Presentation
CESI LINEACT (Digital Innovation Laboratory for Companies and Learnings at the service of the territories competitiveness) is the CESI group laboratory whose activities are implemented on CESI campuses.
Reinventing the future through research
CESI LINEACT at the crossroads of educational and industrial innovation
CESI LINEACT was born in 2015 from a logic of structuring CESI’s research activities to serve its pedagogical devices and was labeled « Equipe d’Accueil » (now Research Unit) by the Ministry of Research in 2018. CESI LINEACT has built its positioning around CESI’s training areas and conducts research activities to serve the fields of industry, sustainable cities, digital services and the training of the future. The unit has positioned itself at the interface of the physical and digital worlds, with a transdisciplinary SHS-STIC approach, and proposes a vision of applied research that places the uses and users of technological systems at the heart of the very purpose of technology, whether it be economic, cultural or societal, such as the training of professionals or future professionals.
CESI LINEACT supports the needs of CESI’s training systems through new training methodologies, the production of new knowledge and its integration into teaching content, and the development and operation of platforms for dual use in training and research. The unit also supports the transformation of CESI’s training systems.
Besides, CESI Ecole d’Ingénieurs’ historical proximity to companies is a decisive factor in its research activities, and has led CESI LINEACT to focus its efforts on applied research close to the needs of companies, in partnership with them, and at the service of the CESI students. A human-centered approach coupled with the use of technology, territorial networking and links with training, have enabled CESI LINEACT to build a cross-disciplinary research approach that puts people, their needs and their uses, at the heart of its conception of research and issues.
CESI LINEACT research ecosystem
The specificity of CESI LINEACT lies in its cross-disciplinary approach and the organization of its research into 2 research teams and 3 application areas:
– Team 1 “Learning and Innovating” is mainly concerned with Cognitive Sciences, Social Sciences and Educational Sciences, with the aim of studying, designing and evaluating learning and innovation ecosystems in training and the workplace, in their socio-technical, economic and human dimensions,
– Team 2 “Digital Engineering and Tools”, whose main scientific fields are Digital Sciences, Industrial Systems Engineering, Operations Research and Engineering Sciences.
The two teams develop and cross-fertilize their research in the 3 application areas of Industry 5.0, Construction 4.0 and Sustainable City, as well as Digital Services.
LINEACT’s work is supported by three research and transfer platforms, whose size, volume of activities and digital duplication enable them to extend to all CESI campuses: two are dedicated to the factory of the future at the Rouen and Nanterre centers, and one to the building of the future at the Nanterre center.
Research organisation
Finally, CESI LINEACT has restructured its vision around 3 axes:
- quality research,
- research with and for society,
- applied and integrative research at the frontier between the digital and physical worlds, serving specific local needs.
CESI LINEACT brings together (on March 31, 2024) 98 associate professors and 57 PhD students, as well as 12 research and innovation engineers, 2 administrative and financial executives and 2 assistants.