CIFRE PhD: How to Find Companies Doing R&D in Your Field (Complete Method)

Camille is 26. She just finished a research master's in materials chemistry and wants to do a CIFRE PhD — meaning she would be hired by a company to carry out a research project supervised by a university lab. The problem isn't motivation, or even her topic: it's that she has no idea which companies actually do research in her field. Her lab mentioned two contacts; her internship supervisor mentioned a third. Three leads is not nearly enough when a CIFRE typically takes six to twelve months to put together.

If you're in the same situation, the good news comes down to one sentence: the list of companies doing R&D in France is largely public. Patents, innovation status, business registries — all of it exists in open, free-to-access form. The work is in cross-referencing these sources, filtering by your field and location, and building a clean, actionable list you can contact one by one. This article walks you through the method, step by step, with no jargon.

CIFRE: why target companies that already do R&D

A CIFRE PhD brings together three parties around a single project: a French-registered company, a future PhD candidate, and a public research laboratory. The company hires you on a fixed-term or permanent contract, assigns you a research mission, and in return receives state funding. Targeting companies that already do R&D means targeting those with a concrete reason to recruit you.

Concretely, the ANRT, 2026 states that the minimum salary for a CIFRE doctoral candidate is 27,600 € gross per year in 2026, and that the company receives an annual grant of 14,000 € over the three years of the thesis — stackable with the Research Tax Credit (Crédit d'Impôt Recherche, CIR). In other words: hiring a CIFRE doctoral candidate costs a company far less than a standard research engineer. That's your strongest argument — but you have to go find the company yourself. Nobody will bring it to you.

How to tell whether a company genuinely does research

A company "doing R&D" isn't necessarily a large corporation. You're looking for three profiles: a technically-focused SME with an innovative product, a mid-sized company with a real R&D department, and a young technology spin-off from a lab. The right instinct is to look for objective signals of research activity rather than relying on the marketing copy on their website.

Three reliable signals, all freely accessible:

• Patents. A company that files patents in your field is, by definition, doing applied research. The INPI database, 2026 is freely searchable and covers French patent applications published since 1902 as well as European patents since 1978. You can search by applicant, technical keyword, and date.
• Jeune Entreprise Innovante (JEI) status. To qualify as a JEI (Young Innovative Company), a company must dedicate at least 20% of its expenses to R&D, employ fewer than 250 people, generate under €50M in revenue, and be less than 8 years old, according to Service-Public, 2026. A JEI in your field is almost always a relevant CIFRE target.
• Research Tax Credit (CIR). An indicative list of organisations accredited under the CIR (Crédit d'Impôt Recherche) is published as open data on data.gouv.fr, 2026. CIR accreditation signals research activity that has been formally recognised by the French tax authorities.

You can also check whether the company is hiring R&D profiles: a job posting for a research engineer, innovation project manager, or PhD holder in your field is a direct signal that the company is investing in the area.

Combining location, sector, and R&D signals to build a usable list

Once you know what to look for, cross three filters: your geographic area (usually around your lab), your sector, and the R&D signals above. That combination is what turns "every company in France" into a list of genuinely actionable targets.

For the location + sector side, the SIRENE database from the INSEE, 2026 lists nearly 36 million establishments, is free, and lets you filter by municipality, department, or region and by industry (NAF code). You can extract, for example, all materials-manufacturing companies in your region. For the R&D signals layer, you then cross-reference that list against INPI patents and JEI status.

This is exactly the kind of cross-referencing that OutSend handles: you start from a business type and a location, the tool builds the matching list of establishments on demand (name, address, phone, website, Google Maps reviews), and you enrich each row from there. Instead of opening five tabs and copying data by hand, you get a clean CSV export. If you want to see the logic applied to a similar use case, the article on mapping employers in an area for a targeted job search covers the geographic grid approach in detail.

Building your list and tailoring your outreach

A useful list includes, for each company: name, location, sector, the R&D signal you identified (patent, JEI status, hiring activity), and the right contact channel. Aim for quality, not volume: 40 well-qualified companies will outperform 400 generic outreach messages. It's the same discipline as a large-scale unsolicited application campaign, but applied to a research project.

Two enrichments make personalisation much more effective. First, understanding the company's technical maturity: its tech stack visible on its website tells you whether it skews software, industrial, or hybrid — and helps you frame your project in their terms. Second, verifying its official records: legal data (corporate form, directors) gives you its actual size and the names of decision-makers. You can go further by automatically retrieving the SIRET / SIREN / VAT / RCS identifiers for each company — which you'll need anyway when it comes time to assemble the CIFRE application file.

With all of this in hand, your outreach message stops being copy-paste. You can write: "I noticed you filed a patent on X in 2024; my thesis project focuses on Y, which directly extends that line of work." That level of precision is what makes a company write back.

Finding the right contact: R&D manager and lab

The right person at the company is rarely the general HR department: aim for the R&D manager, the technical director (CTO), or the founder for smaller structures. On the academic side, you simultaneously look for the public lab that will supervise the thesis, since a CIFRE cannot exist without this company-lab pairing.

The ANRT, 2026 actually recommends publishing your profile on its matchmaking platform, mapping your target companies, and then contacting the right people. To identify those people, extracting the company's social profiles and looking up the emails of decision-makers in your target sector saves a considerable amount of time. And if you want to broaden your search beyond established companies, the list of incubators and structures hosting innovative projects can surface early-stage tech companies that aren't yet visible elsewhere.

Once you've identified your contact, keep a clean tracking file: name, role, company, R&D signal, date of first contact. That methodical follow-through — more than luck — is what ultimately lands a CIFRE.

FAQ — Targeting R&D companies for a CIFRE PhD

How can I tell whether a company does R&D?

Look for objective signals: patents filed in its name in the INPI database, Jeune Entreprise Innovante (JEI) status (which requires at least 20% of expenses allocated to R&D), CIR accreditation, or job postings for research roles in your field.

Where can I find a free list of companies by sector and location?

The INSEE SIRENE database, available for free, lets you filter establishments by activity (NAF code) and by municipality, department, or region. You can then cross-reference that list with INPI patents to keep only those with genuine research activity.

Should I find the company or the lab first?

Both searches often happen in parallel. Many future doctoral candidates start from their master's lab, then look for a company whose needs overlap with the lab's research topic. The reverse also works: you identify a company filing patents in your field, then find a compatible lab.

How many companies do I need to contact to land a CIFRE?

There is no official number. Given the typical timelines (often six to twelve months) and low response rates, targeting a few dozen well-qualified, personalised outreach messages is more realistic than a mass generic send.

How much does a CIFRE doctoral candidate actually cost the company?

Less than you might think: over the three years of the thesis, the ANRT notes that the company receives an annual grant of 14,000 €, stackable with the Research Tax Credit (CIR), which significantly reduces the net cost of the hire. This is an argument worth making directly to SMEs.

Can OutSend put together my CIFRE application for me?

No. OutSend helps you upstream: building and enriching your list of target companies (location, sector, R&D signals, contacts, legal data). The application itself, the research proposal, and the CIFRE agreement remain your responsibility — together with your lab and the ANRT.

This article is part of a broader series: see the guide to prospecting without a SIRET number.