ANR and JST are now accepting submissions for Franco-Japanese projects on themes relating to AI and mathematics.

In order to support research projects of scientific excellence, the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR – French National Research Agency)and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) have launched the 2026 edition of its programme for joint French/Japanese research projects within the framework of JST’s Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST) initiative.

The project consortium must involve at least one French and one Japanese partner. Two scientific coordinators (one French, one Japanese) must be clearly identified.  The call is open to public research organisations and assimilated organisations (this includes public organisations that are conducting research and disseminating knowledge in France and private organisations that are conducting research and/or teaching activities and have an establishment or a branch in France). The call is also open to commercial companies. The French consortium must include at least one public or assimilated research organisation.

For the 2026 call, proposals are based on two themes:

Theme 1: Symbiotic AI Interdisciplinary System: Creation of Interdisciplinary System Foundation for a Symbiotic and Collaborative Society with Humans and AI – The research theme aims to advance technologies that enable the symbiosis of artificial intelligence (AI) and humans, as well as the collaboration of diverse AIs, and to support cooperation between multiple humans and multiple AIs based on these technologies, taking into consideration factors such as reliability, fairness and safety. Key objectives under this theme include acquiring the technologies and insights for human-AI coexistence, creating information science technologies for AI collaboration and establishing methods for integrating and evaluating theoretical frameworks in virtual and real world fields to improve human-AI collaboration.

Theme 2: Prediction Mathematical Foundation: Creation of Mathematical Foundation for Prediction and Control As global and social issues intensify due to a range of interlinked factors, threats and challenges must eb addressed through the accurate identification and prediction of important signs of change. Through intervention based on such predictions, it is necessary to build a new social structure to manage events in order to establish and maintain a desirable state. Achieving this objective requires the integration and application of all relevant information and data pertaining to natural and social phenomena across various fields alongside the leveraging of the mathematical sciences for abstracting and visualising complex phenomena. The theme thus aims to deepen the understanding of such phenomena and to generate new theories and innovative technologies related to prediction and control.

Each national agency will provide funding for the expenses of the team from that country, according to their own regulations. ANR will provide funding of up to €500,000 per project to French teams, depending on the number of partners and the ambition of the project, for a five-year duration. JST will provide a maximum of ¥300 million per team.

Applications must be submitted to both agencies.