  We introduce a method, based on an exact calculation of the effective action
at large N, to bridge the gap between mean field theory and renormalization in
complex systems. We apply it to a d-dimensional manifold in a random potential
for large embedding space dimension N. This yields a functional renormalization
group equation valid for any d, which contains both the O(epsilon=4-d) results
of Balents-Fisher and some of the non-trivial results of the Mezard-Parisi
solution thus shedding light on both. Corrections are computed at order O(1/N).
Applications to the problems of KPZ, random field and mode coupling in glasses
are mentioned.
