Maître de conférence

The following summarizes basic academic ranks in the French higher education system. Most academic institutions being state-run, people with permanent positions are civil servants. Several parallel, more or less equivalent, career paths exist, depending on the type of institutions. On the other hand, in most cases, a complete career requires at least two open recruitment procedures, as there is no individual promotion from the level equivalent to Associate Professor to the level of Full-Professor.

In French, the word professeur is used much more widely than the English "professor", and when used on its own it suggests a schoolteacher in secondary education. Qualified terms such as professeur des universités are therefore used to clarify the function of the professeur.

After gaining a doctorate from a university, and usually after several years of temporary postdoctoral positions, scholars who wish to enter a more permanent academic career may apply for the position of maître de conférences (MCF, roughly equivalent to "assistant professor", the first professorship rank in North America). To achieve this, they must first be approved by the National Council of Universities, made up of elected and appointed MCFs and university professors. For candidates who have first been approved in this way, the recruitment to positions is carried out in each individual university, mostly by a selection committee of other MCFs and professors, half from the university where the position is available, half from other universities, rather than by administrators.

The salary scale is national, so pay does not vary from one university to another. A recent reform allows for the possibility of salary modulation in the universities, but for now this remains to be implemented.

After some years in the maître de conférences position, an MCF may take an "habilitation" to become a supervisor of doctoral theses before applying for a position of professeur des universités ("university professor"), whether in their home university or in another institution. Their suitability for such a position will be judged by the National Council of Universities (restricted to full professors). Each individual application is examined by a selection committee, composed exclusively of full professors, mostly on their published original research as well on teaching and administrative duties. In the past, this required a higher doctorate ("state doctorate"). In some fields, such as law, management (gestion), and economics, candidates take the competitive examination known as agrégation; only those achieving the highest grades are appointed.

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