Inria - 2012 Annual Report: Digital Technology, the social dimension

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY, THE SOCIAL DIMENSION

ANNUAL REPORT 2012

Domaine de Voluceau — Rocquencourt BP 10578153 Le Chesnay Cedex FranceTel.:+33(0)139 63 55 11Fax:+33(0)139 63 53 30

www.inria.fr

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DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY: THE SOCIAL DIMENSION • 02 • Health and well-being• Society and education• Environment and sustainable development• Data• Systems

STRATEGY • 13 • Interview with Michel Cosnard• 2 questions for Claude Kirchner• A view from Antoine Petit

365 DAYS • 17 Signifi cant events of the year

ONGOING COLLABORATIONS • 24 Whatever the stage of development (hypothesis, project-team up and running, technology transfer), our research is boosted by a wide range of collaborations, including interactions with the business world, academic or industrial partners, civil society, etc. Follow the guide...

MISSIONS • 26 • Research• Partnerships• Technology transfer• Raising the profi le

of computational sciences

INRIA IN FACTS AND FIGURES • 53

CONTENTS

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Inria — Annual Report 2012

In the space of a generation, digital technology has revolutionised oour livves and oourr acttiviitiees, changing the way we see the world. It can be found in every fi eld, with the modeling, analysis and processing of data whose volume and complexity is growing all the time, particularly since the Internet became widely available. It is also key to addressing the challenges faced in the fi elds of health, energy and natural resource management, environmental conservation, and education as well as society as a whole. In transforming the ways in which we communicate and give and receive information, it is changing the nature of ouur reelattioonsshhhipp wwithh oothheer people and with the wwoorrldd. Inria researchers therefore face a wide range of new challenges in order to guide and support the digital transformation of our lives and prepare for the woorldd off toommoorrooww………

GUIDING AND SUPPORTING THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OF OUR SOCIETY

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Thanks to digital technology, medicine is making giant leaps forward. Biomedical techniques are enabling us to live better and longer, and responses to health issues are now taking into account dimensions such as comfort and well-being.

P revention, prediction, participation and personalisation are the challenges for medicine, which is using scientifi c advances to enhance its understanding

of the complexities of the human body, prevent disease and improve the support and guidance given to patients through more personalised care and better sharing of information between doctors and patients. With the advent of digital technology and medical imaging, new tools have appeared which make it possible to go even further in understanding living organisms and analysing cases and operations. It is now possible to model organs on a computer, study complex biological systems, detect diseases and even optimise surgical procedures through the use of augmented reality and specialised robots. Many challenges remain to be met, but, in developed countries, where life expectancy and quality of life have improved markedly, the pursuit of comfort and well-being is becoming increasingly important. In this area, too, digital technology is making a key strategic contribution, with the development of home healthcare and the quantifi ed self, for example, which offer better access to more personalised care.

Biotechnologies: a miracle cure?

HEALTH AND WELL-BEING



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Inria — Annual Report 2012Inria — Annual Report 2012

The Web and digital technologies are paving the way for new forms of education in which each individual can learn and progress as he/she wishes. These appealing methods are transforming the traditional educational model.

In November 2011, an artifi cial intelligence class at Stanford University was attended by 160,000 students. Not in a lecture theatre,

of course, but online. In April 2013, Coursera, a site which provides free courses on the Internet, offered over 300 modules from around sixty universities and had over three million users worldwide. MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) are enjoying growing success, not only with students, for whom they provide access to high-quality teaching on all kinds of subjects, wherever they are in the world, but also with teachers, who are able to reach a vast audience online. This new form of education seems to be tailor-made for the Internet generation, which has grown up on computers and social networks. However, it raises a number of questions. Can a qualifi cation be awarded for following this kind of course? What digital tools need to be invented to optimise the effectiveness of these courses? What place do human relationships have in virtual classes? How can struggling students be helped? Will open-access self-learning complement traditional education or replace it? Who manages the data generated by students during the learning process? All these questions pose challenges for the world of education and research...

Self-learning: the end of traditional education?

SOCIETY AND EDUCATION

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Inria — Annual Report 2012 Inria — Rapport annuel 2011

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By developing our observation and analysis capabilities, digital technology offers invaluable tools for monitoring and preserving the environment. The impact of digital technology on the environment is the subject of legitimate debate, but this technology is perhaps found in places where people do not expect it...

T he impact of digital technology in preserving the environment and resources is based on a progressive approach: observing (by collecting

and transporting data from networks, Web applications, smartphones, satellites, etc.), understanding and interpreting (with data processing, modeling and simulation) and fi nally making recommendations based on the scenarios and visualisations created. There are already many fi elds of application in the management of natural resources and pollution (water, energy, air, soil), in new mobility solutions and in building and neighbourhood management. Today, for example, digital technology can be used to model ground water in order to predict available water quantities, to optimise wind farms through wind analysis, to analyse complex, heterogeneous data on air or water quality, or to determine soil fertility or pollution. In eco-business, which is dealing with growing amounts of increasingly distributed, uncertain and heterogeneous data, the role of digital technology is vital in the preventive detection of faults or breakdowns and in adapting consumption to production. The development of the Web, social networks and smartphone applications is creating information channels and opportunities for the sharing of information between operators, local authorities and citizens. The user is now central to the interaction process and innovations are user-led: a real sea change in attitudes has taken place.

Can digital technology save the planet?

ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT




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In providing free and instant access to a multitude of content of all kinds, the Web surpasses any library. However, there are some subtle differences between disseminating information and sharing knowledge...

D iderot and Voltaire, like other Enlightenment philosophers, dreamt of a universal system for disseminating knowledge to combat ignorance.

Two centuries later, the chances of their dream becoming reality were given a huge boost with the birth of the Internet. Knowledge has never been as easily accessible as it is today; almost anyone can now express and share ideas on all kinds of subjects. But this development has a fl ip-side: the Web has become a victim of its own success as a forum for free expression, a place where the very best humanity has to offer coexists with the very worst, and where the truth is sometimes hidden beneath partisan or commercial rhetoric. With the exponential growth in the amount of data on the Internet, the diffi culty lies not in fi nding information, but in unearthing the meaningful information that we really need. Social networks further complicate the matter by drowning this useful information among a mass of useless chatter. What place does the quest for knowledge have alongside commerce and entertainment in this digital world? Will the semantic Web, so dear to researchers, be enough to guide us towards real knowledge through this constantly expanding space?

Is the Web really a vector for knowledge?

DATA

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In the digital era, information is central to our daily lives and to every facet of our societies. But, like a new black gold, coveted on all sides, the processing of this information poses not insubstantial risks…

A ccording to the site GloboMeter, nearly 13 computers and 15 smartphones are sold each second worldwide. More broadly, it is estimated that there should be

around 24 billion communicating digital objects on the planet in 2020 – as against 9 billion in 2011. The quantity of data stored and exchanged on networks confi rms this frenetic growth. Each day, more than 100 million tweets are posted and 3 billion Google searches are performed. These mind-blowingly high fi gures show the growing complexity of the digital world in which we now live: a world populated by machines and software processing billions of terabytes of data. Because it is so sophisticated, this combination of information systems engenders multiple problems. How can this gigantic mass of disparate “big data” be harnessed? How can we guarantee the confi dentiality of sensitive information? What risks do these technologies pose in a society prone to commercial or criminal misbehaviour? And who will control access to these sprawling systems on which we have become so dependent in our daily lives?

Do megasystems mean megarisks?

SYSTEMS



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12


PROFILE

32initial patents fi led

127software applications submitted to the APP (France’s software protection agency)

4,720 reference publications (articles and conference papers)

324theses defended

62associate teams linked to foreign universities and laboratories

2,676persons paid by the institute

and 1,721 by our partners, that means 4,397 persons

contributed to Inria’s activities.

181project-teams (at 31 December 2012), nearly 80% of which are affi liated with another research institute, a university or a school

80%

20%

881 engineers, technicians and administrators

670 researchers and research-lecturers

484 PhD students

406 R&D engineers

208 post-doctoral researchers

27 other staff (apprentices, interns and stand-ins)

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Inria — Annual Report 2012 Inria — Annual Report 2012

STRATEGY

Once again this year, several teams have benefi ted from new buildings. Isn’t that unusual for a research institute of Inria’s size?

Michel Cosnard • 2012 certainly marked a defi ning moment in our development. Some buildings had been expected for over ten years – the building at the École Polytechnique campus in Saclay, for instance, which brings together certain of our research teams from the Inria Saclay – Île-de-France research centre, our Inria Joint Lab affi liated with Microsoft Research, and the Polytechnique’s computer science laboratory.

Buildings have also been opened in Bordeaux and Lille, as well as a technology transfer space in Grenoble and a virtual reality platform (one of the largest in the world) at the Inria Rennes–Bretagne Atlantique

centre. This reinforcement of our regional presence is to everyone’s benefi t. Although we are the clients for these new buildings, we receive fi rm support from local and regional authorities, universities and, in some cases, Europe.

2012 saw also the launch of a number of structures created under the French government’s Future Investments programme.

Michel Cosnard • We are partners in a number of large-scale projects which provide a real fi llip for both our scientifi c expertise and our technology transfer activities.

We are involved in fi ve laboratories of excellence: UCN@Sophia and SIGNALIFE in Sophia Antipolis, Henri-Lebesgue and CominLabs in Rennes, and PERSYVAL-Lab in Grenoble.

INTERVIEW WITH MICHEL COSNARD INRIA CHAIRMAN AND CEO

We are partners in a number

of large-scale projects which provide a real

fi llip for both our scientifi c

expertise and our technology

transfer activities.

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These laboratories ensure good coordination with our partners and stable funding over several years for our priority projects. The Institute is also involved in fi ve of the eight technological research institutes, in the fi elds of computational systems engineering (SystemX, Saclay), digital networks and infrastructures (B-com, Rennes), nanoelectronics (NanoElec, Grenoble), infectology (BIOASTER, Lyon) and advanced production technologies (Jules-Verne, Nantes). Inria is also a partner of the GreenStars Institute of Excellence for Carbon-Free Energy, which aims to develop biofuels using micro-algae. Lastly, we are heavily involved in three of the six university hospital institutes: IHU Strasbourg, LIRYC in Bordeaux and A-ICM in Paris, which are working, respectively, on minimally invasive surgery, heart rate modeling and diseases of the nervous system. These collaborations mark the culmination of the move into healthcare research we began ten years ago as part of our 2003–2007 strategic plan.

Your research with Chile has been lent fresh impetus by the launch of the Inria Chile Foundation, which is, among other things, handling the technology transfer and innovation activities for the Ciric programme

(Communication and Information Research and Innovation Centre). Why are these partnerships structured in the way they are?

Michel Cosnard • We have been working with the main Chilean universities for over twenty years. Today, we have around ten joint associate teams. The work of the Ciric programme concerns three fi elds: hybrid energy, management of natural resources and the Internet and communication networks. The Inria Chile Foundation encompasses this programme, as well as other research, particularly in astronomy, which is likely to encourage partnerships for French businesses in Chile or with Chilean businesses. It will also act as a hub for our international relations in South America. We want to strengthen and consolidate our collaborations in Argentina and Brazil.

What do you think of the changes taking place in the world of research, education and computational sciences?

Michel Cosnard • As a research institute and as part of the Allistene alliance for computational sciences and technologies, we are delighted with all the recent measures taken by the government regarding digital technology. The strategy

adopted draws on all of the State’s resources, not only to boost the competitiveness of businesses, but also to develop a trustworthy digital society and better teaching of information technology and computational sciences. In parallel, the law on higher education and research is changing the legislative framework and should create closer links between education, research, technology transfer and innovation. The project to establish “communities of universities and research institutes”, a new initiative to create collaborations and pool knowledge between universities, schools and research institutes, consolidates our territorial approach.

The strategy adopted draws on

all the State’s resources.

STRATEGY

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What is special about the 2013–2017 strategic plan?

Claude Kirchner • Since it was created, Inria has always cared about the impact of its research in the world of industry. The previous plan extended this concern to other sciences and the economy. Today, we embark upon a new stage by opening up the fi elds of application of our research to all human activity (transport, social relations, culture, education, etc.). This change refl ects the rapid digitalisation of all aspects of society. The next European framework programme, Horizon 2020, takes the same approach.

Why create an ethics committee?

Claude Kirchner • When our research has an impact on human beings, serious ethical questions can arise. Cerna, a committee to consider the ethics of research in computational science and technologies, was created in 2012 as part of the Allistene alliance. Its goal is to clarify matters for researchers by considering sensitive subjects in detail: typically, its two biggest areas of inquiry are data and robotics. In parallel, we have created Inria’s own operational legal and ethical risk assessment committee (Coerle). This is a small operational

committee (seven members) whose task is to assess the legal or ethical implications of proposed research projects on a case-by-case basis. It helps to identify risks and determine whether some form of supervision or control is necessary, such as a need for informed consent or the establishment of a laboratory log book.

The Institute’s approval of the ethical or legal dimensions of an experimentation or research project is a prerequisite for ERC (European Research Council) projects, to answer European or French National Research Agency (ANR) calls for tender and to publish a conference paper or a journal article.

2 QUESTIONS FOR CLAUDE KIRCHNER

EXECUTIVE OFFICER FOR RESEARCH AND

TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER FOR INNOVATION

The increasing societal impact of our research brings with it a

need to consider the ethical

implications.

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A s a contributor to the creation of an increasingly digital society, our ambition

is to have an economic and social impact in addition to our scientifi c impact. One of our strengths is that we make long-term commitments to the projects we believe in. Inria has pursued this course for many years, winning it international scientifi c renown (as demonstrated by ten new European Research Council grant-holders this year), as well as recognition from industry.

In order to strengthen its economic impact and foster innovation, the Institute is currently helping to establish two technological research institutes in our fi elds (IRT B-com in Rennes and SystemX in Saclay) which

were selected for the Future Investments programme in 2012.

We have also, in conjunction with the Afdel (the French association of software vendors) and Oséo (a French start-up assistance body), launched the “Ambition Logicielle” [“Software Ambition”] project, the goal of which is to foster the growth of SMEs in the software and Internet industry by bringing together all the expertise they need (funding, management, the transfer of academic skills, etc.).

The societal impact of computational sciences was also refl ected by the introduction of an “IT and computational sciences” option in 750 high schools for the 2012–2013 academic year.This was the result of investment over several years by Inria and our researchers, who made a signifi cant contribution to shaping the syllabi and teaching materials. Our aim is also to spread scientifi c awareness to the widest possible audience, and with this in mind, this year saw us launch the Inriality platform (Inriality.fr), an open, participative space for exchange and thought on digital civilisation.

Our ambition is to have an

economic and social impact in addition

to our scientifi c impact.

THE PERSPECTIVE OF ANTOINE PETIT

DEPUTY MANAGING

DIRECTOR

STRATEGY

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365DAYS

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EARLY 2012

Putting computer science to use in music

The aim of Mutant, a new project-team at the Inria Paris –Rocquencourt research

centre, is to delegate both the writing and the performance of music to a computer. This team, which involves the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics and Music (Ircam), the French National Centre for Scientifi c Research (CNRS) and Pierre and Marie Curie University (UPMC), conducts research at the confl uence of two important fi elds of inquiry for computer music: fi rstly, real-time recognition and extraction of musical data from an audio signal (or machine listening) using signal processing and statistical learning techniques, and secondly, reactive synchronous programming in computer music. The combination of these two subjects, often seen as distinct, is central to the

composition and performance of music. It can increase the possibility of human-computer musical interaction and thus resolve interesting modeling problems. This original initiative reaffi rms the contribution of computational sciences and mathematics to this research, as, while automatic learning models, languages and real-time and concurrent programming models have gained in maturity in recent years (due to their use in everyday devices such as cameras and tablets), their application in music has been slightly slower due to the temporal complexity of the musical signals.

MARCH

EADS, Astrium, Inria and the Aquitaine Region put computational sciences and technologies to use in the space sector

In March 2012, EADS, its subsidiary Astrium – the European market leader in the space sector – and Inria signed a research partnership agreement, with the support of the Aquitaine Regional Council, in order to tackle the challenges of developing the space launch systems of the future. Among the priorities of this ambitious research programme are estimating and managing uncertainties, simulating performances through supercomputing, and virtual reality to take into account assembly constraints… In the medium term, it will also aim to create a network of SMEs around these subjects.

365 DAYSInria — Annual Report 2012

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In early June, the Inria Saclay – Île-de-France research centre moved to a new building named after Alan

Turing, the British mathematician who invented computer science, and the centenary of whose birth was celebrated in 2012. Located on the campus of the École Polytechnique in Palaiseau, south of Paris, this building is part of the work of the advanced thematic research network Digiteo, which was founded by Inria. Housing the administrative headquarters of the Inria Saclay–Île-de-France centre, the Inria Joint Lab led with Microsoft Research, and the École Polytechnique’s computer science laboratory (LIX), it provides an environment conducive to the consolidation of the scientifi c and technological synergies between these laboratories,

all of which are key players in computational science research. An extension to the building is planned to accommodate a “project hotel” for the Jacques-Hadamard Mathematics Foundation, which is developing synergies concerning the modeling of living things as well as industrial collaborations with EDF. With the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) site in Saclay, which is home to the “Maison de la simulation”, and a second in the Moulon district accommodating our teams working on data visualisation and learning large scale with other teams from the CEA List and from Paris-Sud University, these facilities bring together scientifi c projects and partners and foster interdisciplinary cooperation within the Plateau de Saclay ecosystem.

JUNE

CominLabs launches eight ambitious research projects

The CominLabs laboratory of excellence brings together teams from the Brittany region and Nantes. Led jointly by Inria senior research scientist Albert Benveniste, who is in charge of scientifi c matters, and Dominique Massaloux, deputy scientifi c director at Télécom Bretagne, who has operational responsibility, it is launching eight ambitious research projects. Three of them are related to life sciences and health, focusing on the cell mechanisms involved in learning and memory, predictive models to personalise radiotherapy treatment and generic models for surgical procedures. Two are security-oriented – one concerning externally-stored data (in clouds or peer-to-peer networks) and the other focusing specifi cally on cloud computing infrastructures. Energy management and new forms of interaction form the nub of the last projects, which concern interfaces that use data from tiny sensors to translate human body movements, a new generation of RFID tags for innovative services, and networks allowing energy consumption to be adapted to user needs.

