Responding to major socio-economic challenges

Ensuring the continuum between fundamental research, engineering and innovation

Objects of study in the making

The research conducted at the INSIS concerns study objects to be designed and optimized, which are still in the process of development at the time when interest focuses on them. This characteristic leads to specific fundamental activities and research into the methods of the engineering sciences themselves. Most of these are contextualized by the evolution of society and its major issues, but also by the needs of industry.

An integrative or systemic approach

The INSIS is thus committed to developing the disciplinary base of engineering and systems sciences by advancing knowledge, methods and technologies. The Institute advocates an integrative (multi-scale and multi-physical) or systemic approach (taking into account the different subsystems and their interactions).

Multi- and interdisciplinary research

Most of the study objects tackled by the INSIS laboratories mobilize multidisciplinary corpuses and require interdisciplinary approaches (within the institute or via associations with other institutes).

The added value of academic and industrial partnerships

Universities and engineering schools

The INSIS laboratories are mostly co-managed with universities or engineering schools. The latter are partners with strong specific features. CNRS personnel account for a quarter of the permanent staff of the INSIS units, mainly made up of lecturer-researchers, thus ensuring a strong link between research and training.

The INSIS laboratories are heavily involved in the national network of doctoral schools in engineering sciences.

The REDOC SPI site

Interactions with the Epic Institutes

The INSIS maintains close links with various public establishments of industrial and commercial natures (CEA, DGA, Onera, Cnes, CSTB, IRSN, Ifsttar, etc.), making it possible to increase the interdisciplinarity and complementarity of the skills within its laboratories.

Companies

The INSIS is highly focused on socio-economic issues. So, over the years it has forged strong partnerships with various players in industry. Priorities are the creation of joint laboratories with major groups (Thales, PSA, Total, etc.) or SME-ETI, encouraging the creation of businesses or the establishment of strategic partnerships, both nationally and internationally. The INSIS is also involved in competitiveness clusters, the Carnot Institutes, technological research institutes (IRT) and institutes for energy transition (ITE).

Two regulatory bodies for monitoring and evaluation

The Institute Scientific Council (ISC)

Like all the CNRS Institutes, the INSIS is supervised by an Institute Scientific Council (ISC), which assists it in implementing its scientific policy. Council members are consulted in the event of disagreement over recruitment and the creation or closure of units.

The National Committee for Scientific Research (CoNRS)

The work of researchers and laboratories is evaluated by the National Committee for Scientific Research (CoNRS). The INSIS runs three interdisciplinary sections and commissions.