Thematic variations and auctorial foresights: The French National Funding Agency (Agence Nationale de la Recherche - ANR) (Biennial Conference of the European Society for the History of Science, London, UK, 14/09/2018-17/09/2018)

The French national funding agency (Agence Nationale de la Recherche - ANR) represents since 2005 the “delegation authority” of the public science system. As being the principal national funding agency, ANR influence regarding research communities is a mix of huge prestige, when getting a grant, and a collective satiric humour shared on Twitter (Agence Nationale de l'Excellence Scientifique, @Excelleagence). In between, the fact and the fears that ANR role in shaping and reconfiguring French research priorities is regularly debated. Based on the analysis of ANR data (2006 to 2016), recently released, our proposition aims to observe how and to what extent, ANR research priorities are impacting French communities research agenda. From a comparison between ANR thematic, grants thematic and research prospective expressed then realised by researchers themselves, the analysis will provide elements to depict the way researchers are adapting to the ANR authority. Our approach is both quantitative and qualitative and takes into account the longitudinal dimension to observe the variations occurred during 2006-2016 period.