Ten public research organisations¹ in Brittany decide to form a scientific interest group in the field of information and communication science for telecommunications and their applications

Rennes, May 16, 2007

At a meeting in Rennes held on 19 April 2007, the ten partners in the SISCom-Bretagne group set themselves three goals. The main aim is to increase the group's international profile, by organising major scientific events; the second goal is to increase the international appeal of the network to welcome well-known scientists from abroad. And finally, the group will be seeking to stimulate synergy between members, namely by pooling existing and planned scientific platforms. SISCom will be launching its first initiatives in September 2007.

For more than a year now, these major organisations have been working together to decide on the themes, tasks and activities they wish to share. There are eight themes in total: digital and optical communications; chips and secure communicating systems; communication networks; ubiquitous computing; large-scale distributed systems; multimedia data processing; statistics for telecom applications; and lastly, the Web, interaction and uses.

Given the very likely prospect of future calls for French or European projects, the partners also felt it was important to anticipate and prepare to submit proposals under the best possible conditions, through this new federative organisation. The aim is to give Brittany greater prominence in the European Research Area, in keeping with the creation of PRES UEB (European University of Brittany). Thus, the scope of themes chosen for SISCom-Bretagne will be one of the priority fields of this research and higher education cluster.

While information and communication science and technologies (ICST) are currently undergoing major changes, impacting all areas of the economy and society, they are nonetheless a powerful driving force of economic growth and competitiveness, both for businesses and administrative terrorities. By focussing on the development of research in information and communication science for telecommunications, the group intends to support innovation and competitiveness in this economic sector, with a view to gaining a foothold in a strategic field for the success of French and European industry.

We should not forget that in this particular field of ICST, Brittany has world-class scientific potential, being home to two national research organisations, INRIA and CNRS. It can further boast research laboratories dedicated to the sector in its four universities and network of top schools. The quality of work done by the researchers and research units² involved in this field in Brittany was once again recognised in 2006 by the national commission in charge of examining the files of theme-based advanced research networks.

Lastly and again in the same sector, Brittany was awarded the State label as competitive cluster, “Images & Réseaux”, 18 months ago. In that time, it has proved to be one of the most dynamic clusters out of the 66 currently to hold the label across the country, and will occupy a more prominent position if it can benefit from a better organised public research structure with greater appeal and a higher international profile.

¹ University Rennes1, University Rennes2, UBO (University of West Brittany), University of SOuth Brittany, INRIA, CNRS, GET/ENST of Brittany, Supélec, INSA of Rennes and ENS of Cachan.

² Irisa, Ietr, Irmar, Ltsi, Foton, Lester, Valoria, Latim, Lest, Tamcic

 

About INRIA

The French national institute for research in computer science and control is the only public institute entirely dedicated to research in information and communication science and technology (ICST). It has a 3,600 strong staff - 2,800 of which are scientists - distributed in six research units across France. INRIA has an annual budget of 160 million euros excluding VAT, 20% of which comes from its own research contracts and licences. INRIA has massive influence in the following fields: "networks, telecoms and multimedia", "complex systems and software" and "modelling, simulation and visualisation". It develops collaborations with the economic world through strategic industrial partners and by setting up open forums and creating companies (80 start-ups in 20 years) - particularly through its subsidiary INRIA-Transfert, promoter of four start-up funds

More information: http://www.inria.fr/index.en.html

Press contact:

INRIA Gérard Paget Tel. : + 33 2 99 84 73 61

 PDF version of the Press Release