The CNRS recruitment process of permanent research scientist (chargé/chargée de recherche de classe normale) occurs through an open competition in two main stages. On the first stage, an eligibility board (jury d’admissibilité) selects candidates for interview, conducts the interview and provides the list of eligible candidates (liste d’admissibilté) with a ranking based on the scientific merit of the candidate profile as well as proposed research program. During the second stage of the process, the final decision is made by the selection board (jury d’admission) based on the lists and ranking provided by the eligibility board. The selection board is independent from the eligibility board and thus the final selection can be different from the one proposed by the eligibility board. More details can be found in the official guides for applicants in French and English.

This year I took part in the competition with a project titled “Understanding hydrogen embrittlement across scales with hybrid ab initio-machine learning methods” and LaSIE (La Rochelle) laboratory as a primary laboratory of choice. I competed in section 09 and was selected by the corresponding eligibility board for the interview which took place place 27th of February at 11:40. Shortly after that, the results we published on unofficial website (since 2021 CNRS does not publish rankings provided by eligibility boards). I was ranked third in a draw with two other candidates in a list for five open positions in section 09.

On Monday 26th of June the selection board held a meeting and the results were published on the official website of CNRS in the late afternoon. In the final list for section 09 on page 13 my name does not appear neither in the primary, nor in complementary list. Together with the fact that there is only one person in the complementary list, this means that in case two candidates from primary list decline the offer (this happened last year in section 09), CNRS would prefer to loose a position rather than accept my application. For the time of publication of this update on 30th of June, I did not receive any communication from CNRS and thus has no information regarding the reasons and motivation for such decision.