Valeria Fayad
Chargée de mission pour les relations internationales
Téléphone : 33(0) 1 53 79 88 23
Programmes for Hosting Visiting International Professionals
2026 Call for Applications Ongoing
Deadline: 10 September 2025
Courants du monde (individual long format) is a programme supported by the French Ministry of Culture allowing the BnF to host visiting international culture professionals for one to three months. During their stays, visiting professionals are mentored by a BnF staff member. They carry out a concrete cooperation project, focus on the study of a specific topic or collection, or on a project related to the holdings or current activities of the BnF (Résidence Culture). Specific residences (Parcours de collections) within this programme are intended to initiate and develop joint studies on the provenance search of collections preserved in France.
Joining the programme
Applications undergo a selection process. A call for applications is held yearly following a calendar set up by the French Ministry of Culture.
Applications for the year 2026 are currently opened.
The deadline for submission to the BnF is Wednesday 10 September 2025.
- September 2025: evaluation and selection of applications by the BnF
- Early October 2025: transfer by the BnF to the cooperation and cultural action departments of the French embassy or the French Institute of the applicant’s country of origin
- 15 October 2025: deadline for sending the files selected by the offices to the Ministry of Culture
- Autumn 2025: selection of applications by the Ministry of Culture
- End December 2025: final list of successful applications sent by the Ministry of Culture
The programme is aimed at experienced professionals employed by foreign cultural institutions outside of France and whose projects are related to the collections and services, scientific work, cultural programs, management or development projects of the BnF.
Applicants must submit a concrete professional project based on knowledge and skills exchanges, the outcome of which can contribute to strengthening the relations between the BnF and their home institutions and countries of origin.
The BnF assesses applications along the main following criteria:
- Interest of the relevant BnF department(s) for the project;
- Potential impact of the applicant’s project in the home country including dissemination plans (such as publications, and participation to conferences and events);
- Affiliation of the applicant with an institution with which the BnF is engaged in, or envisioning a significant partnership.
Artists and students are not eligible for the programme. Academic researchers are only eligible for Parcours de collections if the purpose of the immersion is not academic.
- The hosting period of visiting professionals can range between 1 to 3 months;
- Each visiting professional is attached to a BnF department and mentored by a BnF staff member with expertise in the relevant field;
- Housing is provided for by the BnF;
- A 1500€ monthly allowance is allocated by the French Ministry of Culture.
- Insurance is provided by the Ministry of Culture on behalf of the candidate.
Visiting professionals are expected to cover their travel costs to and from France. Their home institutions may be able to offer support.
Applications undergo a strict selection process.
Applications are received by the BnF’s International Engagement Department which performs a contextual screening taking into account the relations between the BnF and the applicants’ home institutions and/or countries of origin. Applications are then shared with potential hosting directorates and departments. The latter base their judgement on their interests for the proposed projects and the availability of staff and skills to mentor the visiting professionals.
After being endorsed by the BnF’s senior management, the selected applications are sent to the cooperation and cultural action department of the French Embassy or the French Institute of the applicant’s country of residence.
Once they have been assessed and approved by these departments, the selected applications are forwarded to the Ministry of Culture, which makes the final selection.
About Résidence culture
Résidence culture allows international culture professionals to be hosted in France. The programme was set up by the ministry of culture in 2003 as a priori international cooperation action. It is operated by French public cultural institutions under the guidance of the ministry.
Its main objective is to promote exchanges between culture professionals while giving visiting professionals a first-hand experience of French working methods in the culture field. It also supports the creation and long-term maintenance of exchange networks between French and global public institutions.
About Parcours de collections
Launched by the ministry of culture in 2022, Parcours de collections supports the hosting of international visiting professionals from the museum, library and historical monument sectors whose aim is to study and document the history and trajectory of objects held by French museums and other cultural institutions. International professionals with relevant expertise work closely with French professionals to develop a shared understanding of the history of these objects. Parcours de collections supports in priority, albeit not exclusively, professionals from Africa.
The participants
Ms Agnieszka FRANCZYK-CEGLA, Head Curator of the Rare Books Department, Ossolineum Library, Poland. (Parcours des collections)
- Topic: Identifying the provenance of Polish books (“polonica”) printed in the 15th and 16th centuries and held in the collections of the BnF. Resaerch the origins of Polish books from the 15th and 16th centuries to describe Franco-Polish contacts in the modern era.
