Florian Bonnet, researcher

Florian Bonnet graduated from the École Normale Supérieure de Paris-Saclay; and earned his PhD at the Paris School of Economics. He joined INED as a researcher in 2020. 

What path brought you to INED?

I was born in Provence and moved to the Paris region to study economics and management at the École Normale Supérieure de Paris-Saclay (2010-2015). After earning my qualification to teach those subjects, I was given the opportunity to work for a year as a research assistant to the economist Hippolyte d’Albis, who then supervised my PhD dissertation at the Paris School of Economics. My subject was spatial disparities in France and how they have evolved  since the early twentieth century—a question situated at the crossroads of demography and economics. It was during my doctoral student years that I began establishing ties with INED researchers, particularly those working in the Economic Demography and Mortality, Health, and Epidemiology units. Those contacts led me to apply for the position of tenured associate researcher, and I’ve been working at INED in that capacity since October 2020. 

What exactly is your role at INED?

As a researcher my primary role is to advance scientific knowledge in my area of specialization: spatial disparities as they relate to longevity and economic development, initially in France and now in Europe as a whole. The aim is to study those disparities longitudinally, which requires a type of work that is nearly invisible but nonetheless essential: exploring public archives and records to identify as yet unused data, then putting those data into forms that can be used by for researchers and software programs. For example, I spent several weeks at the Ministry of Finance archives in Savigny-le-Temple identifying and photographing fiscal statistics that can now be used to determine the places of residence of France’s wealthiest households from 1960. This is a research program that evolves in connection with opportunities and events. It was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, and the many urgent questions raised around the issue of space.

But my role is not limited to research. I also regularly participate in the Institute’s collective bodies. In this connection I’ve coordinated monthly workshops for doctoral students being hosted at INED, sat on the doctoral student and postdoc fellow selection and follow-up committee, and served on INED’s administrative board after being elected for the 2023-2026 period. This type of collective engagement is crucial, especially in a human-scale institute such as ours. 

What would you say is specific about INED? What do you like most about it?

Its human scale, the source of its strength—precisely what allows for quick, direct contacts and connections between members, a situation you don’t find in major universities and larger research organizations. There’s not a single research unit or service here where you don’t know people or recognize faces. What I like most on a daily basis is how flexible we can be in organizing our schedule. I go back and forth between weeks where the focus is on the institution, with meetings following on each other at rapid pace, and weeks spent analyzing research data and writing up observations—work that in my case requires great calm. It’s a big responsibility, but it’s also what enables me to be fully efficient, I think. And what enables the Institute, by way of my studies and those of all the other researchers, to provide some answers to some of the questions our society is asking.