SystemX begins the 2019-2025 phase with a new roadmap, revolving around a reorganization of its activities and a clarified offer, in order to align its strategic research axes and skills with the ever-evolving stakes of companies.
Since its creation in 2013, IRT SystemX has been conducting collocated collaborative research projects, bringing together more than 100 economic partners and 32 academic laboratories. The institute has distinguished itself by its ability to address use cases and to promote multilateral and inter-sectoral collaborations. Its rise in skills allows it to have a critical mass of experts on the key areas of digital transformation (AI, cyber, IoT, etc.). The impact of its actions can be seen in the creation of value between all the actors (start-ups, SMEs, ETIs, Large Groups, academic players), thanks to its agility in the setting up of projects and access to territories of dynamic experiments like Paris-Saclay, Lyon and Singapore where the IRT has set up.
In its project until 2025, the IRT will continue to accelerate the digital transformation of industries and services, at the heart of a booming industry. To this end, it is reorganizing its activities around 4 priority sectors and 8 scientific and technical research areas.
4 priority application markets
SystemX will work on 4 main application markets: Mobility and Autonomous transport, Industry of the future, Defense and security, and Environment and Sustainable development. The institute will be able to address new sectors later, depending on the problems encountered by the industry.
At the same time, the IRT wanted to clarify and broaden its areas of expertise, in order to support partners’ new expectations on all new digital technologies, while promoting better management of skills. 8 scientific and technical fields have thus been defined: Data Science and AI; Human-machine interaction; Scientific calculation ; Optimization; System Engineering and Software Design; Dependability of critical systems; Digital security and bockchain; IoT and future networks. Each of these areas is associated with one or more scientific challenges. It should also be noted that each of these areas will rely on one or more technology platforms developed within the institute which constitute the digital base of its work.
The definition of use cases and project installation will be based on the intersection of these 4 application sectors and of these 8 scientific and technical fields. They will thus make it possible to knock down the scientific and technological barriers associated with a given application field.
A new offer including 3 modalities of partnerships
The new offer as defined by SystemX echoes its three main missions: to accelerate the use of technologies for value creation, to reinforce the collaborative R & D capabilities of companies, and to stimulate the production of knowledge.
The first part, called “Boost“, consists of supporting an industrial partner for a short time, wishing to test technological solutions for a specific use case and to understand their interest in its business lines. This agile service makes it possible to realize within a few months a Proof of Concept (POC) from bricks “on shelf” or pre-existing within the IRT. Applications may for example relate to disruptive technologies such as AI, blockchain or cybersecurity.
The “Improve” offer is the historic offer of the IRT; it contributes to the skills development of partners and aims to consolidate innovation ecosystems through the conduct of collaborative R&D projects aimed at removing scientific and technological barriers. These projects, lasting from 2 to 5 years, bring together employees from large groups, SMEs, SystemX research engineers and academic players to place scientific excellence at the service of industrial challenges. In order to identify the priority issues to address, the institute will rely on four fundamental pillars: societal needs, roadmaps of industrial partners, recommendations from the academic world and the skills of its engineers-researchers.
Finally, the third component, “Advance“, aims to unite the skills and excellence of academic partners around major scientific challenges, through joint research initiatives, industrial chairs or doctoral programs. This offer stimulates the production of knowledge in a given technological field (e.g. the BART academic research collective dedicated to the Blockchain launched in 2018). In this regard, SystemX aims in particular to build a major emblematic project around the topic of “Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Engineering, or how to hybridize the AI with business knowledge and physical models.