EARLY JUNE

Strengthening of interdisciplinary cooperation on the Plateau de Saclay

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AUGUST–NOVEMBER

New synergies in the Greater East region.

The Nancy–Grand Est centre increased its infl uence in France’s Greater East region in August by signing a partnership agreement with the Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik in Saarbrücken. The agreement creates the VeriDis project-team, which will work on formal checking and proving methods, with distributed algorithms and systems as its main fi eld of application. The centre also bolstered its involvement in the Strasbourg ecosystem in November by holding an Inria Industry Meeting on the theme of “digital simulation for health, from the cell to the virtual human”, with the French cluster Alsace BioValley and the Strasbourg university hospital institute. Thanks to these synergies, the centre is involved with the Irmia laboratory of excellence (research institute for mathematics, interactions and applications), which promotes collaborations between mathematicians and socio-economic players, as well as Franco-German relations around the University of Strasbourg.

SEPTEMBER

Creation of the permanent “Algorithms, machines and languages” chair at the Collège de France

In September 2012, Gérard Berry, an Inria senior research scientist, was appointed as a professor of the Collège de France, in the new permanent chair, “Algorithms, machines and languages”. A world-renowned researcher and an excellent teacher, Gérard Berry has for many years been committed to passing on his passion for computational sciences to the widest possible audience. Having held fi rst the “Liliane Bettencourt technology chair” and then the “Information technology and computational sciences chair 2009–2010”, he explained “how and why our world has gone digital” and thus introduced computational sciences to the Collège de France for the fi rst time. The creation of this fully-fl edged academic chair constitutes remarkable recognition of computer science at the highest level of the Academy.

ce

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JUNE

Inria Awards 2012

T he second Inria Awards ceremony was held in June 2012. Pierre-Louis Lions, a Professor at the Collège de France and a member

of the Académie des Sciences (French Academy of Sciences), was awarded the Grand Prize. Paul-Louis George, an Inria senior research scientist and a world-renowned specialist in meshing techniques, received the Inria-Dassault Systèmes innovation award for the impact of his work on the industrial use of 3D computational simulation. Francis Bach was awarded the Young Researcher Award: a graduate of the Corps des Mines engineering school and a research scientist at Inria, he has acquired global renown in the fi eld of statistical learning. The Award for Research and Innovation Support was awarded to David Margery, an Inria research engineer and technical director of the Grid’5000 national research infrastructure since 2007. Finally, Marie-Agnès Enard, Frédéric Carette and Sylvain Karpf won the Research Support Department Award for their involvement in the implementation of the Inria demonstration platform at the EuraTechnologies site in Lille.

365 DAYS

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SEPTEMBER

Georges Gonthier and his team announce the success of their work on the Feit-Thompson theorem

After six years of work as part of the Inria Joint Lab in association with Microsoft Research, Georges Gonthier (Microsoft Research) and his team fi nished their computer-aided proof of the Feit-Thompson theorem, a central theorem in group theory and classifi cation which is crucial in many scientifi c fi elds, from quantum mechanics, to crystallography, to cryptography. This was a great success for computer science, showing its capacity to deploy high-quality tools and techniques to codify mathematics. The outcome was a very large computer library enabling complete formalisation of mathematical proofs and a widely-distributed enhanced Coq toolbox and environment.

SEPTEMBER

SophiaTech campus opens

After more than ten years of involvement in the project, the Inria Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée centre fi nally saw the SophiaTech campus become a reality in

September, reasserting the place of computational science and technology at the heart of the Sophia-Antipolis science park by bringing together students, research-lecturers and researchers from the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, the French National Centre for Scientifi c Research (CNRS), Eurecom, Mines ParisTech, Inra and Inria. The stakeholders have developed a scientifi c programme based around four major areas of research: ubiquitous systems and networks, computational health and biology, modeling, simulation and technologies for the environment and sustainable development, and knowledge, services and usage practices in networks. The synergies that have been consolidated are benefi cial to other shared programmes such as the UCN@Sophia and SIGNALIFE laboratories of excellence. Training, technology development, and knowledge and technology transfer are also central to the activities of the campus, which is open to businesses in the digital sector. The key objective is to develop partnerships with the business world.

Q4 2012

Twenty years of computational science research in the Rhône-Alpes region

The Inria Grenoble Rhône-Alpes research centre celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2012, paying tribute to twenty years of computer science research and innovation, development and partnerships in the Rhône-Alpes region and collaborations in France and beyond. Events included testimonials from the centre’s scientifi c experts on the changes in their fi elds, the results that have transformed our lives and society, such as the advent of Wi-Fi, the development of augmented reality and virtual reality, the roll-out of the Internet and the associated challenges regarding performance and privacy, Web services and software security, the emergence of Green IT, humanoid robots and distributed computing, etc. The celebrations culminated in November, with two events held at Inria Montbonnot and the CITI-Insa laboratory in Villeurbanne, and two public debates about the challenges of the future: “the Internet of things: usage practices and limits” and “Using digital technology in healthcare”.

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NOVEMBER

Inria plays a key role in the 3rd edition of the Forum on Tactile and Gestural Interaction

Led by the Plaine Images studio and the Inria Lille–Nord Europe centre, the third edition

of the Forum on Tactile and Gestural Interaction, FITG 2012, attracted over 500 people to Tourcoing on 13 and 14 November, including researchers, business people, artists and curious observers. The event, which is built around demonstrations and presentations illustrating the current trends in hardware and software platforms, interaction paradigms and techniques and usage practices, was a great success. The key theme

for 2012 was: “Accessibility for all” and participants included the French Association for the Paralysed. Taking part alongside representatives from three Inria project-teams, In-situ (Saclay–Île-de-France), Mint (Lille–Nord Europe) and Potioc (Bordeaux–Sud-Ouest), were other researchers from France (Caen, Compiègne and Valenciennes universities, CNRS, CEA, etc.) and elsewhere in Europe (University of Munich, Max-Planck-Institut, Saarbrücken, etc.), as well as representatives of industry (Orange Labs, etc.).

OCTOBER

Cerna established

The committee to consider the ethics of research in computational science and technologies (Cerna) was set up by Allistene, the Alliance for computational science and technologies, in October 2012. With around twenty members and chaired by Max Dauchet, emeritus professor at the University of Lille 1, Cerna’s membership is split 50-50 between experts in computational sciences who are interested in the ethics of research in their discipline and professionals from outside the Institute: lawyers, philosophers, sociologists, etc. Intended as a forum for discussion of the ethical aspects of computational science research, Cerna also has a role in supervising, monitoring and anticipating matters of ethics, and may recommend the study of new research subjects concerning the ethics of digital technologies. Coerle, Inria’s own operational committee for the assessment of legal and ethical risks, was also set up.

365 DAYS

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NOVEMBER

Inria, the French Ministry of Culture and Communication and the Wikimedia France Foundation sign an agreement on the Sémanticpédia platform

In November 2012, an agreement on the Sémanticpédia platform was signed between the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, the Wikimedia France Foundation and Inria. At the same time, the platform’s fi rst project was offi cially inaugurated: the French chapter of DBpedia, an initiative that aims to improve the relevance of Internet searches. The common goal? To optimise the quality of cultural data in French on the Web in order to promote the publication, conservation and dissemination of these structured data and enable the emergence of new usage practices, services and markets based on innovative applications. In short, to invigorate the international dissemination of French culture.

THROUGHOUT THE YEAR

Inria Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest centre strengthens its ties with the USA in HPC

Intensive digital simulation and high-performance computing, the building blocks for the analysis of complex physical and industrial phenomena, are among the scientifi c priorities of the Inria Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest research centre. 2012 saw the consolidation of international collaborations in this fi eld, particularly with American partners. As part of the Inria@SiliconValley programme, the HiePacs project-team is taking part in an associate team called Fastla (Fast and scalable hierarchical algorithms for computational linear algebra) with Berkeley and Stanford

universities. The aim of this collaboration is to study and implement hierarchical calculation methods, including fast multi-pole methods and hybrid sparse linear solvers. The primary focus of application for the multi-pole methods is dislocation dynamics in materials physics. In addition to this research, the HiePacs and Runtime project-teams have, since 2011, been involved with another associate team, Morse (Matrices over runtime systems), in collaboration with the University of Colorado, Denver, the University of Tennessee (ICL) and Kaust University in Saudi Arabia. The aim of this research in the context is to study computational algorithms (such as dense linear algebra kernels) and implement them on heterogeneous platforms through use of task-based runtime systems. The StarPU software developed by the Runtime team is playing a central role in this. The fi rst results led to a contribution to the release of the Magma package (a dense linear algebra library constituting an international reference) at the Supercomputing 2012 conference.

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CURCOLLABO

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Whatever the stage of development (hypothesis, project-team up and running, technology transfer), our research is driven by a wide range of collaborations, including interaction with the business world, academic and industrial partners and civil society. Follow the guide…

RENTRATIONS

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Designing the scientifi c project and constituting the project-teamA researcher, or often a team, identifi es a new avenue to be explored in his research, following interaction with his colleagues from other establishments or at international conferences. He then formalises the subject and the associated challenges with his partners (universities, schools, research institutes, etc.) and presents his scientifi c project to the management of the Inria centre to which he is attached, along with the reasons why this project should be pursued.

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Research actions involving several project-teams In order to tackle important challenges that require varied, multidisciplinary expertise, several project-teams work together. They pool their expertise and that of other academic partners through Inria Project Labs on major research subjects in which Inria wishes to invest particular effort (see p. 35).

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Associations, representatives of civil societyIn order to ensure that their projects and avenues of research meet the real needs of end users and are acceptable to these users, Inria researchers meet with representatives of civil society and patient or user associations such as the French association to aid research on multiple sclerosis, the French association for the paralysed, and the new-generation Internet foundation (Fing)… Some projects are conducted in close cooperation with such associations.


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Industry partnershipsAs part of Inria’s technology transfer strategy, project-teams are pursuing several types of collaboration with industry players and innovators. The common goal is to maximise the impact of the research on the economy and society. There are researchers working within Joint Labs led with industrial partners such as Alcatel-Lucent, Microsoft Research and Orange, while others have built close partnerships between their project-team and innovative SMEs through Inria Innovation Labs. These collaborations often draw upon synergies established between Inria and other innovation players such as competitiveness clusters and Oséo.

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Partnerships with other research organisationsInria project-teams, many of which are teams affi liated with French academic partners such as universities or the French National Centre for Scientifi c Research (CNRS), also join forces with other partners, notably from the world of industry, to pursue projects supported by European, international or national funding. Thus Inria participates in collaborative R&D projects whether these projects are fi nanced by competitiveness clusters or other calls (ITEA Future Investments Programme, etc.).

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Large-scale European projects Many Inria project-teams are taking part in the 7th European Framework Programme for Research and Development (FP7). They are involved in around a hundred projects, including some sixty on information and communication technology, and are working with a wide range of academic and industrial partners. Several Inria project-teams also participate in the activities of EIT ICT Labs*, a large-scale European laboratory involving some thirty main partners in six countries, as well as many associate partners.

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Interdisciplinary cooperationIn order to aid understanding and analysis of complex phenomena in a number of fi elds, such as health, the environment and security, Inria researchers work with scientists from Inra, Inserm, the IRD and the CNRS, among others, as well as specialists from other fi elds, such as doctors, biologists, geologists, neurologists, etc. Their expertise in modeling and simulation, in particular, allows advances to be made in many disciplines central to our society.

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International collaborations Since 2002, Inria project-teams have worked with high-level research teams worldwide in “associate teams”. These collaborations may be part of existing multilateral cooperation and contribute to initiatives launched by the Institute to anchor its presence outside of Europe. They strengthen links between researchers internationally.

* European Institute of Innovation & Technology.

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They work with Inria...

Inria contributes actively to top-quality international research collaborations in a wide variety of forms. One of Inria’s strengths is its two-fold expertise, spanning both theoretical research and its applications. I have worked with the Coq team and other teams that knew how to sustain a virtuous circle by moving easily from a theory to its implementation and vice versa. At a global level, Inria has played a central role as the ideal model for a computer science research institute. Japan has drawn inspiration from Inria and founded its own national computer science institute.

Mitsuhiro Okada,professor at Keio University in Japan (Department of Philosophy, Department of Information and Computer Science), Director of the Global Centre for Advanced Research on Logic and Sensitivity at Keio University, Acting Director of the university’s Research Centre for Thinking and Behavioural Judgement.

We worked with Inria on the European project Humavips, which brought together fi ve teams from four different countries under the leadership of Radu Horaud, head of Inria’s Perception project-team. The project’s ambitious objective was to endow a humanoid robot with audiovisual perception capabilities so that it could interact naturally with a group of people. Through cooperation between the teams, that challenge was met. The researchers combined separately-developed modules in a single piece of software to spawn a humanoid robot capable of interacting with a group and guiding them through a museum. The collaboration has borne fruit, with a number of innovative results in several fi elds. Taking part in this kind of project is fundamental for researchers. It allows them to consolidate their experience by comparing their ideas and methods with others, and shows them other perspectives and other fi elds.

Vasil Khalidov,post-doctoral researcher at the Idiap Research Institute, Switzerland.


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Whether it be in healthcare, the Internet or high-performance computing, the Institute is pursuing

research that is resulting in advances in knowledge and technology. We focus on just a few noteworthy results.

“Applying computational sciences to the fi eld of health has been part of the Institute’s strategy since the 2003–2007 strategic plan, at the instigation of former Inria CEO Gilles Kahn,” notes Research Director Pascal Guitton. “Kahn was a visionary, defi ning the fi rst contours of information technology for life sciences. Ten years later, the results are already meeting the challenges set, and the impact of our forward-looking approach has been consolidated.”

Today, there are a dozen research teams working in the fi eld. The 2013–2017 strategic plan reasserts this commitment, with a particular focus on improving the modeling of living organisms through the advent of personalised models.

Health takes pride of place “This trend has been developing for a number of years now, says Alain Viari, Deputy Scientifi c Director responsible for life and environmental sciences. Having developed generic models, researchers are now turning to personalised models.” This is the case, for example, for the Asclepios project-team, which is using MRI data to determine personalised parameters for a generic electromechanical model of the heart. Such methods aim for a better classifi cation of diseases according to the personal characteristics of particular individuals, so as to provide more suitable diagnosis and care. This research received recognition at the last Miccai (Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention) conference. This event, co-founded by Asclepios project-team leader Nicholas Ayache, who also chaired the 2012 edition, was held in Nice in 2012, attracting 1,200 participants from 45 countries. Ten or so Inria research teams presented their work. The European Research Council (ERC) grant obtained by Marie Doumic-Jauffret provides further evidence of the quality of the Institute’s life science research. This young researcher from the Bang project-team will be focusing on the modeling of amyloid diseases (prion disease, Alzheimer’s), whose formation mechanisms are comparable to the bacterial growth and division mechanisms studied by the team.

Tackling the many challenges of computational sciences

RESEARCH MISSION

RESEARCH

CONTRIBUTORS

Pascal Guitton,Research Director

Stéphane Ubeda,Director of Technological Development

Alain Viari, Deputy Scientifi c Director in charge of ICST for Life and Environmental Sciences

Frédéric Desprez, Deputy Scientifi c Director in charge of Networks, Systems and Services and Distributed Computing

Stéphane Ducasse, Head of Science, Inria Lille –Nord Europe centre

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André Seznec • INRIA SENIOR RESEARCH SCIENTIST • CENTRE INRIA RENNES – BRETAGNE ATLANTIQUE •

Her work is testament to the adaptability of the Institute’s models and the interdiscliplinary nature of its research.

A clear focus on technology transfer to industryAn Inria Industry Meeting in Strasbourg was devoted to computational simulation for healthcare. Over 170 participants attended demonstrations by 17 Inria teams and 4 partners. “The event provided an opportunity to establish contact with businesses and discuss their needs, the aim being to give rise to new collaborations,” explains Pascal Guitton. The Inria Nancy–Grand Est research centre is also involved in the creation of the Strasbourg University Hospital Institute (IHU), which aims to develop image-guided micro-invasive surgery techniques, a project funded by the French Ministry for Higher Education and Research’s Future Investments programme.

These medical technologies combine simulation and augmented reality, superimposing information on nearby tumours or blood vessels on the view of the surgical fi eld. The fi rst start-up created at the IHU, InSimo, came from the Shacra project-team. It produces software to reproduce the mechanical behaviour of organs and simulate surgical procedures. InSimo has been chosen by non-governmental organisation HelpMeSee to design a simulator

“Unlike most other research groups, we are not working on parallel execution on the cores,” he explains, “but on the performance of the sequential part of the application, as most common applications will continue to be programmed with a sequential part run by a single processor”. Yet the performance levels of this sequential part dictate overall performance levels. Accelerating this sequential part becomes even more crucial as the number of cores increases, To do this, André Seznec has proposed new versions for two essential components, already implemented in computers: cache memories (which keep a readily-accessible copy of data) and branch predictors (which predict the circulation of instructions). With his team, he continues to work on processors that are optimised for sequential work.

André Seznec boosts computers’ performance levels

“Our work has perhaps helped to increase the performance levels of multi-core processor architectures by a few per cent,” suggests André Seznec, head of the Alf project-team. This may not seem like a lot. It is, however, of interest to the processor industry, given that a computer contains hundreds of millions of processors (with a single PC, mobile phone or server comprising four or eight cores today, and probably 100 or even 1,000 by 2020). The industry players (Intel, IBM, ARM, AMD, Qualcom, etc.) to which André Seznec has been presenting his research for over fi fteen years are in no doubt. Intel has regularly supported his work since 2000 and awarded him the fi rst Intel Research Impact medal in June 2012.

