Acronyme du projet/ Acronym of the project

5.3.Stratégie des établissements tutelles/ Strategy of the supervising institution

The Nano-Saclay project is primarily attached to the STIC, NANOTECHNOLOGIES ET SCIENCES DE L’INGENIERIE division of the Paris-Saclay Initiative d’Excellence (Idex).

Information and communication Science and Technology (STIC⁴⁶), Engineering and Systems Sciences, and nanosciences/nanotechnologies are topics proposed in academic programs and related to research activities, in a number of large institutions. They have points in common. On one hand, these are recent disciplines which have strong dynamics of their own, for basic science as well as technology. On the other hand, these fields are essential for applications especially for those addressed at Saclay or nearby: health, environment, food, energy and transportation.

These research and education domains will be strongly influenced by the installation of five engineering schools and one “école normale supérieure”⁴⁷, thus nearly doubling the number of students. The Paris-Saclay campus will include 5000 researchers, teaching researchers and permanent engineers. The ambition of the involved research and education institutions is for the campus to become one of the leading clusters in the world in terms of education, research and innovation.

For that purpose, these institutions have developed a five-point strategy:

Bringing teams together

The campus project is built around several strong structures, namely:

• 
  For the STICs, by the end of 2004, six organizations⁴⁸ had joined forces to build the largest national STIC cluster, under the name of DIGITEO Labs.
  
• 
  In the field of nanosciences, the Nano-Innov/C2N project will bring together, at a single location, researchers from many institutions and large technological facilities.
  

For engineering and systems sciences, the arrival on the site of five institutions will lead to close collaborations and the pooling of facilities within two clusters, “Palaiseau” and “Le Moulon”.

Bringing together the teams of various research organizations will improve their synergy on themes such as engineering and systems, energy, transportation …

The teams will also work together on pilot projects: three LABEX projects (NanoSaclay, DigiteX and Lasi(p)s) with four major research equipments DIGISCOPE⁴⁹ (networks for remote collaborative interaction), Innove-Xes (devoted to onboard systems), MATMECA (platforms for engineering science), and TEMPOS (microscopy).

Providing the means to innovate

The various institutions pursue an active scientific result exploitation policy. Six of the thirty-three “Instituts Carnot”⁵⁰ will be present on the Paris-Saclay campus, and will work in a coordinated fashion. They have developed bonds with competitiveness clusters, which are knowledge consumers such as: ASTech, Mov’eo, Advancity System@tic in the Paris Region. It is now necessary to shift into top gear and invest in "technological hubs", to put the campus into direct contact with the industrial world:

The Nano-INNOV⁵¹ integration centre, which is being built with the ambition of bringing France back into the global field of nanotechnology competition,

The Institute for Technology Research project known as "System X" will host projects co-founded by industry, with the aim of building technological building blocks, each of which can be used individually, in connection with the rest of the Saclay site.

The project of Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies Center (C2N), to be built in immediate proximity, will merge IEF and LPN. These laboratories currently host the two large scale nanotechnology facilities, in Ile-de-France, of the national network for Basic Technological Research⁵². C2N, NanoINNOV and System X will together provide a formidable technology potential from Nanosciences to applications.

Excellence Institute projects in the field of low-carbon energies, which will play the role of an interface between environmental science, technology and industrial demand.

Development of tools for creativity

Three types of interactions will be required for a rapid development of the information science, nanosciences and nanotechnologies, and engineering sciences:

• 
  first of all, interactions between each other through the simultaneous development of hardware, software, systems, modeling and simulations, in particular by supporting the IRT SystemX,
  
• 
  secondly, interactions with other research fields, because Information, “Nano” and Engineering technologies are basically "technologies that disseminate" and can be interfaced with most of the other fields of activity in the Saclay campus (via micro-nanotechnologies, simulation, imaging), whether it be health, energy, food, or agronomy,
  
• 
  finally, interactions with other research fields because Information, “Nano” and Engineering sciences are in turn consumers of knowledge in terms of laws, economics, sociology, mathematics, physics, etc.
  

The general organization planned on the site, by means of the Initiative of Excellence project, will foster such crossbreeding.

Develop world-class educational offerings

The site will have an outstanding set of course offerings, combining bachelor's degrees, technical diplomas, engineering degrees, master's degrees, specialized master's, PhD degrees and continuing education. The strategy of the institutions will be:

• 
  to rationalize and strengthen the visibility of this outstanding offer, especially at an international level,
  
• 
  to enhance interrelations: through bridges between university education and engineering schools, co-accredited master's degrees, common last-year minor courses between engineering schools, pooling of training modules, development of work-linked training, social openness and equal opportunities,
  
• 
  to further strengthen links with the industrial world, as already exemplified by many Chairs and partnerships,
  
• 
  to develop start-up / entrepreneurship sectors, mixed training offerings combined with business schools, human and social sciences, …
  

to further extend the course offerings at an international level, by developing partial foreign exchange programmes, dual degrees, engineering schools created in China, Brazil…

An alliance strategy

Over the last 20 years, the establishments separately developed policies for strong educational partnerships, most often with the same inescapable European and world-class Technology Universities: TU Munchen, Stuttgart, Aachen, EPFL, EP Torino and Milano, IC London, Cambridge, in Europe, and MIT, Caltech, TsingHua, in the rest of the world…

The Campus Initiative would allow, in the dynamic field of "STICs, nanotechnologies, engineering, systems”, a further step to be made by establishing alliances and creating a worldwide network between the Paris Saclay Campus and these large technological clusters, which already have internationally recognized reputations. This approach would thus have a doubly structuring effect in terms of international collaboration, both in the field of education (search for complementarities in the exchange programs and synergies, pooling of good practice...) and in that of research (extension of student exchange programs to involved laboratories, an active dual tutorship PhD policy, facilitated and funded circulation of professors and researchers...)..

