Research Institute for Development
French science and technology research institute
The French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, or Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), is a French science and technology establishment under the joint supervision of the French Ministries of Higher Education and Research and Foreign Affairs. It operates internationally from its headquarters in Marseille, and two metropolitan centres of Montpellier and Bondy.
It was created as the Office de la recherche scientifique et technique outre-mer or ORSTOM (Overseas Scientific and Technical Research Office) in 1943.
Missions
The IRD institute has three main missions: research on developing countries and French overseas territories development, overseas consultancy and training.
It conducts scientific programs contributing to the sustainable development of the countries of the South, with an emphasis on the relationship between man and the environment.
Since 1955, the Institute has maintained an institutional archive to preserve and disseminate its scientific productions. The Institute develops an open access policy for its documents. The archive currently contains over 96,000 documents and constitutes the IRD documentary collection (FDI "Fonds Documentaire IRD").
Organisation
The IRD's scientific activities are organised through five scientific departments coordinated by a deputy director for science:
Dynamics of the Internal and Surface of Continents (DISCO);
Ecology, Biodiversity and Functioning of Continental Ecosystems (ECOBIO);
Oceans, Climate and Resources (OCEANS);
Health and Societies (SAS);
Societies and Globalization (SOC).
IRD has established new scientific cooperation bodies in recent years that promote co-construction of research projects.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Research Institute for Development” as french science and technology research institute. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as french science and technology research institute. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2910510. VIAF identifies the subject as 133740593. The Library of Congress control number is n99250634. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943 and 1955.
A general summary may omit uncertainty, sample limits or methodological disagreement that is explicit in the technical record. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Research Institute for Development” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.