Nathalie Blanc

Nathalie Blanc is a Research Director (1st class) at CNRS affiliated with University of Paris, specifically within the Faculty of Geography, History, Social Sciences, Department of Geography. She serves as Director of the Centre des Politiques de la Terre (CPT) and has held significant research leadership positions including co-directing the National Urban Research Prospective (PNRU) and directing the National Program for Urban and Environmental Research (PIRVE).

Her educational background leads to pioneering work in environmental aesthetics in France, with research spanning over two decades. She has directed numerous national and European research programs including the ANR program on urban green networks (2008-2012) and served as French delegate for European projects on cultural sustainability (2011-2015) and New Materialism (2015-2019).

Blanc's research focuses on nature in urban environments, exploring the intersections of environmental aesthetics, urban biodiversity, socio-environmental justice, and art-science collaborations. Her work examines how ecological concerns manifest in urban settings across France, Russia, Germany, and England, with particular attention to citizen mobilizations and sustainable transitions. She has developed a distinctive research-creation approach that produces both scientific and artistic outputs, examining ecological poetics through art-science dispositifs.

Her publications reveal a trajectory from early work on urban animals (2000) through environmental aesthetics (2008, 2012, 2016) to more recent explorations of food systems, agricultural transformation, and ordinary environmentalism (2022). The publications show increasing integration of artistic practices with environmental research, particularly through her leadership of the Laboratoire de la Culture Durable.

• French delegate for European project 'Investigating cultural sustainability' (2011-2015)
• Delegate for European COST program 'New Materialism' (2015-2019)
• Director of Centre des Politiques de la Terre (2019-present)
• Co-creator of Graduate School Transitions and sustainability
• Contributor to regional IPCC (GIEC) for Ile-de-France

Blanc has supervised numerous doctoral students across topics including urban renaturation, ecological mobilizations in popular neighborhoods, citizen mobilizations in São Paulo, urbanization dynamics in Gabon, climate change adaptation in West Africa, and waste prevention. Her research-creation activities have resulted in multiple exhibitions and artistic collaborations that bridge scientific findings with public engagement, including 'Parties Prenantes' at Bétonsalon gallery, 'Ce qui fait fragilité' at Galerie Vivo Equidem, and the multi-site 'Table and the Territory' project across European territories.