Jean-François Doulet

Jean-François Doulet is a geographer and Associate Professor (HDR) at UPEC (Université Paris-Est Créteil), affiliated with the Paris School of Urban Planning (École d’urbanisme de Paris) and a researcher at Lab’Urba. He is also an Associate Researcher at CERI (Sciences Po) and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics at the University of Ottawa.

His main research at CERI focuses on the geopolitics of science and science diplomacy. He examines transformations in the international scientific system and how geopolitical shifts are reshaping the production and circulation of knowledge and the conditions for international scientific cooperation. His research focuses in particular on the growing tensions between the internationalisation of research, scientific and technological competition, sovereignty, and research security, as well as their implications for universities, research organisations, scientific mobility and international collaboration.

He has developed an analytical framework based on action regimes in science diplomacy, structured around the tensions between openness and closure, and between cooperation and competition. This framework identifies different configurations of international scientific action and analyses how they evolve in response to changing geopolitical contexts. His research also examines the definition and uses of science diplomacy by states and scientific institutions. His comparative work focuses particularly on China, the United States, Europe and Canada.

This research draws on eight years of experience in French science and higher education diplomacy. From 2018 to 2022 at the French Embassy in China, and from 2022 to 2026 at the French Embassy in Canada, Jean-François Doulet held responsibilities for scientific and academic cooperation and contributed to the design and implementation of international research partnerships, mobility programmes, and mechanisms for dialogue between governments, universities and research organisations. From Beijing to Ottawa, he observed and contributed to a period of profound transformation in international scientific relations: the rise of China as a scientific power, the deterioration of US-China relations, the development of research security policies, growing concerns over technological sovereignty, and the redefinition of internationalisation strategies. This dual experience as a researcher and practitioner provides one of the main empirical foundations for his current research.

Jean-François Doulet also pursues a research programme in urban studies, building on more than thirty years of research on China while extending this work into an international and comparative perspective. Drawing on his research on mobility-oriented urban planning and China’s intensive urban regime, he develops an analysis of urban regimes and trajectories of intensity, understood as variations over time and across space in the capacities and resources mobilised to transform territories.

This research now places the Chinese experience in comparison with other trajectories of urban transformation in both emerging economies and long-industrialised societies. It examines processes of intensification, de-intensification and selective re-intensification associated with infrastructure, housing, transport, energy, digitalisation, reindustrialisation and climate adaptation. It also explores the international circulation of urban models and the ways in which they are transformed as they encounter different institutional, economic and territorial contexts.

Geopolitics of science and action regimes in science diplomacy; transformations of the international scientific system; urban regimes and trajectories of intensity.

Selected publications

2025 — Doulet, Jean-François, « The Regimes of Action in Science Diplomacy: New Analytical Categories », EUTOPIA Review, n° 3, 2025.

2025 — Doulet, Jean-François, « Science Diplomacy in 2035: Action Regimes for a Changing Geopolitical Landscape », Science Diplomacy, juillet-septembre 2025.

2018 — Doulet, Jean-François, Atlas de l’automobile. Mondialisation et nouveaux horizons, Paris, Autrement, 2018.

2017 — Doulet, Jean-François, Aurélien Delpirou et Teddy Delaunay, « Taking Advantage of a Historic Opportunity? A Critical Review of the Literature on TOD in China », Journal of Transport and Land Use, vol. 10, n° 1, p. 77-92.

2016 — Texier, Simon et Jean-François Doulet, Abou Dhabi, Paris, Éditions B2, coll. « Territoires », 2016.

2015 — Doulet, Jean-François, « L’urbanisme chinois et l’émergence du modèle “intégrationniste” », Métropolitiques, 27 avril 2015.

2015 — Delpirou, Aurélien, Jean-François Doulet et Jian Zhuo, « Coordonner urbanisme et transports collectifs : un référentiel à l’épreuve de la ville “made in China” », Flux, n° 101-102, p. 42-56.

2013 — Doulet, Jean-François, La ville « made in China », Paris, Éditions B2, 2013.

2012 — Doulet, Jean-François et Janet Ramos-Doulet, Géopolitique du TGV chinois, Paris, La Vie du Rail, 2012.

2008 — Doulet, Jean-François, « Où vont les villes chinoises ? Trois approches de la métropole dans la Chine d’aujourd’hui », Perspectives chinoises, n° 105, p. 4-15.

2005 — Doulet, Jean-François, « La mobilité urbaine en Chine », L’Information géographique, vol. 69, n° 1, p. 55-65.