A specialist in microprocessor architecture, André Seznec joined the Inria Rennes–Bretagne Atlantique centre in 1986 during his PhD on supercomputer architectures • Since the 1990s, he has taken an interest in microprocessor architecture and since 1994 he has led a team of researchers (formerly Caps, now Alf) working on multi-core processor architecture (the organisation and way of managing hardware components: processing units, memory, etc.) and compilation for multi-core processors.• In 2010, he won an ERC grant enabling him to delve further into the subject for a period of fi ve years.

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COUNTERPOINT •

New energies need computational sciences

On what model are new energies developing? J. C.: We are in the process of changing the way we produce and distribute electricity. Until now, we had a centralised, hierarchical system, with electricity generated by enormous power stations. We are going to gradually move over to a decentralised, individualised model, where each one of us is simultaneously a producer, a distributor and a consumer, thanks to the renewable energy generated by wind turbines, solar panels and even hydroelectric systems or fuel cells. This is the “smart grid” principle, a truly revolutionary technological and economic development that will take several decades and will bring about a total reorganisation of the market.

What place does digital technology have in this change?J. C.: Digital technology is central to this concept. Each individual must be able to

collect information about the energy they have produced so as to optimise their energy consumption and manage their energy distribution according to their capacity and their needs. This will require the integration of sensors at all levels to adapt to the situation in real time, as well as the development of analysis, modeling and forecasting tools. Smart digital brokers will also need to be developed to manage supply and demand automatically at local level, so that energy is sold when there is excess capacity and bought when it is needed. These systems must be clear and intelligible so that each user understands the impact of his/her choices.

What challenges does this change pose?J. C.: One challenge is the need to be able to integrate any technology imaginable, including the batteries of electric vehicles, so that, once connected to the home, they can

be used as a storage system to regulate production. We must also develop quite powerful models to analyse and forecast production and consumption according to the habits and needs of each individual, while taking weather conditions into account. Finally, we must take care to protect the confi dentiality of the data collected in homes; once objects become digital and connected, our every move can be observed and analysed for commercial or other purposes…

James Crowley is a professor at Ensimag, a school in the Grenoble INP (Institute of Technology) group. At the Inria Grenoble–Rhône-Alpes research centre, he leads the Prima project-team, which is working on smart spaces, interactive environments with perception, action and communication capabilities. He co-organised an Inria Industry Meeting on energy effi ciency in March 2012.


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to be used to train surgeons in developing countries to perform operations on patients suffering from cataracts, a disease that leaves millions of people blind worldwide.

The prototype, currently under development, uses the Sofa interactive physical simulation platform developed by several Inria teams. The same platform is used at IHU Strasbourg, as well as to create special effects for video games. The many advantages of biotechnologies“As part of the Future Investments programme, we are also involved with the GreenStars Institute of Excellence for Carbon-Free Technologies,” adds Alain Viari. This institute brings together 45 industry players, SMEs, competitiveness clusters and academic

players, including the Biocore project-team, to produce biofuel, Omega-3 or Omega-6, or proteins to feed animals, using microscopic algae. “Further upstream, the Ibis project-team has been working on bacteria for a long time now, with a similar aim,” he adds. As part of the Future Investments programme (and specifi cally the Reset project), researchers are receiving support to develop a new biotechnology approach that aims to increase production yields. Through modeling of gene expression processes, they are seeking to control this complex machinery in order to focus it on the production of molecules of interest (glycerol and propylene glycol in the demonstration programme). Another strategic fi eld for Inria for many years has been sensor networks. “There are eight research teams working on these subjects,” explains Frédéric Desprez, Deputy Scientifi c Director responsible for “Networks, Systems and Services and Distributed Computing”. During the 2012 Paris Marathon, the Socrate project-team, in collaboration with HiKoB, a start-up created during Inria’s expansion in 2011, and Euromédia, a European leader in audiovisual and cinematography services, conducted another demonstration of the performance levels of its devices. Former runner and cyclist Laurent Jalabert, whose soles were fi tted with autonomous wireless

20project-teams working in the fi eld of health.

1,200people took part in the last Miccai international conference in Nice.A simulator for

training surgeons in developing countries to

perform cataract operations.

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sensors, had his running statistics monitored in real time (stride frequency, number of steps, etc.).

Other demonstrations are planned for the 2014 Tour de France and the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. “The prototypes are constantly being improved,” explains Frédéric Desprez. “They are getting lighter, more autonomous, and improving in terms of data transmission and energy consumption.” All of these improvements could be benefi cial in other applications such as those being targeted by HiKoB: car park occupancy rates, measuring road traffi c, environmental performance, energy performance, etc.

An increasing amount of data to processA lot of research is being done on distributed systems and in particularly the Internet, a gigantic communication infrastructure whose use has changed in radical and unexpected ways in recent years, with a proliferation of user-generated content and explosive growth in social networks. It is in this context that Anne-Marie Kermarrec, head of the Asap project-team, has received a new type of ERC grant, a “Proof of concept” grant, to create a start-up (named Allyours) and confi rm her research results in an industrial context. These results were achieved, in part, thanks to a previous ERC grant awarded in 2008 (Gossple). Her work should make it possible to personalise

Caramel project-team • INRIA NANCY–GRAND EST RESEARCH CENTRE •

algorithm around, the Number Field Sieve, a complex algorithm from both a mathematical and a computer science point of view, invented in 1993, explains the researcher. We are developing it in order to improve it. We are coding it and distributing it in full as free software.” Its effi ciency, together with the improvements made in computer technology, suggest that 1,024-bit keys will be broken by 2020 (the keys used for our bank cards, which are subject to constraints in terms of resources and energy, currently contain 960 to 1,152 bits). All this work constitutes valuable progress in the fi eld of integer factorisation, which can be useful in a wide range of arithmetic applications.

“Cryptography is one of our favourite fi elds of application,” explains Pierrick Gaudry, head of the Caramel project-team. “One reason is that the security of RSA keys, one of the most common ‘public-key cryptography’ systems (used for bank cards and e-commerce) is based on integer factorisation, one of our main fi elds of study over the last six years.” Since 1991, RSA has set researchers the challenge of cracking its protection systems to see how vulnerable they are. At the end of 2009, after two years of calculations, the Caramel team and its Swiss, Japanese and Dutch partners (EPFL, NTT, CWI) cracked a 768-bit RSA key (a 232-digit number) of the size used to protect our bank cards until the mid-2000s. They are now trying their hand at cracking a 896-bit key with EPFL. “We are using the best factorisation

Painstaking analysis of cryptography systems

Passionate about arithmetic. The Caramel project-team (Inria Nancy –Grand Est) comprises a dozen researchers, PhD students and post-docs. They are interested in all the algorithms that allow us to calculate effi ciently with integers, real numbers, complex numbers, polynomials, algebraic curves, etc., and their programming. Their main fi eld of application is public-key cryptography. • The researchers are also designing new cryptography systems, including systems based on elliptical curves and their variants.

RESEARCH MISSIONInria — Annual Report 2012

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COUNTERPOINT •

Research, digital technology and design: a vital blend

How do you see the role of interaction design?J.-L. F.: I usually say that design is the link between technology and human beings. It provides meaning, poetry, desirability. It is the bridge between science and art, between technology and emotion, which are too often seen as opposites. It is a way of refl ecting desires, be they tacit or expressed, understanding usage practices and revealing potential.

What is its place in digital technology?J.-L. F.: Our era is as important and innovative as the start of the 20th century. The age of conventional computer science, which used the computer as a tool, is now over. We have entered the digital era, and there is so much to be done in this fi eld. Digital technology is bringing about

a technological and societal revolution, opening the way for new industries, new usage practices, and new relationships with objects and instruments that are not necessarily tangible physical items. Software is going to change the world: that is an enormous creative challenge.

What do you have in common with the researchers?J.-L. F.: What researchers and designers have in common is curiosity, a quest for the new and a desire to understand. We like to come up with questions, plough new furrows, take risks… We are driven by our dreams, by our desire to invent, to create something that does not yet exist.

Is there a place for poetry in the digital world?J.-L. F.: In Pascal’s time, scientists were also poets

or philosophers. That disappeared with the advent of specialisation and the system of selective elite engineering schools which direct students into different fi elds according to their academic performance. It is rare for people to be able to pursue their fi rst love... Along with art and philosophy, science is one of the fundamental components of a society, a key part of what makes us human. The key is interdisciplinarity. This is not something that can be imposed, but it is possible to create conditions in which it can develop: in some laboratories, for example, researchers, engineers, sociologists, anthropologists and designers work together with their very different but complementary visions of the world. When I see porosity between science and society, I applaud it.

Jean-Louis Frechin is an interaction designer. Trained at the Paris-Villemin architecture school and the École Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle, he runs the NoDesign agency, which is interested in the new relationships emerging between human beings and the new objects of our time, as well as digital cities and new interfaces.

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Web searches (with user permission) to suit the characteristics, tastes and profi le of users, in a decentralised and extensible way, using a search engine that can be installed on computers or servers. The goal is to gain in precision while protecting privacy.

Another fi eld in which huge volumes of data must be handled is supercomputers. The challenge is to take advantage of multi-core processors to get them working in parallel in optimum fashion. An example is the Damaris software program developed by the Kerdata project-team, which can be used to reduce the number of fi les created by a factor of 16 and overall data size by a factor of 6. The results have been validated on three supercomputers, including Titan, the most powerful in the world, in early 2013, after experimentation on the French Grid’5000 platform, which comprises over 8,000 cores spanning nine sites). David Margery, Technical Director since 2007, has made a considerable contribution to the development of this tool, which is unique in the world. The engineer won the Inria Award for Research and Innovation Support in 2012. “Once again, the next step is to work with very large data volumes,” adds Stéphane Ubeda, Director of Technological Development, “be it in medicine or Web semantics, with new data storage and processing spaces.”

Interoperable architecturesSome of the platform’s applications could be used to boost the performance of the StarPU software designed by the Runtime project-team, which reached maturity in 2012 after four years of development. StarPU allows optimum use to be made of multi-core machines operating in parallel through intelligent scheduling of data transfers between processors and accelerators via a shared virtual memory. In 2012, the software was incorporated in the digital scientifi c modeling libraries of the American laboratory ICL (Innovative Computing Laboratory) at the University of Tennessee, a benchmark in the fi eld for multi-core architectures. Real recognition.

“Just as Grid’5000 was created by making multiple machines located in different parts of the country interoperable, a vast virtual reality

8Inria project-teams working on sensor networks.

Another fi eld in which huge

volumes of data must be handled

is supercomputers.

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platform could come into being in a few years’ time,” predicts Stéphane Ubeda. It was with this in mind that the technology development action (TDA)* VCore, was set up. The aim of this action is to make the different virtual reality software programs developed in various parts of the Institute interoperable, in conjunction with the virtual reality platforms at Grenoble, Sophia Antipolis and Rennes. This work is being done in cooperation with the Fraunhofer centre in Darmstadt, Germany. In the same vein, the Inria Project Lab** C2S@exa brings together a dozen teams seeking to make the different software programs developed for high-performance computing interoperable, in order to address two challenges facing scientifi c computing, the fi rst concerning the simulation of nuclear fusion and the other the burial of radioactive waste.

Partnerships: central to the organisation of our researchAll these successes owe a great deal to the Institute’s original organisational structure, with, for instance, Heads of Science for each centre: researchers who provide scientifi c leadership for their centre in addition to their research work. “We are appointed for four years,” explains Stéphane Ducasse, Head of Science at the Lille–Nord Europe centre. “At the level of the centre, we have to lead

Cordelia Schmid • INRIA SENIOR RESEARCH SCIENTIST • INRIA GRENOBLE – RHÔNE-ALPES CENTRE •

bases using methods with little supervision, i.e. with less and less human intervention. This is the subject of the ERC Advanced Grant for Allegro (active large-scale learning for visual recognition), the aim of which is autonomous learning of visual concepts using the enormous quantity of data available on the Net. The idea is to use the additional data associated with these images and videos, such as written annotations, oral comments and scripts, to avoid having to go through the arduous and potentially incomplete approach of current supervised learning methods. The diffi culty will be in achieving robustness in the face of the heterogeneity, relative inconsistency and highly variable quality of the information available,” explains Cordelia Schmid.

The challenge of computer vision

Cordelia Schmid is an Inria researcher working in the fi eld of computer vision, and more specifi cally visual recognition combining invariable image descriptors and learning methods. Her research enables a computer to learn to interpret any kind of real image or video, recognise objects, actions and places, and index large image and video bases (containing over 100 million items). She is also a pioneer and a world leader in modern visual recognition methods. In 2012, Cordelia Schmid received the prestigious IEEE Fellow status, as well as an ERC Advanced Grant. “The next challenge is indexing increasingly large image and video

In the vanguard of visual recognition. After obtaining a PhD from the National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble (INPG) in 1996, Cordelia Schmid pursued post-doctoral research in Oxford with the Robotics Research Group. She has been a researcher at the Inria Grenoble–Rhône-Alpes centre since 1997. • In 2003, she created the Lear project-team, for which she is responsible. Appointed an Inria senior research scientist in 2004, she was made an IEEE Fellow and awarded an ERC grant in 2012.

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The solitude of the researcher: myth or reality?

Is solitude necessary for a researcher?F. C.: Research is a fundamentally creative activity. Like an artist, a researcher needs solitude to create. They must not, however, be cut off from the world, as they need inspiration. They fi nd this around them, both in their exchanges with colleagues and outside of work. But there comes a time when they must be alone in order to process information, order their thoughts and make progress. This phase requires quiet and distance.

So this period of solitude is not permanent...F. C.: No, it’s not a question of being shut away on your own for months on end! You just have to mix it up and make sure that you make time for short, but intense, moments of isolation. This is sometimes diffi cult these days, when there are constant demands on your time that can be detrimental to your concentration. Doing

everything in a hurry, which has become the normal modus operandi of many organisations, is not compatible with the long-term nature of research…

Doesn’t exchanging with others drive science forward?F. C.: It is fundamental. We are part of a history, a continuum. We cannot ignore what was done before us, or what is being done around us. We feed off each other through conferences, publications, study groups, work meetings and other encounters. Furthermore, we work on a global scale, with researchers from the world over. As part of the Inria Project Lab Regate, which brings together several teams from Inria, Inra and universities, I am involved in interdisciplinary work conducted within a network comprising many different fi elds and institutions, at the intersection of several communities, each with its own language. We form a virtual entity that is able

to overcome barriers. The scientifi c issues we study are our binding agent, our cement.

What place do human relationships have?F. C.: In this process of building something together, relationships between individuals are fundamental. More generally, the human dimension is very important in research, because you are passionate about your projects and you invest a lot of yourself in them, and you need to get on well with your colleagues to work well with them. This is particularly true when it comes to interdisciplinary work, which is all about learning about “otherness”.

Frédérique Clément is a researcher in Inria’s Sisyphe project-team and head of the Inria Project Lab** Regate. She works on mathematical models designed to understand biological phenomena.

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the scientifi c team and to coordinate the refl ections on the priorities of research. We also represent our centre in the regional authorities (universities, clusters) and in the national committees of Inria, in particular the evaluation committee*** where we participate in the creation, the follow-up and the evaluation of the project-teams, as well as in the recruitment and the evaluation of the researchers”.“Research in partnership with others is something we do on a daily basis,” confi rms Pascal Guitton. “Three quarters of our 181 project-teams are affi liated with universities, engineering schools and other research institutes, to which we have been communicating assessment information for several years now. In 2012, we also signed a partnership agreement with the CDEFI (Conference of the Heads of French Engineering Schools).” There are international partnerships too, such as those with Silicon Valley (California), where 18 associate teams are working. Christine Morin, head of the Myriads project-team, conducts her research there, representing the Institute as Malik Ghallab did before her, in order to promote collaborations with the universities of Stanford and Berkeley and the LBNL (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory). Furthermore, an agreement has been signed between one centre, Nancy–Grand Est, and the Max-Planck-Institut

für Informatik in Saarbrücken, Germany. This agreement offi cially creates a joint team (VeriDis) comprising four permanent members in Nancy and two in Saarbrücken, who have already been working together for some time. There is no shortage of ideas for new partnerships.

181Inria project-teams.

18associate teams working with Silicon Valley (California).

Each year, Inria provides activity reports of its teams on the website inria.fr

* Cross-disciplinary collaborative projects enabling researchers to propose ambitious programmes for the development, integration and sustainability of software prototypes. Fifteen or so actions of this type are selected each year.

** The “Inria Project Labs” (the new name for “large-scale actions”) establish collaborations between several project-teams, and potentially with other academic teams (French or European), with the objective of working together to achieve scientifi c or technological breakthroughs via clearly defi ned joint research projects.

*** see p. 75

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Inria is beginning to take stock of its activities fi nanced under the 7th European Framework Programme (FP7) and is preparing to undertake

other big projects as part of the next European programme, Horizon 2020, which has a strong focus on societal challenges. Inria is also continuing to build structured international collaborations on unifying themes, and consolidating its collaborations in Chile through a foundation devoted to ambitious research and technology transfer projects. “With the end of FP7 just a year away, it is now possible to make an initial assessment of Inria’s involvement in the European programmes,” says Thierry Priol, Director of European Partnerships. “With 201 projects fi nanced today, as against 120 under the previous framework programme, we can already qualify Inria’s involvement in FP7 as a success.” Inria is primarily involved in cooperative projects, taking part in 66 projects that tackle technological

challenges and 21 related to societal challenges in fi elds of application such as energy and healthcare. It can also boast a high success rate when it comes to European Research Council (ERC) grants: with 33 grant holders, Inria is the leading recipient of ERC funding in the fi eld of computer science. In 2012, ten members of Inria staff were awarded grants, and two previous recipients were given a new kind of additional funding in the form of a “Proof of Concept” (POC) grant to develop the results of their research. “With 47.6 million and 47.2 million euros respectively, cooperative projects and ERC grants account for the majority of the 104.5 million euros of funding received from the European Commission thus far,” underlines Thierry Priol.

