Nathalie BLANC
Head of the Graduate School of Sustainability and Transitions
Nathalie BLANC, a Director of Research First Class at CNRS, served as the Director of Laboratoire LADYSS UMR 7533 CNRS from 2014 to 2019 and presently holds the position of Director at the Centre des Politiques de la Terre since 2019. Her research is centered around the theme of nature in urban settings and environmental aesthetics. Noteworthy publications include “Les animaux et la ville” (O. Jacob, 2000), “Vers une esthétique environnementale” (Quae, 2008), and in 2022, “Art, Farming and Food for the Future: Transforming Agriculture” published by Routledge, as well as “Réparer la Terre par le bas. Manifeste pour un environnementalisme ordinaire” by Le Bord de l’Eau. Recent work delves into the theme of environmental mobilisation, exploring territorial impact, cultural values, and political dimensions. The role of creativity and art is examined within these dynamics of social innovation.
Nathalie BLANC has directed several research reports, overseeing a program on nature and landscape in cities from 1999 to 2003, and leading the ANR program “Evaluation of urban green spaces and development of benchmarks” from 2008 to 2012. Her studies encompass a prospective analysis of residents’ investment in their living environments from 2003 to 2008 in France, the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, and Russia. Between 2006 and 2016, she co-directed the Programme national Ville et Environnement (PIRVE) and subsequently the Prospective Nationale de la Recherche Urbaine (PNRU). From 2011 to 2015, she was the French delegate for a 14-country European project entitled Investigating cultural sustainability (COST IS1007). Later, from 2015 to 2019, she served as the delegate for the European project New Materialism: Networking European Scholarship on How Matter Comes to Matter (COST IS1307).
In 2019, she played a key role in founding the Centre des Politiques de la Terre (CPT) as part of the new Université Paris Cité, currently overseeing the center, which brings together the Institut de Physique du Globe and Sciences Po. Within the CPT, she contributed to establishing the Graduate School of Sustainability and Transitions. She also played a role in the creation of a regional IPCC in Île-de-France with Sorbonne-Université and Paris-Saclay. Nathalie BLANC has always been eager to promote geography to a wider audience, frequently participating in radio programs and the written press.