The IAR Pole

Industries and agro-resources (IAR)

The com­pe­ti­ti­vi­ty pole Indus­tries and agro-resources (IAR), with two Regio­nal loca­tions (Picar­die and Cham­pagne-Ardenne) was set up in 2005 with the concept of plant refi­ning (for a demons­tra­tor bio-refi­ne­ry). Just like oil, plants contain a huge varie­ty of mole­cules that can be refi­ned. Each plant com­ponent can extrac­ted, func­tio­na­li­zed to pro­duce for example ener­gy (heat, fuels …), new mate­rials (for the buil­ding sec­tor, for packa­ging), refi­ned mole­cules (for che­mis­try, cos­me­tics, paint …) and active addi­tive and ingre­dients for the agro-food indus­trial sectors.

With sus­tai­nable deve­lop­ment as the objec­tive, the IAR pole intends to meet socie­tal demands in terms of rene­wable mat­ter and raw mate­rials and pro­cesses that pre­serve the envi­ron­ment bet­ter and help the fight against cli­mate change (glo­bal war­ming), bea­ring in mind consu­mer health and secu­ri­ty. The rich­ness of the pole relates to the large varie­ty of the actors: enter­prises (SMEs and major indus­trial Groups), the agri­cul­tu­ral co-ope­ra­tives, 20–25 research and trai­ning establishments.

UTC works in close col­la­bo­ra­tion with the IAR pole ever since it was set up. Trai­ning is a key concern for the pole, to the extent that the indus­tria­lists who are deve­lo­ping new pro­ducts and pro­cesses in the fra­me­work of the IAR pole's acti­vi­ties are also keen to recruit trai­ned per­son­nel, who are fami­liar with inclu­ding bio­mass in pro­cesses that help pre­serve the environment.

Engi­neer trai­ning in bio­lo­gy and asso­ciate spe­cial­ties enables the stu­dents to tackle the full range of life sciences to exploit them in pro­mi­sing indus­trial appli­ca­tions and also to assemble the equip­ment nee­ded for the bio­tech­no­lo­gi­cal, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, cos­me­tic agro-food sec­tor and medi­cal pro­cesses. Trai­ning in pro­cess engi­nee­ring enables stu­dents to tackle a wide range of bio­mass indus­trial pro­cesses, to sepa­rate ener­gy pro­du­cing com­po­nents or other use­ful com­pounds. Stress is laid on opti­mi­zed and inno­va­tive pro­cesses that pre­serve the envi­ron­ment in com­pliance with the prin­ciples of green chemistry.UTC labo­ra­to­ries acti­ve­ly par­ti­ci­pate in various R&D pro­jects under­way at the IAR pole. The wide range of skills of the UTC research scien­tists allows them to work with com­plete plants up to the point of using them indus­trial­ly, with extrac­tion of spe­ci­fic mole­cules using inno­va­tive pro­cesses and their incor­po­ra­tion in new products.