participating in the academic life of the team and the institution. 
Fluency in French is not required at the time of recruitment, but it is expected that the candidate will have acquired a sufficient level by the end of the contract, i.e. by the time of tenure.

Application procedures: Registration of applications and submission of the application file in PDF format on the dedicated ministerial application: https://odyssee.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/accueil  
From 30/06/2025 at 10am until 25/08/2025 at 4pm, Paris time
The file will consist of: 
- Application form to be uploaded to your Odyssée application file (Form available at the bottom of the page) 
- ID with photograph,
- Copy of PhD degree, or equivalent,
- Analytical CV with full list of publications
- 3 outstanding publications
- Presentation of research projects, teaching and integration projects within the institution and in the environment of the Chair (10 pages maximum) 
- Doctoral thesis (and defense report if applicable) and summary of thesis in English 
- Dissertation and habilitation to direct research file if applicable or any other document justifying aptitude for doctoral supervision.

Selection procedures and hearings :

The evaluation will be carried out by a recruitment committee made up of internal and external experts. Only candidates shortlisted by the commission, based on a review of applications, will be invited to an audition. 
The evaluation criteria will focus on the candidate's excellence, motivation, capacity for initiative and leadership; the quality and originality of the research and teaching projects; his/her ability to integrate his/her project within the laboratory, and to coordinate the activities of the Chair program, as well as his/her ability to establish collaborative networks on an international scale.
The audition may be held in French or English.