Sustained participation in EIT ICT Labs Inria also contributes actively to the European knowledge and innovation community EIT ICT Labs, created in late 2009. This year, researchers from the Institute took part in 24 activities, mostly addressing cloud computing, the Internet, privacy and security but also associated with a range of fi elds of application including smart spaces, the cities of the future and healthcare. In this last fi eld of application, the Lira cooperation agreement with Philips Research, the Fraunhofer Institute and the CWI (Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica), all of them partners in EIT ICT Labs, provides an excellent

Strengthened partnerships in Europe and worldwide

PARTNERSHIPS

CONTRIBUTORS

Thierry Priol, Director of European Partnerships

Hélène Kirchner, Director of International Relations

Claude Puech, Director of the Inria Chile Foundation and Executive Director of Ciric (Communication and Information Research and Innovation Centre)

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Franck Cappello • JOINT DIRECTOR OF THE LABORATORY FOR PETASCALE COMPUTING (JLPC), AN INRIA INTERNATIONAL LAB* WITH THE NATIONAL CENTRE FOR SUPERCOMPUTING APPLICATIONS (NCSA) AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS •

springboard for launching new activities. “EIT ICT Labs provides up to 25% of the funding for the project to assist with a technology transfer, establish a start-up or fi le patents while also offering an opportunity to work with the rest of Europe, explains Thierry Priol. The case of Anne-Marie Kermarrec is a fi ne illustration of how this tool can support the process of developing real-world applications for extremely avant-garde research.” The researcher has obtained a POC grant for a start-up creation project designed to develop the results of her ERC project Gossple on an affi nity search system for search engines. Additional funding from EIT ICT Labs will allow her to experiment with the implementation of this system on mobile platforms and collect market data.

Fresh impetus for partnerships in ChileThe International Relations Department set up the Inria Chile Foundation in Santiago this year to develop the Institute’s activities in Chile. The Foundation is home to the Ciric programme (Communication and Information Research and Innovation Centre), selected by the Chilean government in 2011 as part of its call for proposals to create centres of excellence to foster innovation in sectors critical to the country’s economy. At the end of 2012, the Foundation had a workforce of around thirty people, including around twenty engineers developing prototypes and a supervisory team focusing

Curie machine. FTI is also the subject of a European prototype as part of Prace. The JLPC also enhanced its profi le through contributions to international projects, including the G8 Exascale project, which aims to adapt climate simulation software to exascale computers. Franck Cappello attributes this success to the joint laboratory set-up, which allows in-depth work over a long period, as well as a combination of complementary approaches. “For Inria, the JLPC offers a wealth of research possibilities, as well as the opportunity to test prototypes or ideas on the biggest academic machine around. The American researchers, for their part, appreciate our theoretical expertise on algorithms,” the researcher adds. Given the large workforce required to create all the software necessary for the operation of exascale machines, the need to adopt an international approach is gradually being recognised. In this context, the JLPC serves as a sort of prototype and is attracting interest from a growing number of countries.

An exemplary collaborationThe JLPC (Joint Laboratory for Petascale Computing) has proved to be extremely active and productive. “In four years, the laboratory has welcomed a dozen researchers and students a year and produced 34 publications and six software programs that are currently being transferred, three of which are already in use on Blue Waters, the most powerful computer in the academic world at the present time,” says a delighted Franck Cappello. This year, for example, Helo log analysis software was implemented on Blue Waters, while the FTI fault tolerance technology was transferred to French supercomputing operator Genci’s

Franck Cappello was already a seasoned researcher when he joined Inria in 2003 and took charge of the Grid’5000 computing grid. • In 2007, he got together with Marc Snir from Urbana-Champaign to study the possibility of a joint laboratory to develop the software vital to the operation of the Blue Waters supercomputer. • In 2009 the JLPC was born.


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* Inria International Labs coordinate Inria activities in a given region of the world and bring together the Institute’s teams with those of one or several foreign academic partners.

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on technology transfer activities. This development work is closely linked to the world of research and the teams are in constant dialogue with the business world. “We are starting to collaborate in a new, less academic way with foreign partners. This original new approach is being watched with interest by our French and foreign partners, as well as by the ministries to which we report,” notes Claude Puech, the Foundation’s Director.

Two of Ciric’s research subjects are linked to issues with a high impact in Chile: energy, demand for which is increasing with economic growth of 4 to 6% per year, and natural resources, especially water treatment. “These fi elds offer very interesting research subjects, connected with issues such as the optimisation of electricity distribution, which in Chile is characterised by a wide variety of production methods and multiple independent distribution networks,” explains Claude Puech. Mireille Bossy (Tosca project-team), for example, is leading a small team that is developing modeling and simulation software for wind farms. Today, the Inria Chile Foundation is starting to become known and is being contacted directly by Chilean businesses for assistance, including in fi elds that are not common in Chile. It also provides a point of entry for French companies wishing to develop their activities in Chile. Discussions have, for instance, been held with Artelys, an SME specialising in optimisation for energy systems and the environment,

an active contributor to the Systematic competitiveness cluster and a partner of Inria in the Inria Innovation Lab Metis (a joint laboratory associating a project-team with an SME). This laboratory, which is led by Olivier Teytaud of the Tao project-team, aims to develop a digital optimisation platform for managing large systems in an uncertain environment. Inria Chile is also home to other projects, such as a collaborative project with the international consortium Alma (see inset, p. 39), and is working to foster mobility. “We have negotiated a programme with the Chilean funding agency Conicyt, which is a Chilean equivalent of Inria’s associate teams, as well as funding that will allow engineering students at the end of their studies to work within Inria teams for two to three months in order to raise their awareness of the realities of the research world.” In 2012, it was decided that six engineers out of the 50 selected by Conicyt to go abroad would spend the fi rst three months of 2013 in an Inria team.

Very positive results for the JLPCMore academic in nature, the JLPC, an Inria International Lab with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, has proved its value in developing software capable of functioning on the world’s largest academic computer, Blue Waters (see inset, p. 37). The laboratory also began collaborating with the Argonne

204projects funded by FP7, including:

129cooperative projects,

33ERC (European Research Council) grants,

23Marie-Curie projects,

12Capacity projects to fund infrastructures,

7public–private partnerships.


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National Laboratory, part of the US Department of Energy, this year. “Less than a year before the scheduled end of the JLPC, the success of the initiative and the international collaborations set up with Europe and Japan, in particular, suggest that a new international laboratory will be proposed with these partners after December 2013, or even opened up to new international partners,” argues Hélène Kirchner, Director of International Relations.

Restructuring collaborative projects to raise their profi le For the last two years, Inria has also sought to establish structured collaborations between Inria researchers and American researchers as part of the Inria@SiliconValley project, launched in 2010 and led since early 2012 by Christine Morin, head of the Myriads project-team. The dynamic that has been created is attracting the interest of a growing number of researchers. The programme involved 18 associate teams in 2012 and has 21 in 2013. “The subjects covered by the teams are varied, but we hope to bring several teams together to work on the subject of smart cities and thus raise the profi le of these collaborative efforts,” explains Hélène Kirchner. This year also saw Inria launch a programme in Brazil in conjunction with the National Council for Scientifi c and Technological Development (CNPq). Entitled “Hoscar”, this programme focuses on high-performance

Emmanuel Pietriga • HEAD OF MASSIVE DATA AT INRIA CHILE AND MANAGER OF THE PARTNERSHIP WITH ALMA •

and astronomers to do their job,” explains the researcher. Now working on site, he can interact with users constantly and test his software directly on the radio-telescope equipment. “The collaboration has proved very fruitful, as the operators and astronomers have a good knowledge of programming, which makes our exchanges much easier,” he stresses. The control room interface has been gradually put in place since Alma was inaugurated in March 2013.

The success of this project has led to Emmanuel Pietriga being called upon to develop other interfaces, such as a dashboard allowing detailed monitoring of the use of the telescope, which was started in late 2012. “These applications use a lot of software components that are ‘made in Inria’. It is very satisfying to know that they are being used in this prestigious international project!”

Control room interfaces “made in Inria”Alma, the world’s largest radio-telescope, which was built in Chile, is infi nitely more complex than its predecessors. Monitoring the 66 antennas that scrutinise the sky and interpreting the plethora of data collected in real time pose problems that have not been met before. Alma’s astronomers have called upon Emmanuel Pietriga to design and develop the control room interfaces for the telescope.

“Our collaboration began in 2009 with expert advice on visualisation, but it was strengthened considerably in 2010, as it became apparent that the human–machine interfaces required profound modifi cations if they were to enable the operators

A graduate of the National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble, Emmanuel Pietriga was recruited by the In-situ project-team in Saclay in 2004. He works on the development of innovative interfaces that can be used to handle large quantities of data. But the researcher has another passion: astronomy. • His contribution to the Alma project allows him to combine his two loves, while providing an international showcase for the software designed by his team.


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Private and public research: working together to drive research forward

What role does R&D have in a business like EDF?C. W.-R.: Our primary objective is to help improve the performance of our operational units, identify and develop medium and long-term growth drivers and anticipate the major challenges and issues the group will face in the global energy context. We work for the company’s different business lines, i.e. electricity production, distribution and marketing. Our R&D takes place at the crossroads between industry and academia. We are constantly paying attention to what is being done in the research world, so that we can identify avenues for improvement and spot potentially revolutionary technologies as early as possible, a recent example being smart grids, which are very important for EDF.

But you don’t just sit back and observe…C. W.-R.: No, we work with a number of institutions, be it through framework agreements, as is the case with Inria, or through partnerships with universities and grandes écoles, French or European programmes or joint laboratories, where teams get together to work on a project. These are collaborations based on mutual interest and the pooling of resources. The idea is to move forward together. Compatible visions are what make a partnership work. It is all about a relationship of trust. It is important for people to know and like each other.

Is it a mutually benefi cial relationship?C. W.-R.: In R&D, we sometimes come up against obstacles – in modeling or algorithms, for example – and we turn

to the academic world to help us overcome these obstacles. The problems that we refer to them often raise questions that are of interest to researchers, and the study of some high-tech subjects can pave the way for new approaches. Nevertheless, there are still some barriers to be removed, as the two worlds are often seen to be in opposition to each other. We need to develop joint programmes. There are mechanisms for hosting researchers in businesses, but it is rare for people from business to be welcomed into the world of research in the same way.

Claire Waast-Richard is Director of Information Systems and Technologies at EDF R&D. She leads R&D programmes on information technologies for EDF’s business lines. As part of the projects she supervises, she sets up partnerships with various research organisations, including Inria, and monitors very closely the work of computational science laboratories.


COUNTERPOINT •

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computing and the management of high volumes of scientifi c data in the medical and environmental fi elds. “This programme provides an opportunity to work with Brazilian partners to extend the impact of the Project Lab CS2@Exa (see p. 33), led by Stéphane Lanteri, who is also responsible for Inria’s contribution to the Hoscar programme.”

Consolidating and expanding partnerships in AsiaOn the other side of the globe, this year saw Inria celebrate the 15th anniversary of Liama, the Inria International Lab working in cooperation with China. The lab is now home to 11 joint research projects, the most recent of which was set up with the Institute of Computing Technology (ICT) to develop software suitable for multi-core architectures. “Through this collaboration, our researchers have the opportunity to apply their expertise in error-tolerant accelerators by accessing the resources and knowledge necessary to develop complete circuits and heterogeneous architectures,” explains Hélène Kirchner.

With its French partners, the Institute has also invested in India and Japan, by taking part in the French National Centre for Scientifi c Research’s international joint research units and through joint responses to calls for tender. In Taiwan, the project proposed by Inria, the French National Centre for Scientifi c Research, Pierre

and Marie Curie University and the National University of Taiwan on intelligent robotics and automation was selected by Taiwan’s National Science Council for the period 2012–2016. “This is an opportunity to open the Inria Project Lab PAL (robotics for personalised assistance) up to foreign partners,” concludes Hélène Kirchner.

36people, including 28 engineers, make up the staff of the Inria Chile Foundation, with whom 80 researchers are associated.


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In 2012, Inria consolidated its strategy, which prioritises direct bilateral relations in industrial partnerships, and technology

transfer by and to SMEs, whether they exist already or are created for the purpose (spin-offs).Inria’s technology transfer strategy is essentially built on two pillars: fi rstly, industrial research partnerships, which involve research work by several teams, and secondly, the transfer of technologies, software prototypes or patents to businesses. “Technology transfer results in the integration of our research results in businesses’ products or services,” explains David Monteau from the Technology Transfer and Innovation Department.

The importance of Carnot certifi cation for research partnershipsHaving received Institut Carnot certifi cation in 2010 for a renewable

period of 5 years, Inria has adopted one of the Carnot priorities as its own: namely the implementation of bilateral partnerships. It receives a contribution from the State based on the volume of contracts it signs with businesses. “It is a good tool for Inria, which chimes with our partnership policy,” confi rms David Monteau, who underlines the fact that, as well as providing additional resources and recognition of the Institute’s know-how, certifi cation also extends the Institute’s network. “SMEs are our priority for technology transfer and our objective as part of the Institut Carnot is very ambitious,” he says, adding that by 2015, the challenge will be to increase the total volume of direct contracts by 60% and the volume of contracts specifi cally concerning SMEs by 100%. The Institute prioritises the development of partnerships between an Inria research team and an SME, known as Inria Innovation Labs.

Psatt: a programme to drive technology transferThe technology transfer action monitoring programme (Psatt) is the key component of the technology transfer system. “It enables a researcher or a team that wishes to conduct a technology transfer project to receive support from experts. Specifi cally, it is the members of the Inria technology transfer action monitoring committee (Csatt) – people with recognised

An ambitious technology transfer strategy

TRANSFER

CONTRIBUTORS

David Monteau, Acting Director of Technology Transfer and Innovation

Philippe Broun, Technology Transfer and Partnerships Offi cer, Inria Grenoble –Rhône-Alpes centre

Agnès Guerraz, Head of the Technology Transfer Action Monitoring Programme

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Mark Loriot • CEO OF DISTENE, PARTNER OF THE INRIA GAMMA 3 PROJECT-TEAM IN AN INRIA INNOVATION LAB •

experience in technology transfer and innovation in software, most of them from outside of the Institute – who provide advice on how to manage the projects,” says Agnès Guerraz, national manager of the programme.

The committee is chaired by Inria’s Director of Technology Transfer and Innovation, and led by the head of the Psatt; Inria’s Director of Technological Development or the latter’s representative, is also a member. The committee is made up of the following external experts:• Sophie Cluet, Head of Research and Technology at Pierre and Marie Curie University;• François Cuny, Managing Director of the Systematic competitiveness cluster;• Jean-Christophe Gougeon, Technology Transfer Associate for software technologies, Expertise and Innovation Development Department, Oséo; • Laurent Kott, Chairman of the Board of Directors of IT-Translation;• Nicolas Landrin, Managing Partner, iSource Gestion SA;• Hervé Lebret, Head of Innogrants for start-up, Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne.

In 2012, 26 new projects were initiated, embarking upon a process of maturation (choice of team, partners, market, etc.) with a view to technology transfer.

What are the benefi ts of this collaboration?M. L.: It really speeds up the company’s progress. It allows us to work together on clearly defi ned subjects that are also of interest to the research world. It is a mutual commitment that allows us, in turn, to make our own commitment to major prospective clients who are looking for functionalities that require considerable research efforts. Purely from a marketing point of view, the partnership lends us credibility, both in France and abroad. Thanks to the joint lab system, which puts SMEs at the heart of innovation, Distene has seen an 18% increase in its business in the area concerned by the lab, and a 10% increase in its overall business.

What prospects do you see for the lab?M. L.: Our aim is to continue on the same path, knowing that a mesh product takes fi ve to ten years to develop and that some of the products developed as part of this partnership have not yet reached the required level of maturity.

A win-win collaborationHow did your collaboration with the Inria Gamma 3 team come about?M. L.: This relationship with Inria is a historic one, since Distene is a spin-off of Simulog, the fi rst ever Inria subsidiary, created in 1984. Distene is a software fi rm specialising in mesh components for scientifi c computing, and we sell technologies, some of them developed by Inria. Furthermore, since innovation is essentially achieved through academic partnerships, we have been working with Inria for many years, particularly with the Gamma 3 team, a collaboration which has now been formalised with the creation of an Inria Innovation Lab, a laboratory shared with Distene.

From R&D to entrepreneurship: a complete career • Equipped with a DESS (post-graduate diploma) in applied mathematics, Mark Loriot started his career as an R&D researcher at Inria subsidiary Simulog. He then took the reins of Simulog Technologies (a subsidiary of Simulog), before buying the company in 2004 with Laurent Anne to form a new company, Distene. With 12 staff members, Distene generates annual revenues of 2 million euros and is achieving steady growth in a niche market in which it is aiming to establish a lasting presence.

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Combining research and development in business

In what circumstances was the Inria Innovation Lab Siwa created? X. P.: The partnership with Mauna Kea Technologies started several years ago with two successive joint Cifre theses. This work enabled us to demonstrate the technical feasibility of a rapid panoramic reconstruction and content-based image search solution for use in confocal miniprobe endomicroscopy.

However, that did not mean that we were able to develop a marketable product quickly. Since then, our approach has matured and we have found an avenue to explore to develop this technology and integrate it in a product. As that required additional research, we created a joint structure.

So you are involved in an industrial project...X. P.: We provide support and guidance. Inria has a technology transfer mission, but the industrial project is led by the SME. Our objectives are different: a company like Mauna Kea Technologies has to produce products or services that sell, whereas the task of a researcher is to synthesise knowledge.

The point of this laboratory is to build on the work done upstream and to work on subjects directly with industry and users, while continuing to pursue research. The technical problems we encounter lead us towards broader, more abstract scientifi c challenges, which offer us new avenues to explore.

