[4] It is headquartered in Paris and has administrative offices in Brussels, Beijing, Tokyo, Singapore, Washington, D.C., Bonn, Moscow, Tunis, Johannesburg, Santiago de Chile, Israel, and New Delhi.

The CNRS also has support units, which may, for instance, supply administrative, computing, library, or engineering services.

Separate competitives campaigns are held in each of the forty disciplinary fields covered by the institution and organized in sections.

The same applies if a candidate has worked extensively with one of the jury members over the past two years, or has a direct and regular relationship with him or her.

Since 1954, the centre has annually awarded gold, silver, and bronze medals to French scientists and junior researchers.

The effectiveness of the recruitment, compensation, career management, and evaluation procedures of CNRS have been under scrutiny.

Another controversial plan advanced by the government involves breaking up the CNRS into six separate institutes.

These modifications, which were again proposed in 2021 by think tanks such as the Institut Montaigne,[11] have been massively rejected by French scientists, leading to multiple protests.