The GDR RIFT
The Great African Rift concentrates, on the scale of a continent, privileged interactions between geology, life and societies. This project aims to gather a research community around this emblematic object to understand its systemic functioning.
Contact : gdr-rift[at]services.cnrs.fr
News
All the news
GDR Rift Symposium
Maasai Mara University in Narok, Kenya
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Workshop “Hominin dispersal across transient landscapes”
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Winners of the CNRS-Africa
calls for projects
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The GDR Rift is proposing a second Mobility Grant
Please submit your applications for the Mobility Grant via this form before the 1st September 2023
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Workshop Kigali, Rwanda
Computational Geodynamics: Towards Building a New Expertise Across Africa
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Colloquium in tribute
to Yves Coppens
learn moreThe objectives of the GDR Rift
The main objective of the GDR is to provide the French scientific community with an inter-institute structure to federate the communities of the CNRS INSHS, INSU and INEE institutes around the Great African Rift in order to characterise the interrelationships within this complex system including living organisms ( of which humans), geodynamic and climate processes.

Structure and
coordination task
To stimulate interdisciplinarity, to promote major transdisciplinary scientific questions, to remove scientific barriers.
Animation
task
To encourage and support communication
between disciplines, to encourage new collaborations, to train and transmit knowledge.
Scientific monitoring
and forecasting task
To promote transdisciplinary work on the rift, to provide the facilities to respond to national, European and international projects.
Research themes
The GDR is organised around four major research themes, each of them addressing key issues for which the contribution and cooperation of all the different institutes (INEE, INSHS, INSU) are central.
Knowledge transfer
The GDR rift has a role in transmitting information and knowledge, not only to the scientific community, but also to students and a wider audience.
EXHIBITIONS
Temporary or permanent, they let us inform and exchange on recent interdisciplinary work with the widest public.
Read moreBOOKS
Let’s take a tour on scientific articles in
major international journals, but also future collaborative and collective works for all audiences.
TRAINING
Exchanges between French and African institutes, present (and future) training in relation to the rift.
Read moreThe GDR Rift in figures
The GDR Rift : 3 CNRS institutes, 43 UMR, 200 members
CNRS Institutes :
INEE, INSHS, INSU
UMR
Members
The GDR Rift in pictures
The Great African Rift is therefore an object around which very
different can work together and interact.