All that helps my research; I fi nd it diffi cult to make progress on a theoretical issue if I don’t have any concrete application in mind.

What are the constraints of this kind of collaboration?X. P.: The business has to stick to a design and production schedule, which sometimes forces us to adopt operational solutions while leaving some avenues aside to be studied elsewhere. We work on both aspects in parallel. In our case, the tasks were well divided from the start: the collaboration is all the more balanced for the fact that Mauna Kea Technologies was founded by former researchers who know our culture inside-out. This is not always the case, but the role of public research is to bolster innovation, not to provide turnkey solutions…

Xavier Pennec is a senior research scientist at Inria. He works on the analysis of medical images as part of the Asclepios project-team. He created the Inria Innovation Lab Siwa in partnership with the SME Mauna Kea Technologies, which sells an endomicroscopy solution for generating optical biopsies.

COUNTERPOINT •


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Over the last four years, 129 projects have benefi ted from the programme, including:• 37 start-up creation projects;• 30 technology transfer partnership projects with an SME, 16 of them aiming to create an Inria Innovation Lab (joint laboratory).

Operational deployment of the technology transfer strategy“On the ground, the Technology Transfer and Partnerships Offi cers, together with the national technology transfer associates, provide the interface with researchers. They identify and advise those whose work could lead to a technology transfer,” explains Agnès Guerraz. In order to make it easier to identify technology transfer projects, the Institute organises highly-targeted meetings at its centres between teams and SMEs, known as “iMatches”. Ahead of the meeting, the Technology Transfer and Partnerships Offi cers do technological qualifi cation work, consolidating the technology transfer potential of the teams that could be mobilised in relation to the subject or market concerned by the meeting. On the day itself, a speed-meeting is held between 10 to 15 qualifi ed companies interested in integrating Inria technology and researchers from the Institute. This meeting gives rise to collaborative projects and results in the integration

of companies in the Psatt programme. One company enlisted in this way is Tecknowmetrix, which is now involved in a partnership with the Aviz project-team.

Once the technologies developed by Inria teams have been identifi ed and qualifi ed, the medium-size companies and SMEs likely to be able to take advantage of these technologies must be identifi ed. “To do this, we work with our partners from the competitiveness clusters, who help us to get to know the companies better,” says Agnès Guerraz. “The aim for the company is to create value and gain in competitiveness. For Inria, it is about generating a real economic impact through our research and helping to create jobs,” she continues.

Signifi cant resultsIn 2012, Inria expanded its technology portfolio with 32 patents and 126 new software programs. “Many projects have been initiated or continued as part of Inria’s strategic partnerships with the R&D departments of big companies,” explains David Monteau, citing as examples Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs and Microsoft Research – with whom Inria is involved in Inria Joint Labs – as well as EDF R&D, Total and Renault. A framework partnership has also been agreed with Astrium Satellites on the subjects

32patents and 126 new software programs have been added to Inria’s technology portfolio, which now comprises over 1,000 software programmes.

26new projects being studied under the technology transfer action monitoring programme.


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of robotics and image processing. In total, over 50 project-teams are involved in these strategic partnerships, which account for nearly two thirds of the Institute’s bilateral research. Two start-up were formed from Inria in 2012: Axellience, which specialises in cloud-based software design and production environments, and Mensia, which is working on brain–computer interfaces. Finally, three Inria Innovation Labs were created: SIWA, which brings together the company Mauna Kea and the project-team Asclepios; EtiPOPS, a collaboration between the company Etineo and the project-team Fun; and SoftSim, involving the company MXM and the project-team Demar.

Three Inria–Industry Meetings (RII) on the research fi elds of the futureThe Inria–Industry Meetings – big thematic showcases for the work done at Inria – have a national dimension, as teams from the eight Inria centres are invited to present their most promising technologies to specially chosen companies with a view to forging new collaborations. In partnership with Oséo and the local competitiveness clusters, three such meetings – each attended by around 200 people – were held in 2012 in places selected for their innovation potential:• The Inria–Industry Meeting

”Computational Sciences and Energy Effi ciency” in Grenoble, in partnership with the Minalogic and Tennerdis competitiveness clusters;• The Inria–Industry Meeting “Web and Mobility Technologies for Innovation in Banking and Insurance” in Paris, with the Finance Innovation cluster;• The Inria–Industry Meeting ”Digital Simulation in Health, from the cell to the virtual human”, in Strasbourg, with the Alsace BioValley cluster and the University Hospital Institute (IHU) for medical technologies.

”Ambition Logicielle”: an emblematic project initiated by InriaLaunched in 2012 with a pilot scheme in Grenoble, the national programme “Ambition logicielle” [Software Ambition] aims to support, through innovation, the growth of French software companies (SMEs and medium-sized companies). Initiated by Inria, it brings together business associations (Afdel*, Syntec numérique, Comité Richelieu); funding and innovation bodies (Oséo and CDC Entreprises, which have now joined forces within the French Public Investment Bank); players from the digital research fi eld, particularly the French National Centre for Scientifi c Research and Inria; Carnot institutes and regional institutional structures.

More than

50Project-teams are involved in Inria’s strategic partnerships.


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It has been chaired by Afdel since February 2013, as part of the government-led “Digital neighbourhoods” project, with Inria taking charge of national operational coordination of the regional schemes with local partners.

Philippe Broun, Technology Transfer and Partnerships Offi cer at the Inria Grenoble–Rhône-Alpes centre, was particularly involved in the pilot scheme, “Ambition logicielle Grenoble”. “It is not about technology transfer in particular, but more broadly about supporting projects, especially at the international level, and developing the management and marketing teams,” he explains. The programme acts as a catalyst by mobilising all the relevant players in their area over a sustained period around a project to promote the growth of software fi rms. “Seven Ambition Logicielle Grenoble projects are in the pipeline and ready to go,” says a delighted Philippe Broun, who stresses the fact that these projects vary in terms of the nature, strategy, needs, products, structure and size of the companies concerned, which range from software vendors to suppliers of systems with embedded software.

David Andreu • A RESEARCH-LECTURER HEAVILY INVOLVED IN COLLABORATIONS WITH BUSINESSES AND WINNER OF THE FIRST FIEEC* PRIZE •

What is the biggest benefi t of such a collaboration?D. A.: For a researcher like me, it is immensely satisfying to see products developed from your own research released on the rehabilitation market! One of the objectives of the Demar team is to provide tangible rehabilitation or adaptation solutions. There is also great satisfaction to be found in supporting the SME, whose new device is a world fi rst in the fi eld and will allow it to set itself apart on its market. Finally, as a research-lecturer, these projects allow me to get my PhD students and engineering students involved, which is a great way of integrating them in the R&D world.

What prospects does your work offer?D. A.: The work done with Vivaltis constitutes the fi rst stage of the technology transfer and paves the way for the development of solutions to help patients adapt to injuries or illnesses. It will now be possible to pursue new experimental protocols with the stimulator that has been developed, which bears the CE mark, with the ultimate aim being a technological solution to provide support to patients experiencing diffi culties in walking, including foot drop, a disability that sometimes persists after a stroke.

Technology transferThe results of work on applications of robotics and functional electrical stimulation in healthcare have been integrated into new devices produced by the company Vivaltis.

How did your collaboration with the SME Vivaltis come about?D. A.: We were approached by the company after an article was published in the local press. Vivaltis, a specialist in functional electrical stimulation (FES) for rehabilitation, was seeking ground-breaking technology. This Montpellier-based SME, which has a staff of 25, had not collaborated with scientists before. The technology transfer was completed in less than four years, which is a very short time, and earned the national prize for the transfer of applied research to an SME.

A career focused on technology transfer • A researcher in the Demar project-team since 2003, David Andreu is also a teacher at the University of Montpellier 2. He is very open to research partnerships and is thus heavily involved in industrial collaborations. In October 2012, he received the First Fieec* Prize at the “Rendez-vous Carnot” in Lyon, for his work on applications of robotics and functional electrical stimulation in healthcare in partnership with Vivaltis.

* First prize of the Fédération des Industries Electriques, Electroniques et de Communication.

* Association of French software and Internet solutions fi rms – www.afdel.fr


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As well as promoting its own research results, Inria endeavours to spread knowledge of computational

sciences more widely at all levels of society: citizens, teachers, students, businesses, etc. The Institute is developing skills and using new media to reach the widest possible audience. By taking part in and helping to organise major international conferences, Inria magnifi es the impact of its work and, more broadly, that of computational sciences in society as a whole. A recent example was the 21st edition of the WWW conference, the most prestigious international conference on Web matters, which took place in Lyon this year. “This event brings together researchers, industry players, developers and users to look at the latest developments in the Web,” explains Fabien Gandon, head of the Wimmics project-team and co-chair of the conference. With 1,800 participants of 25 different nationalities, 108 papers presented, 29 workshops and 17 tutorials, the conference met with unparalleled

success in Europe. Lyon simultaneously hosted many other international events, including the Web for All conference, thus offering a 5-day multidisciplinary programme and creating opportunities for different communities to come together. For the fi rst time in its history, the conference included a “fringe” gathering, which alone attracted over 2,000 people! “WWW 2012 thus provided an opportunity to bring together local communities attracted by the high profi le of certain speakers, such as Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web, and Bernard Stiegler, philosopher and Director of the Institut de recherche et d’innovation,” says the researcher. “It provided a place where ideas and results could be passed from one community to another.” The event also provided a conducive environment for popular science initiatives and mediation. “We also used social networks to good effect: 12,000 tweets were exchanged in just three days!” says a delighted Fabien Gandon.

The Web: vital to the dissemination of French culture Inria also helps to spread French culture through its participation in the project DBpedia.fr, born out of a tripartite agreement with Wikimedia France and the French Ministry of Culture and Communication. The project involves extracting the innumerable data contained in the Wikipedia pages written in French in order to feed them into the data Web, a network of structured information that can be used directly to develop new usage practices, applications and services.

Making the digital world accessible to the largest number of people

SPREADING AWARENESS

CONTRIBUTORS

Gilles Dowek, Deputy Scientifi c Director, “Algorithms, Programming, Software and Architectures”

Fabien Gandon, Wimmics project-team leader

Sylvie Boldo, researcher in the Toccata project-team

Céline Acharian, Communication Director

MISSION AWARENESS-RAISING

OF COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCES

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400 million data items from the English-language chapter were already available, so it was urgent for France to catch up: “Not being part of the data Web means you are invisible for the purposes of the new services based on this resource, such as indexing a music collection or proposing tourist itineraries,” explains Fabien Gandon, whose team is a stakeholder in the project. “This year, we have put French into second position behind English, with 130 million data items extracted and linked to the existing data.”

First computer science classes for fi nal-year secondary-school students in the Science streamOn another note, Inria has been working alongside its partners for the last fi ve years to promote the teaching of computer science in secondary schools, guiding and supporting the establishment of training courses for prospective teachers and presenting this new specialization to pupils (see inset, p. 52). This work is bearing fruit, as “750 schools offered the information technology and computational sciences option to fi nal-year pupils in the Science stream in the 2012–13 academic year, and more than 10,000 pupils enrolled in these courses,” says a delighted Gilles Dowek, Deputy Scientifi c Director, who invested a great deal of time and effort in this project. Amongst other things, the researcher edited a number of textbooks, the fi rst of which, aimed at teachers, was published in 2011. A textbook for fi nal-year secondary-school pupils in the Science stream was produced in 2012, and another, aimed at pupils taking preparatory classes for elite

Brice Goglin • RESEARCHER IN THE RUNTIME PROJECT-TEAM AND SCIENTIFIC MEDIATION OFFICER AT THE INRIA BORDEAUX –SUD-OUEST CENTRE •

in Bordeaux for the Fête de la Science, for example. “It’s great!” he says excitedly, “because when I describe the cutting-edge equipment used or explain the applications that can be developed from my work on scientifi c computing, I see their eyes light up, and I feel like I am making them dream!”

This year, Brice Goglin also organised Inria’s participation in Supercomputing, the huge annual trade show for high-performance computing, held in Salt Lake City, Utah, in November. “The communications challenge is to present the stand in an attractive and coherent way. Popular science initiatives do not come into play here, however: we are dealing with an audience of specialists.”

See their eyes light up!

”Scientifi c mediation is one of the roles of a researcher,” says Brice Goglin, who cannot see himself undertaking research without being able to answer citizens’ questions on the potential benefi ts of his work.

For the last three years, Brice has been helping the Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest centre’s communication department to recruit colleagues to give talks at secondary schools or to take part in events aimed at the general public. He derives the most satisfaction from his interactions with youth – at the workshops he organised

Brice Goglin has been a junior research scientist in the Runtime project-team at the Inria Bordeaux–Sud-Ouest research centre since 2006. His work in high-performance computing involves designing software to facilitate the use of increasingly complex modern supercomputers.• He is also the research centre’s scientifi c mediation offi cer and has been closely involved in the organisation of Inria’s participation in the Supercomputing conference and exhibition since 2010.


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50


50

Inria — Rapport annuel 2012

Science and public opinion: a big misunderstanding?

Do a lot of people have a scientifi c mindset?G. B.: The basis of a scientifi c mindset is critical thinking, doubt. No progress would be possible if we did not call the usual theories into question. But many people confuse critical thinking with nihilism. Conspiracy theorists and technophobes refute offi cial narratives by advancing arguments that appear convincing and, sometimes, by making links between totally unrelated phenomena, without proposing any rigorous theory. Legitimate doubt is replaced by permanent suspicion, with accusations masquerading as intelligence. This can be seen in relation to subjects such as the dangerousness of electromagnetic waves or genetically modifi ed organisms, climate change and nanotechnologies. We are entitled to wonder whether scientifi c discourse is not being instrumentalised to assert ideological compulsions…

What role does the media play?G. B.: The mass media contributes to this phenomenon, of which it is also a victim, by playing on people’s fears. It is not good at fulfi lling its role in providing scientifi c information, and does not respect the time frames involved in science. Under competitive pressure, which has been exacerbated by the Internet, some give priority to sensational stories, and think they are showing impartiality by according the same air time to alarmists as they do to experts. These media spectacles often give the impression that there is controversy by pitting “independent” scientists against scientists that have been “bought” by industry on the other. They highlight alarmist positions while neglecting the large number of studies performed by researchers. But science’s worth is not measured by a clap-o-meter. Science does not aim to be convincing: it aims for truth.

How can we develop a scientifi c mindset among the public at large?G. B.: There is a problem of information and training. Like many of our fellow citizens, journalists do not always understand scientific mechanisms, such as threshold effects. Educational programmes should be revised to develop real critical thinking through analysis of intellectual illusions, notably the counter-intuitive obstacles to which we all fall victim. While it is normal and healthy to have doubts, it is also reasonable to have faith in multidisciplinary scientifi c institutions. Today, we are lacking in learned societies to provide scientifi c information to the public.

Gérald Bronner is a professor of sociology at Paris Diderot University, co-director of Lied (the interdisciplinary laboratory for the energies of the future) and a member of the Institut Universitaire de France. Having written several books on collective beliefs and cognition, his latest work, La Démocratie des crédules (The democracy of the gullible), has just been published by Presses Universitaires de France.

5050


COUNTERPOINT •

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higher education institutions, will be ready for the start of the 2013–14 academic year. A third textbook will be released the following year for fi nal-year secondary-school pupils in the “Literature” and “Economics and Social Sciences” streams. “These textbooks are unique in the fact that they have been designed and written by a team comprising both teachers and researchers,” says Gilles Dowek. This makes it possible to include material on current research and on the history of computer science, and makes the courses more appealing. Unexpectedly, these books are proving popular beyond the secondary-school market, demonstrating the need for introductory books on these disciplines. The next stage will be to provide initial training for the teachers themselves. Gilles Dowek is optimistic about this: “The possibility of introducing a Capes and an agrégation [competitive examinations for secondary-school and university-level teachers, respectively] in this fi eld is currently under discussion with the Ministry of Education and the schools inspectorate. It could become a reality in the near future.”

A competition to reach a large audience in secondary schoolsAimed at the same audience, but taking a very different form, the Bebras Contest does not have any prerequisites. It allows secondary-school classes to come into contact with computer science in a different way, other than through the applications popular with young people, such as Facebook and iTunes. Set up in Lithuania in 2004, the competition has now

been adopted by 21 countries, including France, where it has been held for the last two years, organised by ENS Cachan, the France-IOI algorithm and programming learning platform and Inria. “Some of the problems are the same in every country, and some are devised at national level,” explains Sylvie Boldo, who this year took part in the process of selecting the problems, translating them and testing the platform. Particular care is taken in drafting the questions and the explanations on how the problems relate to computer science. The competition has proved very successful, with 90,000 pupils taking part in 2012, as against 46,000 the previous year. “It is very satisfying, as we are reaching a huge number of pupils,” says a delighted Sylvie Boldo, “but we need to keep going out and meeting pupils in their classes. They are very keen to take advantage of what for many of them is a unique opportunity to fi nd out what it means to be a researcher.”

More and more community coordination“In order to share our knowledge with the widest possible audience, we have embarked upon a process of offering each of our audiences a platform tailored to their needs and expectations,” explains Céline Acharian, Communication Director. Based on the information needs expressed by citizens in a TNS Sofres survey conducted in 2011 at Inria’s request, the Institute set up the Inriality platform in 2012. The platform provides a forum for public debate about computational sciences, with contributors

1,800participants in the WWW 2012 conference in Lyon, over 2,000 people at the “fringe” events, and 12,000 tweets in three days.

130million data items were extracted from Wikipedia to feed the French chapter of DBpedia.

750schools are offering an information technology and computational sciences specialism in 2012.


