Working conditions & benefits

If you do your PhD at INRAE, you will benefit from a healthy and secure working environment in which you will be well positioned to succeed in your studies.

Working schedule, leave & telecommuting

INRAE employees work 1,607 hours per year. Based on their personal constraints and professional responsibilities, they can customise their work schedules.

INRAE offers a choice of workweeks: 1) a workweek of 5 days or 4.5 days or 2) an alternation between 1 workweek of 4 days and 1 workweek of 5 days
INRAE also offers a choice of total weekly hours: 36 hours or 38 hours 40 minutes per week

Annual leave

Full-time INRAE employees who have chosen a 36-hour workweek are entitled to 30 days of annual leave. Those who have chosen a 38-hour workweek have 15 additional days off (TOIL days, or RTT in French), for a total of 45 days of annual leave. Additional forms of leave may be granted (e.g., maternity, paternity, adoption).

Telecommuting

At INRAE, contractual staff can choose to telecommute. As a matter of principle, remote work is an option available to all institute staff, regardless of employment type. Full-time employees are allowed to telecommute for a maximum of 100 days per year. Employees must define their remote working schedule in collaboration with the research unit director.

You will receive a flat-rate telecommuting allowance to help cover meal and energy costs (e.g., electricity, gas). In 2024, this rate was €2.88 per day (maximum of €282.24 per year).

Remote work needs to be done from an employee’s main residence or from another private residence. It can also be carried out from an INRAE facility dedicated to telecommuting or from any other approved professional location.

Health insurance

INRAE employees, including doctoral students, are required to register with the French social security office to receive public health coverage. If you have never been affiliated with the French social security system, you must register as soon as you begin your PhD. This process involves submitting a form to the healthcare administration office (Caisse Primaire d’Assurance Maladie, or CPAM) for your administrative department of residence.

France’s public health insurance system partially reimburses people’s medical expenses. To obtain a higher rate of reimbursement, you can take out complementary health insurance. INRAE offers its contractual employees the opportunity to take out complementary health insurance as well as disability, incapacity, and death coverage from a select set of six reliable providers. However, you are also entirely free to choose an outside provider.

For more information, talk to HR staff at your research unit or centre.

Useful links

Remuneration

Contractual doctoral students at INRAE receive a gross monthly salary of €2,200 (as of January 1, 2025). There is no end-of-contract indemnity (e.g., prime de précarité). Like other contractual employees, doctoral students pay social charges to the general social security system (i.e., for health insurance and retirement). Contractual PhD students can request reimbursement for their public transport passes and any work-related travel (see below).

INRAE pays its employees at the end of the month via direct deposit. See this example to better understand the information on your pay slip (bulletin de salaire or bulletin de paie in French).

INRAE pays for its employees’ travel expenses (e.g., transportation, meals, lodging) in accordance with the institute’s expenditure guidelines. Any travel must be approved by your supervisor.

Your research unit’s administrators can help you make travel arrangements and guide you through the reimbursement process.

Employee benefits

INRAE is committed to fostering a healthy, nurturing, and inclusive working environment. The institute thus offers a number of benefits to permanent and contractual employees:

Collective catering services—you can purchase subsidised meals at many establishments
Transportation costs—partially subsidised passes for public transport (bus, train networks) or bike-share programmes for travel between your home and work
Recreation, sports, and cultural activities—access to a wide range of events for INRAE employees and retirees
Subsidised holidays—vouchers and financial contributions for your child(ren) to attend recreation centres (centres de loisirs), language camps, and educational camps
Children—in addition to the above, an income supplement if you have dependent children and financial allowances for parents of disabled children
Health care—access to reliable complementary health insurance providers and help when navigating challenging medical situations
Disability—accommodations that increase workplace friendliness for disabled employees and development of institutional policies to provide better career-long support (e.g., recruitment, hiring, and retention)
Housing—support and guidance during your housing search and, under certain conditions, a moving allowance
Family leave—time off to care for a disabled family member; a family member experiencing a serious loss of autonomy; or a family member with a life-threatening illness
Social support—social fund loans and social services at all research centres to help employees deal with personal and/or professional difficulties

For information about any of these benefits, you can contact HR staff at your research centre. If you have a detailed question, you can send a message to actionsociale@inrae.fr.

Useful link

Excellent working conditions

Risk prevention policies

INRAE’s Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) policy focuses on the following objectives:

Protecting employee health
Reducing the number and severity of work-related injuries and illnesses
Continuously and permanently improving employee safety and working conditions
Preserving the environment
Protecting the property owned by or entrusted to the institute

Institute administrators are responsible for implementing the HSE policy. However, INRAE employees must also do their part by taking a preventive approach in all their work, which involves respecting health & safety guidelines and adopting behaviours that protect the environment.

When you begin your PhD, you will be greeted by your supervisor and your unit’s risk prevention expert, who will inform you about internal policies and health & safety requirements. Additionally, INRAE has specialised staff, such as consultants and doctors with preventive health expertise, who can provide useful recommendations.