Karine Gros is a senior lecturer at the University of Paris-Est-Créteil in the field of Humanities and Life Sciences (employment of disabled persons). She created and directed the first research and training chair focused on the professional integration of disabled persons: the Handicap, Employment and Health at Work Chair.

2020 – 2023: Appointed by the former Minister Sophie Cluzel, Qualified Person at the National Consultative Council of Disabled Persons (CNCPH)

July 14, 2022: Appointed by the Grand Chancellor to the rank of Knight in the National Order of the Legion of Honor

After obtaining the Agrégation de Lettres Modernes Karine Gros wrote, under the direction of Jean-Yves Tadié, Professor Emeritus at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, the first doctoral thesis devoted to the contemporary author Gérard Macé (La pensée littéraire de Gérard Macé: Textes et images 1974-2004). Her research work has focused on the construction of authors and readers through fiction.

Determined to work for society, Karine Gros is committed to disability and has developed an expertise in the field of training and research on the employment of people with disabilities.
Following this double expertise in Humanities and Life Sciences, Karine Gros passed in 2021 her Habilitation to Supervise Research (HDR) entitled “Construction of the professional self: from the authors to the actors of insertion, rehabilitation and re-education”, which she had the honor of defending at the French National Assembly, with the participation of the former Minister Marie-Anne Montchamp (president of the jury of Karine Gros’s HDR) and the former Member of Parliament Thierry Michels.
Karine Gros’ research work thus crosses two axes: the construction of oneself and the professional integration of disabled people.

Karine Gros’ first works (4 publications; about forty articles) were devoted to contemporary literature known as “demanding”: a literature distinguished by its stylistic and poetic richness and its reflection on the (re-)construction of the self through languages, literature, arts and philosophical thought. This research has led Karine Gros to develop the concepts of “fractalization of the subject” and “identifiction” to define the construction of identity in works of extreme contemporary literature.

Her research has contributed to the valorization of major authors, still too little (re-)known at the beginning of her work. Karine Gros has published the first monographs on Gérard Macé and Christian Doumet: Gérard Macé, une oltracuidansa poética (Editions Nota Bene, 2009); Christian Doumet, une fiction du vécu (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2013).

This literary reflection on autobiographical writing, the study of the quest for origins and identity, and the emergence of the concept of “identifiction” have nourished subsequent research and training work devoted to the construction of the professional self: the professionalization of those involved in the professional integration of disabled people and those involved in support, management and care. Karine Gros has published several reference works, some scientific, others professionalizing, for the academic world and companies, dedicated to the professional integration of disabled people and the training of actors. (cf. below “publications”)

Indeed, in parallel to her research work in the field of literature and under the impulse of the Disability Act of February 11, 2005, Karine Gros developed research and training projects on the pedagogical support of pupils and students with disabilities. She then devoted herself to the professionalization of those involved in the professional integration of people with disabilities, noting that universities were not yet sufficiently involved in the support of young people with disabilities towards employment.

In order to give new impetus to research on disability, Karine Gros created the first multi-professional team “Disability and Employment” bringing together academics (UPEC, Université Gustave Eiffel, Université Paris 8 Saint-Denis, Université Paris-Descartes, INSHEA… ), companies (Thales, Decathlon, Capgemini, Groupe Lecaux, Handiprint, Groupe Rocher, Manpower, Cap&Pro France, etc.), players specializing in disability and employment (Réseau GESAT, Cap emploi, Missions locales, Hand-AURA, the Ellen Poidatz Foundation, etc.), follow-up care and rehabilitation providers (Établissement et Service de Pré-Orientation – ESPO, Établissement et Service de Réadaptation Professionnelle – ESRP, La Fagerh, Comète France, etc.), institutional players (Direction régionale et interdépartementale de l’économie, de l’emploi, du travail et des solidarités – DRIEETS, Agefiph, Fiphfp, Agence Régionale de la Santé, etc.) and associations of disabled people.

Convinced of the need to accompany disabled people in their life project and of the importance of considering professional integration as the outcome of a successful schooling and as a key to social integration, Karine Gros has put her university expertise in Human Sciences at the service of companies in order to put the human being at the heart of the managerial success of organizations with a view to creating an enabling environment and an ergological organization of the work, favourable to the professional integration of disabled people and to the development of a strategy of wellbeing in the workplace.

Her expertise in human sciences has enabled her to develop innovative research on the support of disabled people by integration and care workers, focusing on the construction of the professional self, on the ethics of care, on the ergological method and on the feeling of personal and professional effectiveness of all (disabled people, work group, support and care workers), thus crossing the work of Albert Bandura, Pierre Falzon, but also Alain Supiot and Yann Schwartz.

Karine Gros has published 6 books and numerous scientific articles on the employment of people with disabilities.

Scientific leader of the ANR project “Training to create an inclusive organization” (IDEA National Research Agency) from 2018 to 2020, she coordinates the seminar “Disability and employment” within the University Research School (EUR) LIVE: LIfe trajectories and health VulnErability. She leads the professionalization and research project and CookiNUM, winner of the DEFFINUM (“Dispositifs France formation innovante Numérique”) call for projects launched in 2021 by the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Inclusion.

CookiNUM is an operational research and innovative training project whose ambition is to support vocational training centers in the digital transformation of training for jobs in shortage in the catering industry, whether traditional or fast food, by meeting accessibility requirements. Through these innovations, the ambition of this national project is to bring together people who are traditionally far from employment with jobs in shortage and to bring together the territories.

The job of disability advisor responds to massive needs in skills within organizations, and can be considered today as an emerging job, which appeared and developed both in connection with socio-economic needs and with the recent legislation in favor of the inclusion of people with disabilities.