51


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free to discuss issues as they wish. Inriality complements the Inria.fr site, which has now been refocused on institutional matters, and Interstices, the popular science and education site. In 2013, this initiative was extended through the opening of the iCOMMUNITY platform, which is dedicated to SMEs in the digital sector that want to innovate in partnership with public research bodies and aims to bring together all the different innovation players. “These platforms build on prevailing networking approaches to help their users fi nd the right people to speak to, fast,” argues Céline Acharian. They make it possible to put independent networks in contact with each other and to promote exchanges between the communities concerned. In order to promote the network dynamic, a specialist in the coordination of social ecosystems has been recruited to ensure that a consistent line is taken and that all these communities are properly interconnected. Some of the coordination is being done via Twitter and has met with huge success as Inria already has over 8,000 followers, including researchers from all disciplines as well as lawyers’ groups and design schools. “Coordinating communities is the central pillar of our activity,” concludes Céline Acharian. “It also reinvigorates our approach to our jobs as communicators. It is very demanding but also very exciting, as we get immediate feedback. Activities organised around big events like the 20th anniversary of the Inria Grenoble–Rhône-Alpes research centre have signifi cantly increased their impact.”

Hélène Xypas • COMMUNICATION OFFICER • INRIA LILLE–NORD EUROPE RESEARCH CENTRE •

sciences specialization, content relating to the programme and information on careers in digital technology, etc.”. A prospectus was distributed to penultimate-year pupils last year to encourage them to visit the site.

The Institute also offers pupils taking the course a free trip to the Inria EuraTechnologies exhibition space to see the demonstration programs and speak with a researcher, research-lecturer or engineer about a project they are preparing for their baccalaureate. “Eight visits to secondary schools, reaching a total of 162 pupils, are already planned for the 2012–2013 academic year,” says Hélène.

How can we encourage fi nal-year secondary-school pupils to enrol in the new information technology and computational sciences specialization being offered to pupils in the Science stream from the 2012–13 academic year? The communication department in Lille has worked on this question in close cooperation with teachers from the 33 schools in the region that offer the course, as well as the Académie de Lille and the University of Lille 1.

“As 90% of young people have a Facebook account,” says Hélène Xypas, “we created a special Facebook page where they can fi nd information about the information technology and computational

With a Master’s Degree in Communication under her belt, Hélène worked in a number of communications and marketing roles for Lille Grand Palais and the Angers job centre (Maison de l’emploi).• Recruited in October 2010 as a communication offi cer at the Inria Lille–Nord Europe researcher centre, she works with researchers on a daily basis to promote their work on the centre’s website, is involved in mediation activities and helps coordinate the deployment of communication on the information technology and computational sciences specialization.

Encouraging fi nal-year secondary-school pupils in the Science stream to specialise in information technology and computational sciences


52


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INRIAIN FACTS

AND FIGURES


53

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The arrival of new directors provides a new perspective and fresh impetus as we seek to continue to improve

and modernise our support functions. From administrative and fi nancial management to human resources, this approach is guided by a single watchword: simplifi cation.

Nurturing the Institute’s human capital”The Institute’s worth lies in its people, and it is therefore essential to make sure that these people are utilised to best effect, that they are recognised and that they feel good at work,” says Bruno Wierzbicki, who has been in charge of the Human Resources Department since September 2012. “It is a decisive factor in the Institute’s attractiveness, which determines its ability to recruit high-quality personnel in a sector where competition is fi erce and in a global labour market.” The role

of the HR Department in instilling such a climate is central, and relies primarily on the quality of its services. In 2011, important work was undertaken to improve the operation of the HR function. An audit was launched and then adjusted upon Bruno Wierzbicki’s arrival to ensure that it proposed concrete, easy-to-implement solutions. “We are looking at the way in which our work is organised so that we can optimise it,” he says. “In particular, our procedures must be made simpler and clearer. The work of HR staff will be facilitated as a result, and the level of service will be improved.” Work to explain the goals of and reasons for HR practices has been undertaken with the communication department to support recruitment, assessment or promotion campaigns. Another organisational point on the agenda is the issue of subsidiarity: are decisions taken at the right level? This issue is being considered alongside that of how to rewrite job descriptions to ensure that they are more consistent and afford more responsibility and greater recognition, with the inclusion of activities in the 2012–2015 master plan and in the strategic plan. Increasingly, the HR Department is being called upon to play a role in guaranteeing good working conditions for Inria staff, and thus support managers in the human resources aspects of their work. The programmes offered by management schools will be changed to refl ect this.

Clearer, more effi cient support functions

MANAGEMENT & HR

FACTS AND FIGURES MANAGEMENT & HR

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Simplifi cation: a sure-fi re route to effi ciency Following the certifi cation of the Institute’s accounts in 2010, work began on addressing the six reservations expressed by the statutory auditors. Two reservations were lifted in 2011, and a further two in 2012. “This is a very important result, which we owe to the excellent mobilisation of our teams, explains Laurent Azoulay, appointed head of the Administration, Finance and Assets Department in May 2012. The last two reservations will again require lots of people to contribute in order to clarify procedures and perfect the existing tools.” In close collaboration with staff members from the centres’ fi nance departments, whose devotion he praises, Laurent Azoulay is continuing the process of change set in train by his predecessor with a view to maximising effi ciency.

The success of this new site can undoubtedly be attributed to the mobilisation and coordination of the departments responsible for managing the project. A site transfer coordination committee met regularly, involving all the internal and external stakeholders. Finally, special attention was paid to the comfort and working environment of the occupants of the Turing building. The furniture, relaxation spaces and catering services were all available as soon as the teams moved in. All those involved deserve great praise for this performance.”

“This Digiteo Labs project has allowed us to join Inria’s forces together and improve the visibility of the Institute on the Plateau de Saclay. The move took place in three stages. First, some of the research teams based in the Orsay University premises transferred to the new PCRI building. Around a hundred people then moved into the new Alan Turing building, at the École Polytechnique site, and fi nally, they were joined there by the teams of the École Polytechnique computer science laboratory (LIX). The Alan Turing building, which has a surface area of around 6,000 m2, is now Inria’s premier site on the Plateau de Saclay, housing as it does the LIX research teams, the joint laboratory run with Microsoft Research, and the centre’s administrative services and management. Our presence in the area will be further strengthened in the next few years thanks to a 4,000 m2 extension scheduled for late 2014 or early 2015, which will house a lecture theatre, a ‘project hotel’ (premises for occasional or one-off scientifi c projects) and a demonstration space.


RAISING THE INSTITUTE’S PROFILE ON THE PLATEAU DE SACLAY

for this performance.ow Inria s teau t does , the joint crosoft re’s s presence her xt few years ension

4 or early a lecture

’ (premises off scientifi c ation space.

In 2011, important work was

undertaken to improve the

operation of the HR function.

Philippe Henry,Head of

Administration, Inria Saclay–Île-de-France

research centre

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“The way to improve effi ciency is to simplify procedures and to develop our business lines so that we are able to meet challenges such as the new regulatory requirements.” The introduction of multi-skilling, for example, gives us greater responsiveness and provides more interesting assignments for staff.

Furthermore, some roles require more detailed training and guidance, in order to incorporate new skills (e.g. reform of State procurement), for instance. “This reform introduces a more economic, and not merely legal, approach to calls for tender,” explains Laurent Azoulay. “This allows for better analysis of needs upstream and subsequently a better response in the tender. The aim is to be able to best respond to needs, the corollary being savings for the Institute.”The Institute was also inspected by the Court of Auditors in the autumn for the 2004–2011 period, causing a very heavy workload for all its departments. The CEO will receive the report some time in 2013. Finally, another project is about to start with a complete overhaul of the information system, which must be adapted to the new public accountancy and budget management framework (GBCP). Introduced by decree on 7 November 2012, the GBCP overhauls the accounting rules introduced in 1962, taking into account the implications of the Organic Law of 1 August 2001

on Finance Laws (LOLF). “This is a challenge that involves working with the centres and the other departments of the Institute (including the accountancy department, the human resources department and the information systems department),” says Laurent Azoulay. “The new rules will take effect in 2016, which is just around the corner!”

Jean-Emmanuel Paillon arrived in early 2013 as the new Chief Offi cer for Resources and Service Administration (DGARS), with responsibility for coordinating the support functions. He is continuing the work already started (business line reorganisation, certifi cation of accounts, etc.) and has

Some roles require

more detailed training

and guidance, in order to

incorporate new skills,

for instance.


56


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transition, a personalised guidance programme has been put in place. Around 80 people have received training; teleworking has been widely promoted; and case-by-case interviews, transition forms to ensure effective skills transfer, and a newsletter have been developed. In order to ensure that the changes were understood and accepted, an additional annual evaluation interview was held for each staff member in 2011. A seminar was held in 2012 to boost cohesion between the departments and the IS function. Throughout this period, listening to colleagues and taking account of the human factor remained central concerns. This is undoubtedly what allowed the teams to change their way of working, joining the new multi-centre teams, while maintaining quality of service for users, studying the new architecture and deploying it without any inconvenience to users.”

“The reorganisation of our information technology resources and our information systems department began in 2010. It aimed to provide greater effi ciency within the IS function, enabling it to focus on the service provided to users and on improving that service. One stage involved combining the network equipment purchases for the eight centres in order to reduce the number of suppliers and converge towards a single administration system. It was not right that researchers at different centres did not have access to the same level of service! This reorganisation made it possible to distinguish the functions that could be centralised from those that should be managed locally. As a result, the roles and responsibilities of several staff members have been profoundly altered. To support them in this

REORGANISING TO OBTAIN A HIGH-PERFORMANCE INFORMATION SYSTEM AND INNOVATIVE SERVICE OFFERINGS TAILORED TO THE INSTITUTE’S NEEDS

Mylène Henneton Crépin,

DSI/SESI network engineer, Inria

Rennes–Bretagne Atlantique centre

H

R

concluded that “the simplifi cations and optimisations of processes that have been undertaken for the ultimate benefi t of researchers are based fi rst and foremost on the participation and mobilisation of all support function staff”.


57


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STAFF

STAFF NUMBERSDecember 2012

•1 — 1,676 staff funded by the State: 38.1%

•2 — 1,721 staff neither paid nor funded by Inria: 39.1%

•3 — 922 staff funded by the Institute’s own resources: 21%

• 4 — 78 research-lecturers on assignments or with a chair: 1.8%

•2

•1

•3

• 4

OVERALL STAFF NUMBERS FOR RESEARCH CENTRES AND HEAD OFFICEDecember 2012

• 676 Rennes–Bretagne Atlantique

• 653 Paris – Rocquencourt

• 643 Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée

• 626 Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes

• 469 Saclay – Île-de-France

• 411 Nancy – Grand Est

• 325 Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest

• 321 Lille – Nord Europe

• 273 Head Offi ce

273321325411469

653 626676 643

FACTS AND FIGURES STAFF

•1 — 1,412 researchers and research-lecturers

•2 — 1,247 PhD students

•3 — 943 engineers, technicians and administrative staff

•4 — 462 R&D engineers

•5 — 277 post-doctoral researchers

•6 — 56 others (apprentices, interns and stand-ins)

ACTIVITY CATEGORIESDecember 2012•1

•2

•3

• 5

• 4

• 6

58


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71

44is the average age of Inria’s permanent researchers, engineers, technicians and administrative staff

27is the average age of PhD students

37.3is the overall average age for Inria staff

INCUMBENT RESEARCHERS BY AGE BRACKETDecember 2012

• — Men • — Women

24 to 29 30 to 35 36 to 41 42 to 47 48 to 53 54 to 59 60 to 65

94

16

122

15

91

12

64

20

50

19

29

4

PHD STUDENTS (ALL TYPES OF FUNDING) BY RESEARCH CENTRE December 2012

• 231 Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique

• 191 Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée

• 190 Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes

• 182 Paris – Rocquencourt

• 153 Saclay – Île-de-France

• 106 Lille – Nord Europe

• 98 Nancy – Grand Est

• 96 Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest

153 106 98 96

191 182190

FACTS AND FIGURES STAFF

FOREIGN NATIONALITIES December 2012

• 494 Europe (UE)

• 128 Latin America

• 110 Tunisia

• 85 Maghreb (excluding Tunisia)

• 80 China

• 78 Indian subcontinent

• 68 Africa (excluding the Maghreb)

• 67 South-East Asia

• 64 Near East

• 50 United States and Canada

• 47 Europe (others)

• 17 South Korea, Japan and Taiwan

• 9 Australia and New Zealand

128 110494 85

95064676880 4778 17

231

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RESULTS

2012 Inria Awards Grand Prize: Pierre-Louis Lions, Professor at the Collège de France and member of the Académie des Sciences

Inria-Dassault Systèmes Award for Innovation:Paul-Louis George, Inria senior research scientist, Gamma 3 project-team

Young Researcher Award: Francis Bach, a graduate of the Corps des Mines engineering school, seconded to a role as senior research scientist at Inria in the Sierra project-team

Award for Research and Innovation Support: David Margery, Inria research engineer

Research Support Department Award: Marie-Agnès Enard, Frédéric Carette and Sylvain Karpf, Inria Lille – Nord Europe research centre

Awards won by Inria or non-Inria researchers working in Inria project-teams10 new European Research Council grant holders:

“Starting grants” category: 4• Ivan Laptev,

Willow project-team

• Marie Doumic-Jauffret, Bang project-team

• Sylvain Lefebvre, Alice project-team

• Stéphane Redon, Nano-D project-team

“Advanced grants” category: 4, including

• Cordelia Schmid, Lear project-team

• Wendy Mackay, In-situ project-team

“Proof of concept” category: 2

• Anne-Marie Kermarrec, Asap project-team

• Bruno Lévy, Alice project-team

A number of new fellows

• Serge Abiteboul, Webdam project, ACM fellow

• François Chaumette, Lagadic project-team, IEEE fellow

• Christiane Guillemot, Sirocco project-team, IEEE fellow

• François-Xavier Le Dimet, Moise project-team, distinguished fellow of the American Meteorological Society

• Patrick Valduriez, Zenith project-team, ACM fellow

• André Seznec, Alf project-team, IEEE fellow

• Cordelia Schmid, Lear project-team, IEEE fellow

Many other prestigious awards

• Eitan Altman, Maestro project-team, winner of the Académie des Sciences France Télécom award

• André Seznec, Alf project-team, 1st Intel Research Impact Medal

• Gérard Le Lann, Imara project-team, Académie des Sciences Lamb Award

• Marie-Paule Cani, Imagine project-team, CNRS silver medal

• Christian Laugier, e-motion project-team, IROS Harashima Award for Innovative Technologies

• Mathieu Feuillet, Rap project-team, Gilles-Kahn thesis prize

• Caramel project-team, La Recherche Computer Science Award

FACTS AND FIGURES RESULTSInria — Annual Report 2012

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•1

•2

•3

•4

•5

SUMMARY OF PUBLICATIONS IN 2012

•1 — 2,889 conference papers

•2 — 1,831 articles

•3 — 324 theses

•4 — 311 books or book chapters

•5 — 47 authorisations to supervise doctoral theses

104.5million euros of funding from the European Commission under FP7

277patents in our portfolio at the end of 2012

32initial patents registered in 2012

127software submissions to the French Software Protection Agency (APP) in 2012

61licence agreements generated income in 2012

2start-ups created in 2012:• Axellience• Mensia Technologies

3new Inria Innovation Labs created: • EtiPOPS, involving the

company Etineo and the Fun project-team

• SIWA, involving the company Mauna Kea Technologies and the Asclepios project-team

• SoftSim, involving the company MXM and the Demar project-team

62

62associate teams active in 2012, including 18 as part of the Inria@SiliconValley programme

36

28

36people, including 28 engineers, make up the staff of the Inria Chile Foundation, working with 80 researchers

204

129

33

23

204projects funded by the European FP7 since 2007, including 129 cooperative projects, 33 ERC (European Research Council) grants and 23 Marie-Curie projects

18

FACTS AND FIGURES RESULTSInria — Annual Report 2012

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The public service subsidy represented 73.3% of the organisation’s net income and covered 73.8%

of its expenditure: €161.7 million was allocated as basic funding and €3.6 million for action 1, relating to funding for the ministerial post-doctoral programme.

After stabilising in 2011 (+1.1%), the Institute’s own resources fell from €69.1 million in 2011 to €60.2 million in 2012 (-13%), due primarily to a decrease in non-recurring grants for real estate projects.

However, the Institute did receive €1.5 million of funding under the fi rst year of the Future Investments programme. Representing 26.7% of total funding in 2012, the Institute’s own resources originated as follows: • €52.5 million from fi nalised research agreements and support*; • €3.5 million from product and service sales; • €4.2 million from grants and other sources.

Excluding calculated income and expenditure, the fi nancial accounts recorded the value of revenue collected as €225.4 million (compared to €235.6 million in 2011). The overall level of income generation is 98.1% (compared to 98.4% in 2011), showing a loss of €4.4 million.

With an extraordinary deduction from working capital of €1.5 million and €32.9 million carried forward from the previous year, total resources were €259.8 million in 2012.

Purpose and nature of expenditureBy purpose, authorised expenditure (€224 million) was allocated as follows: • €131.3 million on the scientifi c activities of the research centres (aggregate 1), accounting for 58.6% of expenditure (as against 56% in 2011); • €26.1 million on joint research actions (aggregate 2), accounting for 11.7% of expenditure (as against 12.1% in 2011);• €66.6 million for support functions (aggregate 3), i.e. 29.7% of expenditure (compared to 31.9% in 2011).

By nature, this expenditure is broken down as follows:• €159 million for personnel costs (71.0% of expenditure, compared to 68.4% in 2011), including €120.6 million for limited payroll and €38.4 million for unlimited payroll. The number of “subsidised” personnel (i.e. those whose remuneration is based on state funding) reached 1,623 full-time equivalents (FTE) in 2012, the cap associated with the initial budget being 1,683 full-time equivalents (the full-time equivalents cap determined by the Finance Act is 1,794 full-time equivalents).

2012 BUDGET

FACTS AND FIGURES 2012 BUDGET

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The number of “non-subsidised” personnel (those whose remuneration comes from the Institute’s own resources) was 880.2 full-time equivalents.• €54.9 million for ongoing operating and investment costs, i.e. 24.5% of expenditure (compared to 24% in 2011); • €10.1 million for costs relating to planned investment operations (OIP), i.e. 4.5% of expenditure (compared to 7.6% in 2011).

