UTC has been com­mit­ted for some time to a deve­lop­ment poli­cy cha­rac­te­ri­zed by the crea­tion of a local inno­va­tion and crea­ti­vi­ty eco-sys­tem, with the assi­gned ambi­tion to fede­rate and coor­di­nate the actors and tools concer­ned to attain a coor­di­na­ted sup­port mecha­nism for inno­va­tion in the area.

Living lab

Deve­lop­ment of tech­ni­cal solu­tions requires two, com­ple­men­ta­ry levels of exper­tise: viz., that there be:

• a gua­ran­tee as to fea­si­bi­li­ty and relia­bi­li­ty of the solu­tions pro­po­sed and to back them up with scien­ti­fic cer­tain­ty (either existent or to be created);
• a pro­per unders­tan­ding of the uses and use­ful­ness of the sys­tems pro­po­sed to retro­fit the desi­gns if dee­med necessary.

It is the research labo­ra­to­ries who respond first, fol­lo­wed by the Living Labs. The lat­ter, as per the defi­ni­tion above, are plat­forms that enable us how to unders­tand how the tools are (or can be) used in a given context, to test and explain sce­na­rios and emer­ging trends.

The UTC Inno­va­tion Centre hosts inte­gra­tive plat­forms, e.g., a connec­ted 'medi­care' house, or cir­cuits for self-drive vehicles. The plat­forms consti­tute a first stage towards ano­ther dimen­sion offe­red by Living Labs: beyond just being a focal point for new tools and tech­no­lo­gies, the Living Lab is also repre­sents a "slice of real life" in which the new devices and pro­ducts can be ins­tal­led, tes­ted under real life condi­tions and modi­fied accor­ding to the conclu­sions drawn by the research scien­tists present. To illus­trate, we have a fleet of buses with inter-vehicle com­mu­ni­ca­tion devices, tes­ted as the buses go along their stan­dard routes, or the connec­ted real life 'reti­re­ment care-home' that is an exten­sion of one of the inte­gra­ted platforms.

What this implies is a revo­lu­tion, of the notion of a labo­ra­to­ry. Before, scien­tist iso­la­ted them­selves in their ivo­ry towers and car­ried out obser­va­tions of the phe­no­me­na they wan­ted to inves­ti­gate. Now, we must inte­grate uses and observe the users. Tech­no­lo­gies bridge these two dis­tinct visions.

The technology-intensive platforms

One of the chal­lenges facing tech­no­lo­gi­cal research is to meet the expec­ta­tions of indus­trial sec­tors to avail of (or have access to) viable, ope­ra­tio­nal tech­no­lo­gies under real user and pro­duc­tion condi­tions. If a research labo­ra­to­ry can cer­ti­fy a tech­ni­cal prin­ciple, there must also be a fol­low-up assess­ment as to whe­ther the prin­ciple will remain valid under real pro­duc­tion conditions.

For this rea­son, there must be tech­no­lo­gi­cal plat­forms that allow you to build and test pro­cesses under condi­tions close to the real pro­duc­tion envi­ron­ment, in such a man­ner that the sec­tors concer­ned can use the results an d be assu­red as to having a viable pro­duct industrialization.

The plat­forms at the Inno­va­tion Centre also play a cru­cial role inas­much as they enable the UTC student-engi­neers to acquire a first expe­rience of how to frame/solve pro­blems and of the know-how a future employer would expect from them, professionally.

Through its research labo­ra­to­ries, UTC and the Inno­va­tion Centre today have these plat­forms and can devote time and research to some 'flag­ship' type pro­blems, such as for ins­tance, future rail­road infra­struc­tures and rol­ling stock, smart vehicles, drones, move­ment sen­sors and aug­men­ted rea­li­ty, etc.

Uteam, a network of experts from the university and associate research activities

Uteam, is a UTC sub­si­dia­ry, that com­bines the offers and capa­ci­ties of the UTC labo­ra­to­ries and Escom, is as sort of pri­vi­le­ged hyphen bet­ween the needs expres­sed by enter­prises and a net­work of experts who come from the Uni­ver­si­ty and asso­ciate research activities.

Uteam was crea­ted in 1987 to help enter­prises of all sizes to bene­fit from the skills and know-how of a net­work of experts com­pri­sing research scien­tist, lec­tu­rers and spe­cia­list consul­tants who, toge­ther, cover the spe­ci­fic needs of deve­lo­ping, inno­va­tive com­pa­nies and emer­ging projects.

Site web d'UTEAM

Contact

Contacts pour l'innovation à l'UTC

Direc­tion aux par­te­na­riats socio-éco­no­miques et à l'entrepreneuriat

Samuel Veille­rette

 +33 (0)3 44 23 73 59

samuel.veillerette@utc.fr

Assis­tante

Fou­zia Zitou­ni

 +33 (0)3 44 23 45 91

fouzia.zitouni@utc.fr

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