- Host department: Rare Books Reserve, Collections Directorate
Mr Malak Noshy Malak Faragallah, Inspector of Antiquities, Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Egypt.
- Topic: identification and study of Coptic and Arabic Christian manuscripts at the BnF.
- Host department: Manuscripts Department, Collections Directorate
Ms Adina PATRICHE, Librarian, National ISBN-ISSN-CIP Center, National Library of Romania.
- Topic: management of periodical publications, with the main aim of studying online scientific periodical publications and selecting older, digitised publications available via Gallica. An important aspect of these objectives will be the identification of “predatory” publications, which may compromise the integrity of information at the National Library of Romania.
- Host department: Metadata Department, Services and Networks directorate
Ms Angeliki BAMNIOTI, Librarian in the Cataloguing Department, National Library of Greece.
- Topic: Perfecting and appropriating the RDA cataloguing codes, bibliographic description standards and the specificities of the French and Greek languages, in particular the national bibliography.
- Host department: Metadata Department, Services and Networks directorate
Mr Alex BARADEL, Head of the Photographic Archives and Communication Department at the Pierre Verger Foundation, Brazil.
- Topic: Enhancing professional skills for indexing an iconographic collection through the use of keywords integrated into a thesaurus. Strengthening cooperation between the BnF and Pierre Verger Foundation.
- Host department: Prints and Photography Department, Collections Directorate.
Mr Serhi DOTSENKO, Information Technology Director at the Yaroslav Mudryi National Library of Ukraine.
- Topic: Studying the Gallica project in order to draw inspiration from the BnF’s experiences and practices for the creation and development of the Ukrainian digital library.
- Host department: International Engagement Department.
Fr. Luka EL MAKARY, librarian and system administrator at the Coptic Central Papal Library of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Egypt. (Parcours des collections)
- Topic: In accordance with current codicological standards, describing and identifying some of the 148 medieval Coptic manuscript codices held by the BnF and comprising annotations and, for some, a bilingual Arabic text.
- Host department: Manuscripts Department, Collections Directorate.
Ms Jana FRANKOVA, researcher at the Music Department of the Moravian Library, Czech Republic.
- Topic: Supporting the on-going collaboration between the music departments of the BnF and Moravian Library by preparing a collaborative virtual exhibition on the reception of the works of Central European composers by Parisian publishers in the 18th century; study musical relations between France and Central Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.
- Host department: Music Department, Collections Directorate.
Mr Grégory KUNZ, Senior Director of the Office of the Presidency and Institutional Affairs at the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, Canada.
- Topic: Cooperation within the Réseau Francophone Numérique (RFN) to strengthen BAnQ’s involvement in its governing bodies and cooperation in making French-language cultural content more discoverable.
- Host department: International Engagement Department.
Ms Kateryna LYSKOVA, Deputy Director of the V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Ukraine.
- Topic: Project design (creation) of a digital library of French books and manuscripts held by the V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University.
- Host department: Digitisation Department, Services and Networks Directorate.
Mr Sisay Sahile BEYENE (Parcours des collections), assistant professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Gondar, Ethiopia.
- Topic: Studying the Amharic notebooks written by the informants of the Dakar-Djibouti Mission
- Host department: Manuscripts Department, Collections Directorate
Mr Watson FRANÇOIS, Head of the Children’s Section at the National Library of Haiti.
- Topic: Professional capacity building to develop the children’s section of the National Library of Haiti and consolidation of the partnership between the two institutions.
- Host department: CNLJ, Literature and Arts Department, Collections Directorate.
Ms Valeria LEONENKO, manuscript restorer at the National History Museum (NMHU) of Ukraine.
- Topic: Enhancing professional skills, particularly in paper conservation.
- Host department: Conservation Department, Services and Networks Directorate.
Mr Illiassou OUSSEINI MOUSSA, Head of the Audiovisual Department at the Research Institute in Human Sciences of the Abdou Moumouni University (IRSH), Niger.
- Topic: Strengthening professional skills for collecting, conserving and enhancing audiovisual collections, particularly the sound archive of the Jean Rouch collection.
- Host department: Sound, Video and Multimedia Department, Collections Directorate.
Mr Thi Thanh Thuy TRUONG, librarian in charge of English, French and Vietnamese collections at the National Library of Vietnam.
- Topic: Work on the Indochinese collection of the BnF in order to enrich the France-Vietnam digital library, and strengthen the partnership between the two institutions.
- Host department: Literature and Arts Department, Collections Directorate.