Indeed, the Law n°2018-771 of September 5, 2018, for the freedom to choose one’s professional future provides for the appointment of a disability referent within companies with at least two hundred and fifty employees and Apprentice Training Centers (CFA). It contributes to the emergence of the job of disability referent and its evolution.

In this context, these organizations, whether private or public, are obliged to have a disability advisor to manage their disability policy.

In anticipation of these socio-economic needs, Karine Gros decided with Didier Tourneroche, Honorary Inspector of National Education for the Adaptation and Schooling of Handicapped Students (ASH), to create and co-direct the University Diploma (DU) “Disability Advisor – private sector, public service, associative sector” sponsored by Marie-Anne Montchamp and Patrick Gohet, former Deputy Defender of Rights and President of the International Foundation for Applied Research on Disability (FIRAH).

This DU, which currently trains about a hundred disability referents every year, is nationally recognized for its impact on the development of skills and expertise and for its highly professionalizing nature. Thales, the Ministry of Justice, the Social Ministries and the Ministry of the Armed Forces have therefore decided to sign a multi-year agreement to professionalize all their disability advisors through this DU.

In the perspective of an ever more just and inclusive society, Karine Gros decided in 2022 to create, with Major Chams-Ddine Belkhayat, Saint-Cyrien, career manager, president of Bleu Network and Bleu Inclusion, the first University Diploma “Référent Emploi Accompagné” (Supported Employment Advisor), which responds, like the DU Référent Handicap (Disability Advisor Diploma), to the current socio-economic needs and the expectations of companies and public organizations.

In order to give a national scope to her work and to allow companies to seize the results of her research and training projects, Karine Gros has decided to create, with the multi-professional team of actors she has gathered around her since 2009 (academics, companies, actors specialized in employment, disability, care and rehabilitation actors, institutional actors, associations, social partners…) a clearly identified Research Chair of reference in the field of disability, employment and health at work with a prospective, integrative and operational ambition.

Karine Gros’s ambition is to develop new collaborations with the academic, institutional and socio-economic world within the “Disability, Employment and Health at work” Research Chair, as well as training and research-action projects, by producing methods and tools that define the best strategies for integration, in order to change forms of work and professional environments, to encourage social innovation, and to promote occupational health and collective and individual well-being for the benefit of a more dignified and more inclusive society.

It is because Karine Gros created the first multi-professional Disability and Employment team, the innovative DU Disability Advisor and Supported Employment Advisor training courses, that she created the Disability, Employment and Health at work Reference Research Chair within UPEC, and that she was appointed UPEC Disability Project Manager in 2020 that disability is now recognized as a strategic axis of UPEC. It is because Karine Gros has become a key player in the field of training and research that the prestigious Cercle Montesquieu and Droit comme un H! have asked her to be a member of the jury of the Tech for Legal Accessibility competition and to testify on the stakes of this investment that she has been asked to join the HandiHA Committee of Experts and that Ladapt has solicited Karine Gros from 2022 onwards to contribute to the organization of the national and annual event of the European Week for the Employment of People with Disabilities.

It is as a result of these commitments with strong societal impacts that Karine Gros had the privilege of defending her Habilitation to Supervise Research at the National Assembly on November 27, 2021, that she was appointed in 2020 by Minister Sophie Cluzel as a “Qualified Person on the National Advisory Council for the Disabled – CNCPH”, “She was also appointed by the Grand Chancellor to the rank of Knight in the National Order of the Legion of Honor.

• Gros, K. (2009) L’Oeuvre de gérard macé: Une Oltracuidansa Poetica. Québec: Éditions Nota Bene.
• Gros, K. (2013) L’œuvre de Christian Doumet, une fiction du vécu, Presses universitaires de rennes.
• Gros, K. (2014)  Costumes, reflets et illusions. Les habits d’emprunt dans la création contemporaine, Presses Universitaires de Rennes.
• Gros, K., Plagnol, M. (2014) La conquête de la langue : traductions et échanges culturel.

• Gros, K., Lopez-Krahe, J., Truck, I. (2015) Handicap, Vieillissement, Indépendance, Technologies, Edition IFRATH
• Gros, K., Lefranc, G. (2019) Emploi et Handicap : de la culture de la RSE à l’émergence de nouvelles formes de travail, Editions Législatives, ESF. Preface Marie-Anne Montchamp, former minister.
• Gros, K., Morere, G. Uzan, Y. (2021), Handicap, Vieillissement, Autonomie, Insertion, Technologies, Edition IFRATH.

• Gros, K., Taquet, A. and Lefranc, G. (2020) Professionnaliser Le Référent Handicap: Connaissances, compétences, Savoir-être et Savoir-Faire. Division des Éditions législatives. Montrouge: ESF editor.
• Gros, K. (2020) 100 questions-réponses pour l’emploi des personnes handicapées. Montrouge: Editions législatives. Preface by Thierry Michels, former Member of Parliament, co-author with Carine Radian of the report “Towards full citizenship for people with disabilities: representation and participation in the construction of public policies for an inclusive society”.
• Gros, K., Binisti, P. and Belkhayat, C.-D. (2021) Autisme: Comprendre Pour Mieux Accompagner. Editions Législatives, ESF. Preface by Professor Bertrand Monthubert, head of the Aspie Friendly project (PIA ANR-7). Inaugural chapter composed by the Délégation Interministérielle à l’autisme et aux troubles du neuro-développement.

• Labouret, D. (2011) Méthodes et pratiques, Littérature, Lycée 2nde et 1°, Hatier Edition.
• Perrin, A. À l’école des albums, Méthode de lecture, niveau Cours Préparatoire, RETZ Edition, (2 series: first series published in 2013, second series published in 2016).
• Gros, K. (2002) Dom Juan, Hatier, coll. Classiques et Cie.