Certifi cation of the accounts Since 2010 – and, therefore, for the third time in 2012 – the Institute’s annual accounts have been certifi ed by a panel of auditors and include inventory accounting adjustments (unearned income, accrued income, prepaid expenses, accrued expenses). The number of reservations relating to this certifi cation fell from six in 2010 to two in 2012**.

The fi nancial accounts for 2012 show an operating loss of €1.495 million, a fi nancial profi t of €0.086 million and an extraordinary profi t of +€11.512 million. The accounting results for the period therefore display a profi t of €10.104 million. The difference from the budget outcome (a projected profi t of €1.401 million) can be explained, on the one hand, by budget implementation operations not having a direct impact on the profi t and loss account (budgetary income and budgetary

expenditure entered in the balance sheet: 4.414 – 15.084 = - €10.67 million) and, on the other hand, by the inclusion of “calculated expenditure” (+€22.928 million: depreciation, provisions, etc.) and “calculated income” (- €20.961 million: reversals of previous provisions).

The balance sheet shows net assets of €224.722 million (+5.5% compared to 2011).

* Including €16.5 million for European research agreements and €11.7 million for ANR (the French National Research Agency) agreements.

** The reservations lifted relate to the tracking of paid leave and the assessment of fl exitime provisions, suspense accounts, VAT-related control procedures and the application of the percentage-of-completion method to own resources. The reservations maintained – which all represent areas for improvement in terms of internal control – relate to two processes: the identifi cation of accounts payable and the monitoring of fi xed assets.

€264.3 million Inria budget for 2012


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Income statement (€ million) 2011 2012 variations

• Operating income broken down as follows: - Net revenues

(sale of products)

(income from related activities)

- Operating grants

- Reversals of provisions and transfer of charges

- Other operating income

225.938

49.277

(46.521)

(2.756)

171.017

4.086

1.557

226.238

49.504

(46.279)

(3.225)

169.876

5.468

1.390

+ 0.1%

+ 0.5%

(- 0.5%)

(+ 17.0%)

- 0.7%

+ 33.8%

- 10.7%

• Operating expenses broken down as follows: - Purchases (third-party goods and services

consumed during the fi scal year)

- Taxes and similar levies

- Wages and salaries

- Social security costs

- Depreciation

- Provisions

- Other operating expenses

221.402

41.302

10.491

94.527

52.313

14.279

5.591

2.900

227.733

42.667

11.795

93.503

53.581

15.248

7.675

3.264

+ 2.9%

+ 3.3%

+ 12.4%

- 1.1%

+ 2.4%

+ 6.8%

+ 37.3%

+ 12.6%

Operating profi t/loss 4.536 - 1.495 - 133%

• Financial income broken down as follows: - Income from marketable securities

- Reversals of provisions and transfer of fi nancial charges

- Foreign exchange gains

- Income from the sale of marketable securities

- Other fi nancial income

0.179

0.145

0.000

0.005

0.000

0.030

0.093

0.000

0.046

0.006

0.000

0.041

- 48.3%

- 100.0%

∞

+ 24.1%

∞

+ 38%

• Financial expenses broken down as follows: - Foreign exchange losses

0.005

0.005

0.007

0.007

+ 28.1%

+ 28.1%

Financial profi t/loss 0.174 0.086 - 50.7%

Operating profi t/loss 4.710 - 1.409 - 129.9%

• Extraordinary income broken down as follows: - Exceptional and extraordinary operating income

- Exceptional and extraordinary income from capital transactions

- Reversals of provisions and transfer of charges

14.444

0.075

14.369

0.000

15.419

0.155

15.264

0.000

+ 6.8%

+ 108.0%

+ 6.2%

- 100%

• Extraordinary expenses broken down as follows: - Exceptional and extraordinary operating expenses

- Exceptional and extraordinary expenses from capital transactions

- Exceptional and extraordinary depreciation and provisions

5.543

5.490

0.053

0.000

3.907

3.848

0.055

0.004

- 29.5%

- 29.9%

+ 4%

∞

Extraordinary profi t 8.901 11.512 + 29.3%

• Total income 240.561 241.751 + 0.5%

• Total expenditure 226.950 231.647 + 2.1%

Profi t for the year + 13.611 + 10.104 - 25.8%

2012

226.238

49.504

(46.279)

(3.225)

169.876

5.468

1.390

227.733

42.667

11.795

93.503

53.581

15.248

7.675

3.264

- 1.495

0.093

0.000

0.046

0.006

0.000

0.041

0.007

0.007

0.086

- 1.409

15.419

0.155

15.264

0.000

3.907

3.848

0.055

0.004

11.512

241.751

231.647

+ 10.104


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PROJECT-TEAMS

Algorithmics, Programming, Software and Architecture

Algorithms, Certifi cation, and Cryptography

• Algorithms Algorithms. Paris – Rocquencourt. Bruno Salvy.

• Aric* (3, 11, 24) Arithmetic and Computing. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Florent de Dinechin

• Caramel (3, 25) Cryptology, Arithmetic: Hardware and Software. Nancy – Grand Est. Pierrick Gaudry.

• Cascade (3, 12) Construction and Analysis of Systems for Confi dentiality and Authenticity of Data and Entities. Paris – Rocquencourt. David Pointcheval.

• Galaad (3, 41) Geometry, algebra, algorithms. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Bernard Mourrain.

• Geometrica (3, 10, 41) Geometric computing. Saclay – Île-de-France and Sophia Antipolis - Méditerranée. Jean-Daniel Boissonnat.

• Lfant (3, 23) Lithe and fast algorithmic number theory. Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest. Andreas Enge.

• Polsys* (3, 44) Polynomial Systems. Paris – Rocquencourt. Jean-Charles Faugere.

• Secret Security, Cryptology and Transmissions. Paris – Rocquencourt. Anne Canteaut.

• Vegas (3, 28) Effective Geometric Algorithms for Surfaces and Visibility. Nancy – Grand Est.Sylvain Lazard.

Architecture and Compiling

• Alf (3, 46) Amdahl’s Law is Forever. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. André Seznec.

• Cairn (3, 10, 46) Energy Effi cient Computing ArchItectures with Embedded Reconfi gurable Resources. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Olivier Sentieys.

• Compsys (3, 11, 24) Compilation and embedded computing systems. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Alain Darte.

Programs, Verifi cation and Proofs

• Abstraction (3, 12) Abstract Interpretation and Static Analysis. Paris – Rocquencourt. Patrick Cousot.

• Ateams (1) Analysis and Transformation based on Reliable tool compositions. Lille – Nord Europe. Paul Klint.

• Carte (3, 28) Theoretical adverse computations, and safety. Nancy – Grand Est. Jean-Yves Marion.

• Cassis (3, 27, 28) Combination of approaches to the security of infi nite states systems. Nancy – Grand Est. Michaël Rusinowitch.

• Celtique (3, 10, 46) Software certifi cation with semantic analysis. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Thomas Jensen.

• Comete (3, 13) Concurrency, Mobility and Transactions. Saclay – Île-de-France. Catuscia Palamidessi.

• Contraintes Constraint programming. Paris – Rocquencourt. François Fages.

• Gallium Programming languages, types, compilation and proofs. Paris – Rocquencourt. Xavier Leroy.

• Marelle Mathematical, Reasoning and Software. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Yves Bertot.

• Mexico (3, 10) Modeling and Exploitation of Interaction and Concurrency. Saclay – Île-de-France. Stefan Haar.

• Moscova Mobililty, security, concurrence, verifi cation and analysis. Paris – Rocquencourt. Jean-Jacques Levy.

• Pareo (3, 28) Formal islands: foundations and applications. Nancy – Grand Est. Pierre-Etienne Moreau.

• Parsifal (3, 13) Proof search and reasoning with logic specifi cations. Saclay – Île-de-France. Dale Miller.

• PI.R2 (3, 34) Design, study and implementation of languages for proofs and programs. Paris – Rocquencourt. Pierre-Louis Curien.

The partners of each project-team are referenced in brackets (see p. 71).

FACTS AND FIGURES PROJECT-TEAMS

65


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• Prosecco Programming securely with cryptography. Paris – Rocquencourt. Karthikeyan Bhargavan.

• Secsi (3, 10) Security of information systems. Saclay – Île-de-France. Jean Goubault-Larrecq.

• Tasc (3, 6, 40) Theory, Algorithms and Systems for Constraints. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Nicolas Beldiceanu.

• Typical (3, 13) Types, Logic and computing. Saclay – Île-de-France. Benjamin Werner.

• VeriDis (3, 28) Modeling and Verifi cation of Distributed Algorithms and Systems. Nancy – Grand Est. Stephan Merz.

Embedded and Real Time Systems

• Aoste (3, 41) Models and methods of analysis and optimization for systems with real-time and embedding constraints. Paris - Rocquencourt and Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Robert de Simone.

• Espresso (3, 46) Synchronous programming for the trusted component-based engineering of embedded systems and mission-critical systems. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Jean-Pierre Talpin.

• Mutant* (3) Synchronous Realtime Processing and Programming of Music Signals. Paris – Rocquencourt. Arshia Cont.

• Parkas (3, 12) Synchronous Kahn Parallelism. Paris – Rocquencourt. Marc Pouzet.

• Pop Art (3, 20, 38, 45) Programming languages, Operating Systems, Parallelism, and Aspects for Real-Time. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Alain Girault.

• S4 (3, 46) System synthesis and supervision, scenarios. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Benoît Caillaud.

• Vertecs Verifi cation models and techniques applied to testing and control of reactive systems. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Thierry Jéron.

Applied Mathematics, Computation and Simulation

Stochastic Methods and Models

• Alea (3, 26) Advanced Learning Evolutionary Algorithms. Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest. Pierre Del Moral.

• Aspi (3, 37, 46) Applications of interacting particle systems to statistics. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. François Le Gland.

• CQFD (3, 26) Quality control and dynamic reliability. Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest. François Dufour.

• I4S* (16) Statistical Inference for Structural Health Monitoring. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Laurent Mevel.

• Mathrisk* (3, 7, 42) Mathematical Risk handling. Paris – Rocquencourt. Agnès Sulem.

• Regularity (4) Probabilistic modeling of irregularity and application to uncertainties management. Saclay – Île-de-France. Jacques Lévy-Véhel.

• Tosca (3, 28) To Simulate and Calibrate stochastic models. Nancy – Grand Est and Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Denis Talay

Modeling, Optimization, and Control of Dynamic Systems

• Apics Analysis and Problems of Inverse type in Control and Signal processing. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Laurent Baratchart.

• Bipop (3, 20, 38, 45) Modeling, Simulation, Control and Optimization of Non-Smooth Dynamical Systems. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Bernard Brogliato.

• Commands (3, 9, 13) Control, Optimization, Models, Methods and Applications for Nonlinear Dynamical Systems. Saclay – Île-de-France. Frédéric Bonnans.

• Corida (3, 28) Robust control of infi nite dimensional systems and applications. Nancy – Grand Est. Marius Tucsnak.

• Disco (3) Dynamical Interconnected Systems in Complex Environments. Saclay – Île-de-France. Catherine Bonnet.

• Maxplus (3, 13) Max-plus algebras and mathematics of decision. Saclay – Île-de-France. Stéphane Gaubert.

• Mc Tao* (3, 41) Mathematics for Control, Transport and Applications. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Jean-Baptiste Pomet.

• Necs (3, 20, 38) Networked Controlled Systems. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Carlos Canudas De Wit.

• Non-A (3, 5, 36) Non-Asymptotic estimation for online systems. Lille – Nord Europe. Jean-Pierre Richard.

Computational models and simulation

• Calvi (3, 28, 31) Scientifi c computation and visualization. Nancy – Grand Est. Eric Sonnendrücker.

• Concha (3, 29) Complex fl ow simulation codes based on high-order and adaptive methods. Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest. Roland Becker.

• Defi (3, 13) Shape reconstruction and identifi cation. Saclay – Île-de-France. Houssem Haddar.

• Gamma3 (32) Automatic mesh generation and advanced methods. Paris – Rocquencourt. Paul-Louis George.

• Ipso (3, 10, 46) Invariant Preserving Solvers. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Philippe Chartier.

• MC2 (3, 26) Modeling, control and computations. Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest. Thierry Colin.

• Micmac (7) Methods and engineering of multiscale computing from atom to continuum. Paris – Rocquencourt. Claude Le Bris.


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• Nachos (3, 41) Numerical modeling and high performance computing for evolution problems in complex domains and heterogeneous media. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Stéphane Lanteri.

• Opale (3, 41) Optimization and control, numerical algorithms and integration of complex multidiscipline systems governed by PDE. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes and Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Jean-Antoine Desideri.

• Poems (3, 9) Wave propagation: mathematical analysis and simulation. Paris – Rocquencourt. Patrick Joly.

• Simpaf (3, 36) Simulations and Modeling for Particles and Fluids. Lille – Nord Europe. Antoine Gloria.

• Smash (3, 30) Simulation, modeling and analysis of heterogeneous systems. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Richard Saurel.

Optimization, Learning and Statistical Methods

• Classic (3, 12) Computational Learning, Aggregation, Supervised Statistical, Inference, and Classifi cation. Paris – Rocquencourt. Olivier Catoni.

• Dolphin (3, 36) Parallel Cooperative Multi-criteria Optimization. Lille – Nord Europe. El-Ghazali Talbi.

• Geostat Geometry and Statistics in acquisition data. Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest. Hussein Yahia.

• Mistis (3, 20, 38) Modeling and Inference of Complex and Structured Stochastic Systems. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Florence Forbes.

• Modal (3, 36) Model for Data Analysis and Learning. Lille – Nord Europe. Christophe Bienarcki.

• Realopt (3, 8, 26) Reformulations based algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization. Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest. François Vanderbeck.

• Select (3, 43) Model selection in statistical learning. Saclay – Île-de-France. Pascal Massart.

• Sequel (3, 5, 23, 36) Sequential Learning. Lille – Nord Europe. Philippe Preux.

• Sierra (3, 12) Statistical Machine Learning and Parsimony. Paris – Rocquencourt. Francis Bach.

• Tao (3, 43) Machine Learning and Optimisation. Saclay – Île-de-France. Marc Schoenauer.

Perception, cognition, interaction

Interaction and Visualization

• Alice (3, 28) Geometry and Lighting. Nancy – Grand Est. Bruno Levy.

• Aviz Analysis and Visualization. Saclay – Île-de-France. Jean-Daniel Fekete.

• Imagine* (3, 20, 38) Intuitive Modeling and Animation for Interactive Graphics & Narrative Environments. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Marie-Paule Cani.

• In-situ (3, 43) Situated interaction. Saclay – Île-de-France. Emmanuel Pietriga.

• Mint (3, 36) Methods and tools for gestural interactions. Lille – Nord Europe. Laurent Grisoni.

• Reves Rendering and virtual environments with sound. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. George Drettakis.

Audio, Speech, and Language Processing

• Alpage (34) Large-scale deep linguistic processing. Paris – Rocquencourt. Laurence Danlos.

• Metiss (3, 46) Speech and sound data modeling and processing. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Frédéric Bimbot.

• Panama* (3, 46) Parsimony and New Algorithms for Audio & Signal Modeling. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Rémi Gribonval.

• Parole (3, 28) Analysis, perception and recognition of speech. Nancy – Grand Est. Yves Laprie.

Knowledge and Data Representation and Management

• Axis Usage-centered design, analysis and improvement of information systems. Paris – Rocquencourt and Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Brigitte Trousse.

• Dahu (3, 10) Verifi cation in databases. Saclay – Île-de-France. Luc Ségoufi n.

• Dream (3, 19, 46) Diagnosing, Recommending Actions and Modeling. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Marie-Odile Cordier.

• Exmo (3, 20, 38, 45) Computer mediated exchange of structured knowledge. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Jérôme Euzenat.

• Graphik (3, 14, 35) Graphs for Inferences and Knowledge representation. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Marie-Laure Mugnier.

• Gravite (3, 8, 26) Graph Visualization and Interactive Exploration. Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest. Guy Melançon.

• Maia (3, 28) Autonomous intelligent machine. Nancy – Grand Est. François Charpillet.

• Mostrare (3, 23, 36) Modeling Tree Structures, Machine Learning, and Information Extraction. Lille – Nord Europe. Joachim Niehren.

• Orpailleur (3, 28) Knowledge representation, reasoning. Nancy – Grand Est. Amedeo Napoli.

• Smis (3, 33) Secured and Mobile Information Systems. Paris – Rocquencourt. Philippe Pucheral.

• Wam (3, 20, 38, 45) Web, adaptation and multimedia. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Vincent Quint.

• Zenith (3, 35) Scientifi c Data Management. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Patrick Valduriez.


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Robotics

• Coprin (7) Constraints solving, optimization and robust interval analysis. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Jean-Pierre Merlet.

• E-motion (3, 8, 20, 45) Geometry and Probability for Motion and Action. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Christian Laugier.

• Flowers (9) Flowing Epigenetic Robots and Systems. Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest. Pierre-Yves Oudeyer.

• Imara Informatics, Mathematics and Automation for La Route Automatisée. Paris – Rocquencourt. Fawzi Nashashibi.

• Lagadic (3, 46) Visual servoing in robotics, computer vision, and augmented reality. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique and Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. François Chaumette.

Vision, Perception and Multimedia Understanding

• Lear (3, 20) Learning and recognition in vision. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Cordelia Schmid.

• Magrit (3, 28) Visual Augmentation of Complex Environments. Nancy – Grand Est. Marie-Odile Berger.

• Perception (3, 20, 38) Interpretation and Modeling of Images and Videos. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Radu Horaud.

• Prima (3, 20, 38) Perception, recognition and integration for observation of activity. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. James Crowley.

• Sirocco (3, 46) Analysis representation, compression and communication of visual data. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Christine Guillemot.

• Stars* Spatio-Temporal Activity Recognition Systems. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. François Brémond.

