The continuous arrival of asylum seekers at the gates of Europe, Brexit, the countries dragged along in its wake and the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States make you doubt the existence of knowledge and research without borders. The crisis of confidence affecting the old continent calls into question the very principles of migration management. It represents an unprecedented challenge for our administrations, our governments or for a common approach of the European Union.
We are therefore still a long way from being done with the incessant revision of regulations relating to mobility – whether or not it is professional – or with the accumulation of related European and national legal texts. Thus the expertise of FnAK and the Euraxess network, relating to academic mobility, will still be in demand, as was the case in 2017 with the reception of Syrian, Turkish or Afghan refugees with the PAUSE programme.
Faced with these new challenges, which are being declined for FnAK at regional and national levels (Far East and metropolitan France), the development of the ALFRED^®[1] system is a real encouragement. First because the increase in listings in our directory remains significant (+18.7% in 2017), then because of the projected development of the following platforms :

• Host convention, with the integration into the software of the regulatory process that allows institutions to invite and then host researchers from third countries. All those involved in the process of welcoming these researchers will benefit from this new process, from the research teams to the Prefectures, via the Euraxess Centres, university services and organisations;
• One-stop shop, on which universities will be able to support their own reception platforms at the start of the academic year, during which they welcome more than half of their public in international mobility. This is an exclusive development for the Grand-Est region, which FnAK will adapt to the constraints of each university;
• Scientific career, in cooperation with the Bernard Gregory Association, whose field of expertise is this, as well as with the most advanced research organizations in this field. The development of this platform will aim to put the latter in touch with researchers in mobility to recruit the best talent.

In the long term, the national deployment of these new platforms integrated into ALFRED^®, complementary to the housing platform on which several Euraxess Centres already rely, should guarantee a complete range of services to support researchers on their way to France.
For these various developments, FnAK will first have to take up the challenge of adapting ALFRED^® to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDR), wanted by the European Union to increase the protection of persons concerned by the processing of their personal data. We really see this regulatory obligation as an opportunity, since it will enable us to match our working tools to our professional ethics, in accordance with the defence of the human person so dear to Alfred Kastler.

Our 2017 Annual Report can be downloaded here. Find there the mobility observatory, with the figures of the European Union, those of the Ministry of the Interior, those of Euraxess and access&ss FnAK, and the usual headings.

[1] ALumni and Foreign REsearchers Directory