lab recherche environnement: performing general-interest action research

The VINCI Group has launched the fourth cycle of a scientific partnership with three prestigious engineering schools. Maxime Trocmé, R&D Deployment Director at VINCI, explains its methods, content and scope.

In November 2023, VINCI rekindled its involvement with the lab recherche environnement. But what exactly is it?

The lab is the fruit of a partnership forged in 2008 between VINCI and three prestigious engineering schools. The aims of this scientific sponsorship programme are to reduce the environmental impact of buildings and infrastructure and to support the emergence of new solutions within the Group. We offer our own use cases and projects as testing grounds for the research centres in these establishments. Naturally, all this is done with the highest regard for the researchers’ independence. In return, our business units and employees benefit from the research advances made. At the end of 2023, we again renewed this collaboration of 15 years, this time until 2028. Such a long-term partnership is rare in the world of research partnerships, which remains relatively modest in France.

Which specific research areas are you working in?

We have three main research priorities: energy efficiency in buildings (with MINES Paris – PSL), biodiversity (with AgroParisTech) and sustainable mobility (with École des Ponts ParisTech). This work with three prestigious higher education institutions allows VINCI to enrich its solutions and the environmental transition of its business activity. Most of our business units are involved in execution, downstream of the value chain, which tends to reduce their room for manoeuvre in environmental terms. This partnership allows us to strengthen our presence and our action in the realm of “green” innovation, in an open-ended, general-interest approach to action research. The results of the research are made public and shared not only with the scientific community, but also with towns, cities and regions to assist their decision-making and improve their practice.

At the end of 2023, we again renewed this collaboration of 15 years, this time until 2028. Such a long-term partnership is rare in the world of research partnerships, which remains relatively modest in France.

What has emerged from these 15 years of partnership?

Since 2008, the Group has invested €12 million in more than 75 research partnership projects. We were able to draw on a network of 50 academic researchers and 100 VINCI employees. More than 3,000 people have attended our conferences, and our work has generated many hundreds of publications. The partnership has already contributed to a number of environmental solutions promoted by VINCI business units. I’m thinking for example of Urbalia (urban biodiversity), Equo Vivo (ecological engineering), Resallience (adapting cities and infrastructure to climate change), Revilo (urban cool islands), and Power Road (energy-producing roads). The tools developed have also been applied to demonstrator projects. This was the case with the project to renovate the Clinique Trarieux in Lyon.

What does the fourth cycle hold in store?

VINCI is committing €6 million over five years to advance research on energy efficiency in buildings, urban district life cycle analysis, sustainable mobility, and biodiversity. This new sequence has three main aims: the consideration of planetary boundaries in building and infrastructure projects, the development of artificial intelligence, and improved well-being with work on urban heat islands and the urban water cycle to enhance user comfort and health. We also hope to multiply operational applications by strengthening the “research & solutions” programme, which allows VINCI employees to propose projects in connection with environmental solutions developed by the Group.

05/21/2024