Maison des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société de Poitiers (MSHS)

The Research Centre for the Human and Social Sciences (MSHS) is a component of the University of Poitiers. This multidisciplinary university is organized in 6 research centres, 7 Schools and Colleges, 1 Engineering School, 6 Institutes and 48 research laboratories; it welcomes 23,000 students and employs 3000 staff members. Humanities and Social Sciences in Poitiers represent the third of the research powers of Poitiers University.

The MSHS is a Federation which depends on the French Department of Research, Scientific Directions 6 and 7, and is associated with the CNRS to constitute a Services and Research Unit (USR 3565). It gathers together fifteen laboratories in Economics, Humanities and Social Sciences (associated or not with the CNRS). It hosts 3 Graduate Schools (ED) in Economics, Humanities and Social Sciences (SHES):

• ED 525 “Letters, Thought, Arts and History”
• ED 526 “Societies and Organizations”
• ED 527 “Cognition, Behaviours, Language(s)”

About 600 researchers and academics, PhD students and administrative staff are thus working together.

The MSHS has six types of objectives:

• Promoting interdisciplinary scientific activities – research, symposia, lectures, national and international contracts – that allow researchers from all disciplines to meet and collaborate, in order to generate new themes of study in Social Sciences and Humanities. It lends its support to creating project and enhancement. Three themes are current research topics of the MSHS:
  • Theme 1 “Language and Cognition: Corpus, Behaviour and Education”
  • Theme 2 “Markets, Consumer Cultures, Autonomy and migrations”
  • Theme 3 “Culture and Heritage”
• To train in research and through research: it welcomes doctoral students in Humanities and Social Sciences in its premises and gives them access to a resource library and to computer equipment, and organizes discussion and training seminars – sometimes together with SHES Graduate Schools.
• Provide research laboratories with the premises and equipment needed in research. The building provide them with 87 offices, some general services (data, resource library, assistance to publishing, audio-visual control room), meeting rooms, a conference hall with 200 seats and specific scientific equipment dedicated to specific research activities, 4 of them being currently available to researchers.
• Provide technology platforms (Scan, Geomatics, Human Behaviour Analysis in real time [EEG], eye tracking) (hyperlien (PlatformesTechnologiques eng))
• Participate in the national network of MSHS and work towards an international visibility of SHS research. This network’s objectives are written in the Charter of the Centre for Humanities and Sciences.