Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common cancer in male in Westernized countries and is a clinically heterogeneous disease with substantial variability in progression. Emerging studies support a crucial role of metabolic plasticity of prostatic tumor cells with fatty acids and sterols being demonstrated to represent hallmarks of aggressiveness in PCa. In this context, targeting prostate cancer cell metabolism and more specifically lipid metabolism show great promise for developing alternative adjunct therapies to be used in combination with chemotherapy and androgen deprivation therapy. Moreover, alterations in the epigenome, due to modulation of histone and DNA modification enzymes that results from metabolic reprogramming driven by oncogenes and expression of metabolism-associated genes have been associated not only with neoplastic transformation, but also with cancer aggressive biology. The overall objective of our research and training network PROSTAMET, is to enhance the knowledge and understanding of metabolic changes that occur at the primary as well as the metastatic sites of prostate cancer in order to identify new markers of aggressiveness and/or new therapeutic targets related to lipid metabolism. Study of the lipid metabolism of tumor cells and the impact of cellular components of the microenvironment together with the design and assay of new pharmacological compounds will be used as a platform to develop an interdisciplinary training program on tumor aggressiveness, cell metabolism, structural biology, and the development of novel metabolism modulators. The overall goal of our project is to assemble a consortium of world-renown experts in prostate cancer, lipid metabolism and development/screening of novel anti-tumor drugs in order to train the new generation of young researchers involved in the field of cancer. Our consortium will combine research-based training in the field of metabolism, epigenetics and prostate cancer research and development together with training in relevant transferable skills such as IP management, communication, personal and career development and entrepreneurship into an Initial Training Network (ITN) proposal. To achieve this goal, we have assembled a core consortium of relevant experts with international repute. The MRSEI grant will allow us enlarging and consolidating this core consortium with additional complementary partners from the public and private sectors. Combining the skills in cancer research and analytics with industrial quality management and transferable skills will increase the chances of our early stage researchers of productive and successful careers in their chosen sectors.

For ten years, the European Union considers the notion of gender equality through the lens of a liberal political mindset, aiming to rally an entire highly-skilled workforce to maintain the continent’s economic competitiveness internationally. Research and academia are at the same time dramatically evolving through the generalisation of competitive funding and the establishment of excellence policies. Observing that in this context, female researchers remain underrepresented, the RESET project (Rethinking gender Equality and Scientific Excellence Together) aims to address the following question: how, and to which extent, do scientific excellence norms have an impact on female researcher’s careers, with regard to the local academic and national labour markets? Supported by Equal Opportunities Officers from several European universities, most of whom are researchers involved in Social Sciences and Humanities, RESET brings research and political action together. It intends to make the most out of its practical and organisational dimension to address research areas currently ignored by SSH research on the obstacles to women’s career progression in academia. European literature traditionally analyses women’s position in academic careers in three categories: at micro (individuals), meso (organisations) or macro level (society) (Lefeuvre 2016). Corrective actions that form the GEP tie these three dimensions together. Through the questions we raise and the data we collect, the project intends firstly to provide answers to the “grey area” of comparative analysis at a European level identified by Nicky Lefeuvre. In the context of RESET, mechanisms of women’s inclusion/exclusion in scientific careers with regard to the national academic labour market will be compared on four criteria: duration and status of the granting of tenure after the PhD, methods of selection for professorial positions, distribution of positions between “local” and “national” candidates, decisions related to the allocation of resources (salaries). Beyond the use of qualitative and quantitative methods of survey, the definition and implementation of the GEPs shall collect information of the effects of the norm of scientific excellence on the gender of academic careers, depending on the state of the academic labour market for each university and of each national context. The guideline of the corrective actions of the GEPs is to act upon the academic career continuum (PhD enrolment, allocation of a tenured position, access to senior/higher positions; emeritus, honours and academic acknowledgements). The second major research guiding principle of the RESET project will consist in addressing the impact of the international norm of scientific excellence on gender-related career inequalities among the partner European universities. The most common analytical frame used to describe the evolution of the higher education and research landscape is the new public management (Musselin 2017). In an operational perspective, the implementation will be closest to the laboratories and involving its members and directions. It relies on interviews, which approach is twofold: practice- and research-oriented.