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Science & innovation
An alliance for digital sciences
Michel Cosnard © Inria / Photo C. Dupont
On 17 December 2009, an alliance was established for digital sciences and technologies. It is called Allistene, and it brings together the major French domestic players in the field, namely Inria, the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), France’s Conference of University Chairmen (CPU), the French Telecoms Institute and the Conference of the Heads of French Engineering Schools (CDEFI), with the role of coordinating and planning public research in this area. Michel Cosnard, chairman of the alliance’s coordination committee for two years, enlightens us about his role and work.
Interview with Michel Cosnard, Inria Chairman and CEO, and chairman of the Allistene coordination committee
Could you describe the alliance’s role in the new research landscape?
Michel Cosnard: Allistene’s role is very important within the framework of the national research and innovation strategy, which has made digital sciences and technologies one of its three priorities. The issue for these organisations is to transform, through a joint think-tank, the strategic aims into a coherent set of programmes that alliance members can implement individually or collectively. We are also thinking about coordination between the alliances themselves in order to be able to propose broader programmes in keeping with the scale of the country’s economic and social issues.
Since Allistene was formed, the alliance’s coordination committee has met four times. What progress has been made in setting up governance?
Michel Cosnard: We have appointed the chairman of the coordination committee, and have appointed heads for the alliance’s five main tasks, split between the member organisations: prospects and overall strategy (CNRS), higher education issues (CPU), planning (Telecoms institute), European and international cooperation (CDEFI) and promotion and industry relationships (CEA). We have also put in place six programme groups covering the alliance’s subject areas, five of which deal with specific disciplines and one with integrative research1. These groups, still being put together, will combine alliance members with associate members. INRA (French National Institute for Agricultural Research), ONERA, (the French centre for aerospace research), CEMAGREF (the French institute for agricultural and environmental engineering) and INRETS (French National Institute for Transport and Safety Research) are represented and we are in touch with six competitiveness clusters and other stakeholders, such as GENCI (the national high performance computing agency) and CERFACS (European Centre for Research and Advanced Training in Scientific Computation) who have been asked to suggest experts. The subject area groups are tasked with mapping research and identifying the priority challenges to be met, and then to advise national and European bodies in preparing the announced research programmes.
What will these groups’ initial work involve?
Michel Cosnard: The urgent need is to contribute to setting up ANR (the French National Research Agency) programmes and the European Commission’s ICT programmes for 2011-2013. Now is also the time for deciding the actions to take under the ‘big loan’. As the research organisations are contributing to the research programmes’ financing, they are naturally involved in defining these programmes through the work conducted within Allistene. In spring, the groups are going to study proposals, and present an analysis which will be consolidated by the coordination committee before the alliance issues an opinion or recommendation. In autumn, the programme groups will be running sufficiently smoothly to start writing the subject-area prospects documents.
Keywords: CDEFI Institut Télécom CPU Allistène Sciences and technologies CNRS CEA Digital technology Michel Cosnard ANR
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