On Wednesday, 3 December 2025, Astrocent’s Director, Leszek Roszkowski, took part in the 8th French‑Polish Forum for Science and Innovation, held at the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Space in Paris. This year’s edition focused on strengthening collaborations following the signing of the Nancy Treaty of Enhanced Cooperation and Friendship between France and Poland on 9 May 2025.
The Forum brought together high-level representatives, including Jean‑Luc Moullet, General Director for Research and Innovation at the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research in France, Andrzej Szeptycki, Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland, and Jan Emeryk Rościszewski, Ambassador of Poland to France. The French Embassy in Poland was represented by Matthieu Osmont, Attaché for Scientific Cooperation.
Discussions throughout the day addressed strategic topics for both countries:
- open science and science with and for society,
- research and innovation in agriculture (presentation of the European Science Alliance for Agriculture and Food – ESAAF),
- Polish‑French cooperation within the European framework, including Horizon Europe and European universities,
- research security at national and European levels.
The Forum also highlighted the importance of aligning project timelines with market availability of key technologies, ensuring effective collaboration between academia, industry, and funding agencies.
In the afternoon, the delegation visited the AstroParticule & Cosmologie (APC) laboratory at Université Paris Cité, which has worked closely with Astrocent since our founding in 2018. This cooperation has strongly expanded since the beginning of 2025 to include new European partners through the WIDERA Teaming for Excellence project Astrocent Plus, funded with €15 million under Horizon Europe with matching complementary funding from Poland.
At APC, participants were welcomed by Eric Chassande‑Mottin and Davide Franco, Deputy Directors of APC, and joined breakout sessions on topics such as the Einstein Telescope, DarkSide, Athena, KM3NeT, and outreach initiatives of the Cosmos, Sciences & Societies Centre.
Leszek Roszkowski presented our vision for the future within the Astrocent Plus project, emphasizing how collaboration with APC has grown over the past seven years and will continue to strengthen bilateral and European research in particle astrophysics and detector technologies.
Together, France and Poland are building bridges to foster innovation, expand scientific collaboration, and promote knowledge sharing across borders – an exemplary cooperation that continues to grow in scope and ambition.
