Math and enterprise
Various entities promote the opening of mathematics laboratories to companies. The socio-economic impact of these collaborations is significant.
Because mathematicians are able to manage, analyse and interpret large volumes of data, because they work on the modelling and simulation of various biological, physical or economic phenomena, they offer skills that are appreciated - and sought after - in many sectors of activity.
Mathematics laboratories also contribute to the economic vitality of the country through the start-ups that emerge from them.
I3M, the first joint laboratory involving an Insmi unity
On 28 June 2019, the joint laboratory for Multi-Core Multi-Organ Metabolic Imaging (I3M) was inaugurated in Poitiers between the Siemens industrial group, the Poitiers University Hospital and the XLIM and LMA laboratories, of which the CNRS is a co-tutor.
Its purpose is to structure, around the TESLA MRI 7 equipment, scientific and technological cooperation in artificial intelligence for the processing and automatic analysis of multi-modal images, to aid diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring in brain, heart and kidney pathologies.
This joint laboratory has the particularity of being dedicated to clinical and fundamental research.
At the CNRS, the Department of Relations with Industry (DRE) is responsible for implementing these interactions between industry and the research world. The DRE's mission is to promote research and organise technology transfer and interfaces between these two worlds.
The MSO network: model, simulate, optimise
The MSO houses, which have been organised as a network since 2017, are privileged interfaces between companies, especially SMEs, and mathematics laboratories. Helping companies with their modelling or simulation needs, on the one hand, and facilitating their access to the skills of research laboratories, on the other: this is the mission of this network, which is based on computing facilities and mathematics laboratories.
At the Insmi, it is the Agency for Mathematics in Interaction with Business and Society (AMIES) which is more particularly concerned with links with businesses. Labelled as a "Laboratory of Excellence" in the spring of 2011 as part of the Grand Emprunt, this support and research unit (UAR) strives to create links between companies and mathematicians by relying in particular on a network of regional facilitators, true catalysts between companies and the academic world, and by supporting collaborations between companies and mathematical laboratories by means of a programme of exploratory first support projects (Peps).
AMIES is also involved in events and conferences such as Cemracs (Centre d'été mathématique de recherche avancée en calcul scientifique), the Rencontres mathématiques-industrie organised by the SMAI (Société de mathématiques appliquées et industrielles) and the Rencontres Inria-industrie.
The main actions of AMIES
- The 'Semaines d'étude mathématiques-entreprises' (Seme), where industrialists and academic researchers meet.
- The "Maths Job Forum", in collaboration with the SMAI and the SFdS, where students and young graduates discover job and internship offers, testimonies from former students, and specialisation courses.
- The AMIES Thesis Prize, created in 2013
- The First Support Exploratory Projects (Peps), which support the implementation of collaborations between mathematicians and SMEs.
- The network of modelling, simulation and optimisation centres (MSO network), which hosts local structures that facilitate the transfer of skills between companies and mathematicians.
In 2015, AMIES commissioned a study from the strategy consultancy CMI, which revealed the socio-economic impact of mathematics in France (Eisem). Consult the study.