PEPR MIE - Publication of the booklet about the 2023-2025 laureates and junior chairs

An accelerator for pandemic preparedness

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted a major public health necessity: understanding, preventing and controlling the emergence of infectious diseases. This priority requires the implementation of ambitious research projects. In March 2022, the Government acknowledged this by presenting its acceleration strategy ‘Emerging Infectious Diseases & Nuclear, Radiological, Biological and Chemical Threats’ (SA MIE MN), part of the Health Innovation 2030 plan launched in June 2021.

The scientific basis for this strategy has given rise to two Priority Research Programmes and Facilities (PEPR). The first, entitled ‘PREZODE’, is operated by the National Research Agency (ANR) and led by the Centre for International Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD), the Research Institute for Development (IRD) and the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE). It focuses on preventing the emergence of zoonoses (viruses, bacteria or parasites transmitted to humans by animals or insects).

The second, led and operated by ANRS MIE (an autonomous agency of Inserm), focuses more broadly on understanding infection mechanisms, epidemic dynamics and the development of countermeasures and decision support in times of crisis linked to an emerging or re–emerging infectious disease.

Know more about the PEPR MIE

Supporting research in all its dimensions

The PEPR MIE must contribute both to better preparedness for pandemic risks and to developing a faster and more effective response capacity based on enhanced prevention, early detection and appropriate treatment options. It also aims to improve the cohesion and responsiveness of the French scientific community in order to deal with future epidemic risks, in particular by facilitating knowledge transfer, the generation of data useful for decision-making and the industrial scaling up of innovations resulting from this research.

To this end, the PEPR MIE supports multidisciplinary research through various mechanisms funded by the France 2030 plan. Each year, it issues a call for projects based on three pillars aimed at acquiring fundamental knowledge (strand 1); innovation in diagnostics, treatments and vaccines (strand 2); and improving public health policies (strand 3). The projects funded by the PEPR MIE focus in particular on three families of diseases that pose a high risk of a health crisis in France: arboviruses, viral haemorrhagic fevers and respiratory viruses. Bacterial agents posing a high risk of bioterrorism were also made eligible during the first call for projects launched in 2023.

34 laureates

Eleven projects were selected in 2023. They now receive cumulative support of €21.6 million. The following year, nine additional projects received €16 million in funding. And in 2025, nine new research projects shared total funding of around €15 million. In addition to these projects, for the first time, five ‘junior chairs’ were supported with €4.6 million, based on innovative proposals from young scientists working on MIEs.

Finally, in 2024, the PEPR MIE and PREZODE jointly funded the ‘ZOOFLU’ project to study the mechanisms of avian influenza emergence. Supported to the tune of €500,000, it demonstrates the close link between the two schemes. A total of €70 million has thus been earmarked from the France 2030 plan budget for the PEPR MIE.

2023 Laureates 2024 Laureates 2025 Laureates