Systèmes intelligents intégrés au cœur de la matière

The Labex ACTION has developed embedded smart systems able to analyze a situation, process the relevant information, and make decisions in an adaptive or predictive manner (e.g. by actively removing ambient acoustic noise, solving complex information tasks, or monitoring structures or environments smartly). It has been organized in 4 core scientific & technology axes (Smart Skins, Smart Sensors, Micromechatronic Systems, Information Processing Systems) sustaining 5 demonstrators. On 2012-2018, a yearly selective internal CFP has fostered collaborative research, valorization, training and dissemination projects, and allowed for foreign researchers invitations and graduate students’ int’l mobilities. Emphasis has been put on international outreach, and on structuring ACTION’s activities between the founding labs and with other PIAs, esp. I-SITE BFC. From 2012, ACTION has recruited 5 excellence chairs, 26 PhDs and 61 postdocs. The key figures include the production of 709 peer-review papers (of which 165 WoS-indexed in 2018, 10% in journals with Impact Factor >5), 10 of them WoS highly cited, 3 Science & Nature Photon. covers, and dozens of highlights and prizes. Numerous academic and industrial collaborations and a steady regional support have induced a strong leverage effect, especially at the EU level with 5 ERCs and 17 research & training H2020 projects since 2016. 64 patents have been filed, notably giving rise to >15 valorization projects rolled out with, e.g., SATT SAYENS; 5 joint labs with companies and 10 spin-offs have been launched. On the dissemination and training side, ACTION has led or sponsored many actions and events for scientists and industry (2 technical days/yr, >15 int’l. conferences), students (7 summer schools, 4 Master of Engineering curricula with IDEFI Figure) and general public. A key fact in 2018 is the integration of ACTION within the Ecole Universitaire de Recherche EIPHI, of which it constitutes a major scientific pedestal.