• Texmex (3, 19, 46) Multimedia content-based indexing. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Patrick Gros.

• Willow (3, 12) Models of visual object recognition and scene understanding. Paris – Rocquencourt. Jean Ponce.

Networks, Systems and Services, Distributed Computing

Distributed and High Performance Computing

• Algorille (3, 28) Algorithms for the Grid. Nancy – Grand Est. Jens Gustedt.

• Cepage (3, 8, 26) Algorithmics for computationally intensive applications over wide scale distributed platforms. Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest. Olivier Beaumont.

• Grand-Large (3, 36, 43) Global parallel and distributed computing. Saclay – Île-de-France. Brigitte Rozoy.

• Hiepacs (3, 26) High-End Parallel Algorithms for Challenging Numerical Simulations. Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest. Luc Giraud.

• Kerdata Scalable Storage for Clouds and Beyond. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Gabriel Antoniu.

• Mescal (3, 20, 38) Middleware effi ciently scalable. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Bruno Gaujal.

• Moais (3, 20, 38) Programming and scheduling design for Applications in Interactive Simulation. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Jean-Louis Roch.

• Runtime (3, 8, 26) Effi cient runtime systems for parallel architectures. Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest. Raymond Namyst.

Networks and Telecommunications

• Coati* (3, 41) Combinatorics, Optimization and Algorithms for Telecommunications. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. David Coudert.

• Dionysos (3, 46) Dependability Interoperability and performance Analysis of networks. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Gerardo Rubino.

• Distribcom (3, 10, 46) Distributed and Iterative Algorithms for the Management of Telecommunications Systems. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Albert Benveniste.

• Gang (3, 34) Networks, Graphs and Algorithms. Paris – Rocquencourt. Laurent Viennot.

• Hipercom (3, 13, 43) High performance communication. Paris – Rocquencourt and Saclay - Île-de-France. Pascale Minet.

• Madynes (3, 28) Management of dynamic networks and services. Nancy – Grand Est. Olivier Festor.

• Maestro (3, 35) Models for the performance analysis and the control of networks. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Philippe Nain.

• Mascotte (3, 41) Algorithms, simulation, combinatorics and optimization for telecommunications. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. David Coudert.

• Planete Protocols and applications for the Internet. Grenoble - Rhône-Alpes and Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Walid Dabbous.

• Rap Networks, Algorithms and Probabilities. Paris – Rocquencourt. Philippe Robert.

• Reso (3, 11, 24) Protocols and softwares for very high-performance networks. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Paulo Gonçalves.

• Trec (3, 12) Theory of networks and communications. Paris – Rocquencourt. François Baccelli.

Distributed Systems and Services

• Aces (3, 46) Ambient computing and embedded systems. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Michel Banâtre.


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• Adam (3, 36) Adaptive Distributed Applications and Middleware. Lille – Nord Europe. Laurence Duchien.

• Arles Software architectures and distributed systems. Paris – Rocquencourt. Valérie Issarny.

• Asap (3, 19, 46) As Scalable As Possible: foundations of large scale dynamic distributed systems. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Anne-Marie Kermarrec.

• Ascola (3, 6) Aspect and composition languages. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Mario Sudholt.

• Atlanmod* (3, 6) Modeling Technologies for Software Production, Operation, and Evolution. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Jordi Cabot.

• Cidre (22) Confi dentiality, Integrity, Availability and Distribution. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Ludovic Mé.

• Focus (25) Foundations of Component-based Ubiquitous Systems. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. David Sangiorgi.

• Indes Secure Diffuse Programming. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Manuel Serrano.

• Myriads (19, 46) Design and Implementation of Autonomous Distributed Systems. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Christine Morin.

• Oasis (3, 41) Active objects, semantics, Internet and security. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Éric Madelaine.

• Phoenix (3, 8, 26) Programming Language Technology For Communication Services. Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest. Charles Consel.

• Regal (3, 44) Large-Scale Distributed Systems and Applications. Paris – Rocquencourt. Pierre Sens.

• Rmod (3, 36) Analyses and Languages Constructs for Object-Oriented Application Evolution. Lille – Nord Europe. Stéphane Ducasse.

• Sardes (3, 20, 38, 45) System architecture for refl ective distributed computing environments. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Jean-Bernard Stefani.

• Triskell (3, 19, 46) Reliable and effi cient component based software engineering. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Benoît Baudry.

Computational Sciences for Biology, Medicine and the Environment

Computational Biology and Bioinformatics

• ABS Algorithms, Biology, Structure. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Frédéric Cazals.

• Amib (3, 43) Algorithms and Models for Integrative Biology. Saclay – Île-de-France. Mireille Régnier.

• Bamboo (3) An algorithmic view on genomes, cells, and environments. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Marie-France Sagot.

• Beagle* (18, 24) Artifi cial Evolution and Computational Biology. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Guillaume Beslon.

• Bonsai (3, 36) Bioinformatics and Sequence Analysis. Lille – Nord Europe. Hélène Touzet.

• Genscale* (3, 10, 46) Scalable, Optimized and Parallel Algorithms for Genomics. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Dominique Lavenier.

• Ibis (38) Modeling, simulation, measurement, and control of bacterial regulatory networks. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Hidde De Jong.

• Magnome (3, 26) Models and Algorithms for the Genome. Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest. David Sherman.

Computational Medicine and Neurosciences

• Asclepios Analysis and Simulation of Biomedical Images. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Nicholas Ayache.

• Athena Computational Imaging of the Central Nervous System. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Rachid Deriche.

• Cortex (3, 28) Neuromimetic intelligence. Nancy – Grand Est. Frédéric Alexandre.

• Demar (3, 35, 39) Artifi cial movement and gait restoration. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. David Guiraud.

• Neuromathcomp (3, 41) Mathematical and Computational Neuroscience. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Olivier Faugeras.

• Parietal Modeling brain structure, function and variability based on high-fi eld MRI data. Saclay – Île-de-France. Bertrand Thirion.

• Shacra (3, 36) Simulation in Healthcare using Computer Research Advances. Lille – Nord Europe and Nancy – Grand Est. Stéphane Cotin.

• Visages (3, 15, 46) Vision, Action and information management System in health. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Christian Barillot.

Observation and Modeling for Environmental Sciences

• Clime (7) Coupling environmental data and simulation models for software integration. Paris – Rocquencourt. Isabelle Herlin.

• Fluminance (16) Fluid Flow Analysis, Description and Control from Image Sequences. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Étienne Ménin.

• Magique-3D (3, 29) Advanced 3D Numerical Modeling in Geophysics. Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest. Hélène Barucq.

• Moise (3, 20, 38) Modeling, Observations, Identifi cation for Environmental Sciences. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Éric Blayo.


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• Pomdapi Environmental Modeling, Optimization and Programming Models. Paris – Rocquencourt. Jérôme Jaffré.

• Sage (3, 46) Simulations and Algorithms on Grids for Environment. Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique. Jocelyne Erhel.

Observation, Modeling, and Control for Life Sciences

• Bang (3, 44) Nonlinear Analysis for Biology and Geophysical fl ows. Paris – Rocquencourt. Benoît Perthame.

• Bigs (3, 28) Biology, genetics and statistics. Nancy – Grand Est. Samy Tindel.

• Biocore (14) Biological control of artifi cial ecosystems. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Jean-Luc Gouze.

• Dracula (3, 24) Multi-scale modeling of cell dynamics: application to hematopoiesis. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Mostafa Adimy.

• Macs Modeling, analysis and control in computational structural dynamics. Paris – Rocquencourt. Dominique Chapelle.

• Masaie (3, 28) Tools and models of nonlinear control theory for epidemiology and immunology. Nancy – Grand Est. Gauthier Sallet.

• Modemic (14) Modeling and Optimisation of the Dynamics of Ecosystems with Micro-organisms. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Alain Rapaport.

• Numed (3, 11, 24) Numerical Medicine. Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes. Emmanuel Grenier.

• Reo (3, 44) Numerical simulation of biological fl ows. Paris – Rocquencourt. Jean-Frédéric Gerbeau.

• Sisyphe Signals and Systems in Physiology & Engineering. Paris – Rocquencourt. Michel Sorine.

• Virtual Plants (2, 14) Modeling plant morphogenesis at different scales, from genes to phenotype. Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Christophe Godin.

* Teams being created in 2012.


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PARTNERS1 • Centrum Wiskunde

& Informatica2 • Cirad3 • French National Centre

for Scientifi c Research (CNRS)

4 • École Centrale5 • Ecole Centrale Lille6 • École des Mines, Nantes7 • École des Ponts ParisTech8 • École nationale

supérieure d’électronique, informatique et radiocommunications de Bordeaux

9 • École nationale supérieure de techniques avancées

10 • École Normale Supérieure in Cachan

11 • École Normale Supérieure in Lyon

12 • Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris

13 • École Polytechnique14 • Inra (French National

Institute for Agricultural Research)

15 • Inserm16 • Institut français

des sciences et technologies des transports, de l’aménagement et des réseaux (French institute of science and technology for transport, development and networks), or Ifsttar

17 • Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l’environnement et l’agriculture (French national science and technology research institute for the environment and agriculture), or Irstea

18 • Institut national des sciences appliquées de Lyon (French national institute of applied sciences in Lyon)

19 • Institut national des sciences appliquées de Rennes (French national institute of applied sciences in Rennes)

20 • Institut polytechnique de Grenoble (Grenoble polytechnic institute)

21 • Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique (Institute for research and coordination in acoustics and music), or Ircam

22 • Supélec (Rennes)23 • Charles de Gaulle

University (Lille 3)24 • Claude Bernard

University (Lyon 1)25 • University of Bologna

(Italy).26 • University of Bordeaux27 • University of Franche-

Comté28 • University of Lorraine29 • University of Pau

and the Pays de l’Adour

30 • University of Provence31 • University of Strasbourg32 • Troyes University

of Technology33 • University of

Versailles/Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines

34 • Denis-Diderot University (Paris 7)

35 • Languedoc University of Science and Technology (Montpellier 2)

36 • Lille University of Science and Technology (Lille 1)

37 • Haute Bretagne University (Rennes 2)

38 • Joseph Fourier University (Grenoble 1)

39 • University of Montpellier 1

40 • University of Nantes41 • University of Nice–

Sophia Antipolis42 • Paris-Est/Marne-

la-Vallée University43 • Paris-Sud University

(Paris 11)44 • Pierre and Marie Curie

University (Paris 6)45 • Pierre Mendès-France

University (Grenoble 2)46 • University of Rennes 1


71


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Michel CosnardChairman and CEO

Antoine Petit

Deputy Managing Director

Jean-Emmanuel Paillon

Executive Offi cer for Resources and Service Administration

Claude Kirchner

Executive Offi cer for Research and Technology Transfer for Innovation

MANAGEMENT TEAM

FACTS AND FIGURES GENERAL MANAGEMENT

GENERAL MANAGEMENT

72


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Éric Gautrin

Information Systems, Infrastructures and Computer Services Departmentuntil March 2013

Renaud de Vernejoul

Head Offi ce Administration

Bruno Wierzbicki

Human Resources Department

Laurent Azoulay

Administration, Finance and Assets Department

Marie-Christine Plançon

Information Systems, Infrastructures and Computer Services Departmentfrom April 2013

Thierry Priol

European Partnerships Departmentfrom October 2012

Stéphane Ubeda

Technological Development Department

Pascal Guitton

Research Department

Jean-Pierre Banâtre

European Partnerships Departmentuntil September 2012

David Monteau

Technology Transfer and Innovation Department

Hélène Kirchner

International Relations Department

Céline Acharian

Communication Department

Marie-Laure Inisan-Ehret

Accounting Offi cer

Nozha Boujemaa

Inria Saclay-Île-de-France Research Centre

Bertrand Braunschweig

Inria Rennes-Bretagne Atlantique Research Centre

François Sillion

Inria Grenoble-Rhône-Alpes Research Centre

David Simplot-Ryl

Lille-Nord Europe Research Centre

Gérard Giraudon

Inria Sophia Antipolis-Méditerranée Research Centre

Isabelle Terrasse

Inria Bordeaux – Sud-Ouest Research Centre

Isabelle Ryl

Inria Paris-Rocquencourt Research Centre

Sylvain Petitjean

Inria Nancy-Grand Est Research Centre

FACTS AND FIGURES GENERAL MANAGEMENT

73


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Board of directors

Chairman• Michel Cosnard, chairman and CEO of Inria

Ex-ofi cio member• Alain Fuchs, chairman and CEO of CNRS

Government representatives• Marc Bellœil, in charge of the specialised organisms, DGRI (Research), Ministry of Higher Education and Research

• Cécile Dubarry, head of the Information and Communication Technologies Department DGCIS, Mnistry of Economic Regeneration

• Éric Grégoire, scientifi c training consultant to the general management of higher education, Ministry of Higher Education and Research

• Pascal Le Deunff, deputy director of scientifi c exchanges and research, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

• Christine Marteau, manager of the Telecommunication offi ce, DGA, Ministry of Defence

• François Pouget, head of department 3 (MIRES), Budget department, Ministry of Finance

• Fabien Terraillot, head of the software department, DGCIS, Mnistry of Economic Regeneration

Appointed members• Jean-Luc Beylat, chairman, Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs France

• Nadine Foulon-Belkacemi, senior vice-president Transformation, Orange Labs

• Bernard Jarry-Lacombe, national secretary of the CFDT-cadres executive trade union

• Gilles Le Calvez, director R&D Valeo Group

• Luc Pabœuf, chairman of the Aquitaine CESR (Regional Economic and Social Council)

• Brigitte Plateau, president of the INP Grenoble

• Laure Reinhart, deputy managing director, Oséo and Oséo Innovation

• Gérard Roucairol, president of Ter@tec association

Elected members(representatives of the scientifi c personnel, engineers, technicians and administrative staff)

• Lisette Calderan, research engineer, Inria Headquarters, SNTRS-CGT

• Jocelyne Erhel, director of research, Inria Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique, SGEN-CFDT

• Laurent Pierron, research engineer, Inria Nancy – Grand Est, SGEN-CFDT

• Serge Steer, director of research, Inria Paris – Rocquencourt, SNCS-FSU

Advisory capacity• Chris Hankin, chairman of the Scientifi c council

• Marie-Laure Inisan-Ehret, accounting offi cer of Inria

• Malika Moha, fi nancial controller

• Antoine Petit, deputy managing director of Inria

COMMITTEES

FACTS AND FIGURES COMMITTEES

74


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Scientifi c Council

Evaluation committee

Chairman• Chris Hankin, director of the Institute for security science and technology, professor of computing science Imperial College

Appointed members• Yann Barbaux, director of the Innovation works Department, EADS

• Yolande Berbers, professor, Katholic University of Leuven, (KUL)

• François Bichet, chief technology strategist, Dassault Systèmes

• Jacques Blanc-Talon, head of the Scientifi c domain information engineering and robotics, DGA

• Luca Cardelli, principal researcher, Microsoft Research Cambridge

• Yves Caseau, executive vice-president in charge of Technologies, Services and Innovation, Bouygues Telecom

• Claudine Médigue, leader of the laboratory of bioinformatics analysis for genomic and metabolism, (LABGeM)

• Chahab Nastar, vice-president Business Intelligence Research, SAP

• Jean-Pierre Panziera, director of Externe computing product strategy, Bull

• Olivier Pironneau, professor, university of Paris 6 (Pierre and Marie Curie)

Elected Researchers• Albert Cohen• Luc Segoufi n• André Seznec

Elected engineers, technicians• Christine Leininger

Chairman• Philippe Nain, Inria

Vice-chairman• Hélène Barucq, Inria• Nicolas Sendrier, Inria

External appointees• Didier Berthoumieux, Alcatel Lucent• Anne Doucet, University Paris 6• Jacques Droulez, Collège de France, CNRS• Éric Moulines, Telecom Paristech• Laurence Nigay, University Joseph Fourier• Xavier Vigouroux, Bull HPC

Internal appointed Inria• Olivier Beaumont• Stéphane Ducasse• Jean-Frédéric Gerbeau• Alain Girault• Patrick Gros• Sylvain Petitjean• Marc Schœnauer• Denis Talay

Invited• Éric Fleury

Elected researchers Inria• Sylvie Boldo• Liliana Cucu-Grosjean• Julien Diaz• Nicolas Holzschuch• Gia-Toan Nguyen• Marc Pouzet• Antoine Rousseau• Mathias Rousset• Bruno Sericola• Monique Teillaud-Devillers• Emmanuel Thomé

Elected engineers, technicians Inria• Patricia Bournai• Florian Dufour• Edmonde Duteurtre• Roger Pissard Gibollet

FACTS AND FIGURES COMMITTEES

75


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76

www.inria.frFollow us on:• twitter.com/inria• youtube.com/inriachannel

• Production, coordination, illustrations and production supervision: Inria Communication Department • Drafted and edited by: Angie (F. Marciano), Inria (L. Hermant) and Technoscope (I. Bellin, F. Breton, N. Mermet) • Photo credits: © Inria, J. F. Badias (20), C. Becquart, Altivue (21), M. Bourguet (73), P. Caron (72), A. Decarpigny (52), N. Fagot (20, 72), Kaksonen (15, 23, 49, 73), C. Lafon (57), C. Lebedinsky (19, 73), V. Marracci (73), G. Maisonneuve (23), E. Perrot (55), J. M. Prima (27), I. Qinzburg (21, 28), H. Raguet (18, 33, 73), Y. Riche (39), J. M. Ramès (73), S. Tetu - La Company (13, 16, 72, 73), M. Thirion (21), C. Tourniaire (34, 73), J. Wallace (37), GettyImages, Fotolia, B. Lachaud (19), Collège de France / P. Imbert (20), GB-EURECOM (21), Plaine Image (22), T. Salva (30), B. Boccas (31), R. Palomba (44), D. Manuel (50), Alexis Facca • Design and production: (RAIN012) • ISSN: 1263-2961 • Printing (FSC recycled paper): Graph 2000

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ANNUAL REPORT 2012

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Ann

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