LIVE: Life trajectories and health Vulnerability

LIVE aims to combine the know-how and research inputs of multiple disciplines in order to address vulnerability in all its facets, by creating a new Graduate School, situated at the heart of one of the most vulnerable areas of south-east of Paris.

LIVE Graduate School will address three crucial needs:

• a permanent structure to carry out multi-scale, multidisciplinary research and teaching on vulnerability
• a clear and solid integration in the health sector
• a continuum between academic research and “real life” to enable innovation and tackle vulnerability.

At the cross-roads of health/biology, social and environmental sciences, LIVE will offer advanced research programmes with a strong transdisciplinary, transcultural and international focus. LIVE will benefit from the complementary expertise of specialists of health economics, public health and ageing, and a unique multidisciplinary consortium studying the impact of environmental pollution on health (physics, chemistry, engineering, environmental & biological science, developmental biology, psychiatric disorders, cardiovascular & respiratory pathophysiology and bioinformatics).

LIVE will overcome the fragmented approach to vulnerability in the setting of health care, socio-economic environment and environmental exposure and provide a transdisciplinary and multiscale training to selected students, by creating:

• a two-year master’s programme combining teaching & research will prepare a new generation of students to face the current unaddressed challenge of vulnerability and to pursue a career in national and international health and public health agencies as well as in private companies
• a PhD programme developing cutting-edge research in the field of vulnerability, in one of 5 relevant doctoral schools

LIVE is built around 3 pillars, each of which has a longstanding reputation for excellence, but which require further integration in order to address the issue of vulnerability:

• One field is the broad umbrella of health and biology research, which relies on recognized expertise in the field of age-related cardiac and lung diseases, infectious diseases, psychiatric disorders and rare diseases
• The second is the expanding field of research on vulnerability with economics and public health
• The third provides insights on environmental determinants (air, water and soil quality, environmental hazards, pollution, contaminants and toxins) and their impact on health

In addition to this innovative, interdisciplinary approach to vulnerability, LIVE will also develop a strong transversal unit that will complement the three pillars in two key areas: the social dimension of vulnerability (with training in law, geography and social sciences) and new methods to explore vulnerability in the coming years (big data, artificial intelligence, modelling and bioinformatics).

We rely on strong international networks to ensure worldwide recruitment of selected students, and opportunities for our students and doctoral candidates to undertake internships and research abroad as part of their training. Along with international partnerships with other research institutions, we have strong collaborations with French ones, such as the university of Grenoble Alpes, several universities in Paris, national health agencies such as ANSES, Santé Publique France, CNAM, or French Blood Agency, and private companies with a strong interest in vulnerability.

LIVE will thus both contribute to improve our understanding of and response to vulnerability from a social, economic, cultural and medical perspective and train specialists in vulnerability, able to work in a wide range of sectors.