Specific Strategy/Support of the partners organizations in the Nano domain

For most research organizations/universities/schools which constitute the supervising bodies for the laboratories involved in NanoSaclay, Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies are among the top priorities. A quick analysis of the 461 research staff members involved in the projects gives 47% CNRS, 20% CEA and 13.5% Univ. Paris 11 for the three main research organizations represented in the labex. These persons are of course disseminated in joint units with all other organizations.

Mastering Nanotechnologies is one of the twelve major stakes for CNRS, in line with SNRI strategy (see the objective contract signed between CNRS and French Ministry of Research⁵³). This organization, supervising body of most Nano-Saclay labs, strongly supported this domain in the last years through the recruitment of permanent researchers and technical staff, as well as through direct financial support. The CNRS support letter, in which CNRS writes it will maintain its support at the present level to the participants, is thus a clear commitment for the future of NanoSaclay. Besides, the C2N project is also the only project of the all nation-wide campus projects in which CNRS plans to invest in building operation.

In CEA activities and strategy, Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies play a crucial role (see e.g. the 2009 report⁵⁴) which is evidenced by its involvement in Nano-electronics through LETI, in Nanosciences through numerous labs (Saclay, Grenoble..), and in the NanoInnov Initiative (Saclay, Grenoble, Toulouse). Through its support letter, CEA reaffirms its commitment to support the teams involved in NanoSaclay, as well as the importance of the Nano field in its development strategy for the future. CEA is also a strong supporter of the C2N project on the Saclay Campus, in close association with the NanoINNOV integration center being built.

Both organizations (CEA and CNRS) are also the main driving forces of the RENATECH/BTR network, set up to improve the equipments (over 50M€ on last 6 years) and accessibility of 6 large nanotech national facilities. RENATECH includes two partners of Nano-Saclay, IEF and LPN.

Paris-Sud 11 University, on its side, strongly supports Nanos through the MINERVE project (2002-2007 State-Region Development Plan), bringing funding of nanotech facilities (up to 10M€ equipments and infrastructures), as well as through several Professors or assistant professors positions and financial support to research units. Nano is one of the transdisciplinary priority axes of the University⁵⁵.

The same strong commitment from Ecole Polytechnique, evidenced by its detailed support letter, measures its will to develop this domain in research and education. And the situation is very similar for IOGS, already one of the main actors in nanophotonics on the Saclay area, ENS Cachan, a leader in developing multidisciplinary research with the Institut d’Alembert, ECP and Supélec, all having strong nanoscience developments sourcing more system oriented research.

As shown in their support letter, NanoSaclay is also perfectly in tune with the will of SOLEIL to support own research of its staff members, on axis strongly represented within the labex such as materials characterization, nanoscale imaging, and magnetic properties measurements through high speed high resolution time resolved spin/XMCD. The unique instruments developed by SOLEIL will in turn become a key asset for Nano-Saclay partners.

UVSQ supports NanoSaclay project through GEMAC and the « Institut Lavoisier de Versailles », primarily on the aspects on drug delivery, one major strength of this University (CNRS Gold Medal 2010), but within C’Nano IdF network many other UVSQ teams already collaborate with Nano-Saclay partners.

Thales TRT, main research lab of one of the major world companies in the field of aerospace, space, defense, security and transport, is present in the Nanosaclay project as full partner (partner 24) and as one the supervisory body of partner 10 and has fruitful collaborations with many NanoSaclay teams: it strongly supports this initiative through the nanophotonics and nano-electronics flagship projects that will back its own industrial developments.

All these elements, together with the strong interest of several other industries (letters in Annex), lead us to be extremely confident in the future capabilities of the NanoSaclay teams to benefit from the support of their respective organizations for enhanced pull effect on the Saclay area, in close collaboration with other French and international sites.

Links with other disciplines/Labex

Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies share with ICT or Engineering and Systems Sciences their dissemination in many other application domains and also in basic sciences. Nanosciences have obviously strong overlaps with disciplines, which will be at the heart of other Labex in Saclay, and Nanotechnologies offer essential tools for their developments. NanoSaclay will in turn benefit from multidisciplinary resources in the Saclay campus for its own development (cf introduction of part 4). The Labex call, by advising against double participation in several labex, forces us to a somewhat artificial separation of “nano” oriented teams from their mother disciplines labex. We are nevertheless convinced that a Nano oriented labex is key to gain major advantages, in particular to reinforce the cross fertilization of multidisciplinary teams sharing common tools and subjects. In terms of disciplines, most of NanoSaclay teams involve physicists in such a way that the link with PALM is essential. Chemistry and Life Sciences oriented labex (CHARMM, LERMIT, BIO) have or will have strong overlaps with NanoSaclay. In the essential field of society related aspects, the link with 6S will also be crucial. In developing these links, we thus definitely act along the will of the Paris-Saclay Campus Initiative to develop strong collaborating links. Beyond the STIC division, we have already decided to lead common actions with PALM, LERMIT, CHARMM, and 6S has a dedicated Nano program. Similar links will be established with the other concerned Labex. Nano is indeed a transverse multidisciplinary field for the Universities/Schools as well as for CEA or CNRS. It can thus be expected that NanoSaclay contour will easily evolve in time.