Our research policy

Research at the Université Lumière Lyon 2 consists of 33 research laboratories, 1 centre for humanities (Maison des sciences de l'homme or MSH-LSE), 8 research federations (MOM, ISERL, MAELYSE, RELYS, AGORANTIC, FIL, FLMSN, OTHU), more than 600 teacher-researchers, 980 doctoral students from 7 doctoral schools (for the year 2021-2022), a varied range of themes from approximately 20 disciplines covering the fields of literature, languages and human and social sciences*, diversified resources (documentation, digitisation, audiovisual, information systems, experimental platforms, etc.) and 1 publishing house (Presses universitaires de Lyon or PUL), specialising in literature and in human and social sciences.

*Literature, Languages, History, Art History, Archaeology, Economic Science, Political Science, Anthropology, Sociology, Data and Computer Science, Clinical, Social and Cognitive Psychology, Geography and Urban Planning, Religious and Secular Sciences, Information and Communication Sciences, Linguistics, Law, Educational Sciences, Performing Arts & Media, Musicology, Gender Studies, etc.

Presentation by Isabelle von BUELTZINGSLOEWEN, Vice-President in charge of Research

Our laboratories

The university’s 33 research laboratories, also known as research units, are organised around one or more disciplines, objects, themes or cultural areas.

• 17 of which are Joint Research Units (fr. Unités mixtes de recherche or UMR) collaboratively run by university institutions and the national centre for scientific research CNRS (fr. Centre national de la recherche scientifique).
• 16 of which are Host Teams (fr. Equipes d’accueil or EA) supported by one or more universities.

These research units vary in size, ranging from just 20 to over 300 researchers, teacher-researchers, doctoral students, post-doctoral students and research support staff.

They support both individual and collective, and fundamental as well as applied research.

They are places of academic training for Master's and doctoral students.

Collaborative research

Research laboratories are, for the most part, multi-institutional.

In addition to three branches of the CNRS (specifically the INSHS, INEE, and INS2I), the other implicated organisations are either universities (Lyon 1, Lyon 3, Saint-Etienne) or institutions (IEP de Lyon, ENS Lyon, ENTPE, INSERM, Centrale Lyon, INSA de Lyon, ENSA de Lyon, ENSSIB, Ecole des Mines de Saint-Etienne) from the Lyon-Saint Etienne aggregation of universities and higher education institutions known as the COMUE, or establishments from outside the Lyon-Saint Etienne COMUE (Université d’Aix-Marseille, Université Grenoble Alpes, Université d’Avignon, Université Clermont-Auvergne, EHESS).

In addition to their research within the laboratories, the teacher-researchers of Lyon 2 are also involved in different projects created as part of the Investments for the Future Program (LabEX, EquipEX, Convergence Institutes, and Graduate Research Schools) and respond to calls for projects launched by the Université de Lyon, the AURA region, national and international agencies, major organizations, etc. Lyon 2 also launches its own annual call for projects and co-finances a large number of scientific events.

Lyon 2 is a member of the Lyon Institute for Advanced Studies (fr. Institut d’Etudes Avancées de Lyon) known as Collegium.

It has signed an agreement with the society for the acceleration of technology transfer, SATT Pulsalys.

Finally, Lyon 2 is a member of many public and scientific interest groups and institutes (GIP CIERA; GIS Religions – Practices, Texts, Powers; GIS Middle East and Muslim Worlds; Gender Institute; Institute of the Americas; Rhône-Alpin Institute of Complex Systems; GIS Humanities, GIS GESTES).

Four main objectives

• Promoting interdisciplinarity through cross-field inquiry among the Humanities and Social Sciences as well as through interface with the Formal, Natural, and Applied Sciences.
• Developing free access to research results and data.
• Emphasizing scientific mediation and valorisation; responding to social demand by establishing partnerships with local authorities, cultural institutions, health and medico-social institutions, the world of education, the non-profit sector, for-profit businesses, the media, third places, etc.; implementing collaborative/participatory projects involving actors in the field by co-constructing a research questions and the necessary methodological approaches.
• Stimulating internationalisation by recruiting teacher-researchers working in diverse cultural areas, as well as by encouraging mobility, organising international scientific conferences, aiding in the construction of European or international projects, establishing cooperative agreements with foreign universities, increasing the number of co-directed theses, and by or welcoming colleagues and doctoral students from all continents.