Each question below maps to a real condition of the CIFRE scheme. Here is what it tests, and why it decides the outcome.
01 — Research subject
A CIFRE brings together a company, a doctoral candidate and a laboratory around a single subject, which has to be useful to the business and defensible academically before the ANRT (the national research and technology association). It is where the application starts, and where we get involved earliest.
02 — Legal form
The scheme is broadly open: start-ups, SMEs, mid-caps and large groups, but also associations, local authorities and chambers of commerce. The condition is about legal form and being in good standing, not about size.
03 — Partner laboratory
The laboratory has to be attached to a doctoral school. Foreign laboratories are accepted under an international joint-supervision arrangement. Not having one yet is no obstacle: finding the right laboratory is part of the work we do.
04 — Candidate profile
That is the only qualification requirement. There is no age limit and every nationality is accepted. It does have to be their first professional research post.
05 — Timing
This is what sinks more applications than anything else. At the filing date the candidate must not have been registered for a doctorate for more than nine months, nor employed by the company, its subsidiaries or its branches for more than nine months in total. Hiring too early, with the best of intentions, closes the door: a CIFRE is prepared before the hire, not after.
06 — Employment terms
The ANRT sets that minimum for 2026. The €14,000 annual grant and the effect of the Research Tax Credit bring the net cost down to roughly €10,200 a year, a little over €30,000 across the three years, often less than a final-year internship, for three years of supervised work.
