Dear CRM colleagues, dear IRL colleagues,

My term of office as Director of the IRL (or UMI) is coming to an end after one more year, and Emmanuel Royer will take over from me on September 1. Emmanuel is a university professor at the Université Clermont-Auvergne, where he headed the mathematics laboratory (laboratoire de mathématiques Blaise Pascal) from 2024 to 2018, before becoming deputy scientific director of the Institut national des sciences mathématiques et de leurs interactions of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique from 2018 to 2023.
Since completing his thesis under the supervision of Étienne Fouvry and Philippe Michel in 2001, he has been working in number theory, with a particular interest in modular forms and related functions.

I’d like to thank everyone, and in particular the two directors of the CRM with whom I had the pleasure of working: Luc Vinet and Octave Cornea.

Luc Vinet was a great help to me in bringing to fruition the CNRS’s plans to create a mathematics-informatics IRL. He won the full support of the vice-rector of the Université de Montréal for the mathematicians of the CRM, so that two distinct entities would exist rather than one. His role was also crucial during the pandemic, keeping both the CRM and the IRL running smoothly. The research traditions of the mathematicians were validated for a resumption of activity, by authorizing the holding of working groups that bring together several professors, whereas the UDM model proposed for a resumption of activity a research group around a professor and his assistants, post-docs and students.

Octav Cornea, for his part, helped me learn to take an overall view of mathematics, giving me a real feel for the characteristics and uses of each branch of mathematics and the applications of mathematics, including the sciences.
applications of mathematics, including data sciences and computer sciences, since the scope of the CRM is broader than that of INSMI, by advising me when it came to proposing new IRL members, including by suggesting names of participants to the organizers of thematic semesters, and by liaising with the various CRM laboratories.

Octav Cornea has also completely reorganized the administration of the CRM:Over the past five years, I’ve made some wonderful acquaintances with the people assigned to the CRM, whatever their research theme, I’ve been able to discover the diversity of mathematics in Quebec, in all the universities as well as at the University of Ottawa, and I’ve forged links with many colleagues who will remain friends.

I wish my successor Emmanuel every success and new projects.
For my part, I shall remain a tireless advocate of international laboratories and, above all, of course, of the IRL CRM CNRS.

Olivier Lafitte, Professor at Sorbonne Paris Nord University