Mines Saint-Étienne launches an innovation chair programme, a new academic-business partnership mechanism
Combining research excellence with business expertise to drive innovations with strong societal impact; this is the challenge of the new partnership programme launched by Mines Saint-Étienne on 1st July.
It was on the Digital Region campus in Lyon-Charbonnières that Mines Saint-Étienne officially launched its new innovation chair programme, a new academic-business partnership mechanism, in the presence of its partners: Equans Digital, Orange, Astrée Software, Bosch Rexroth, Ekium, DI-Analyse, Pingflow and Shift89.
Specifically, this involves bringing innovations that can be exploited by businesses to market more rapidly. This is why the project is supported by Diwii; a platform dedicated to the factory of the future that provides an educational factory for manufacturers to test, experiment and train in transformation technologies (cybersecurity, AI, digital twin, digital Lean, AGV, IoT, 5G, etc.)
This ambitious programme will thus enable:
- strengthening the demonstrators of the Diwii platform;
- integrating new technological solutions;
- training students and professionals;
- facilitating the transfer of solutions to businesses, particularly SMEs and mid-sized companies.
A collective intelligence ecosystem inspired by the brain
Three levels of involvement, two chairs and a patronage programme are offered to businesses. They are structured as a network of interacting neurons.
- BRAIN-level chairs, the brain of the ecosystem, are aimed at large groups that want to embody transformation. Among the first partners: Equans Digital and Orange.
- The NEURON level, the specialized neuron, is intended for mid-sized companies and SMEs that want to showcase a flagship technology or a unique technological component. Astrée Software, Bosch Rexroth and Ekium have already committed.
- The SPARK patronage programme is aimed at startups and very small businesses offering disruptive solutions: the electrical impulse that flows between neurons and stimulates innovation in the system. The companies DI-Analyse, PingFlow and Shift89 have just joined the programme.
Continuous exchanges between these three levels will enable information to circulate, be tested in the field and be transformed into solutions useful to regions and society.
For Jacques FAYOLLE, Director of Mines Saint-Étienne: ” This programme is based on a simple conviction, which Mines Saint-Étienne summarizes with a formula: AwB2C — Academic with Business to Citizens. Within the chairs, academics and partner businesses design solutions intended for industrial companies to support their transitions towards the factory of the future, gain competitiveness and, in turn, offer innovative products and services to their customers and citizens. Academics and industrialists therefore do not innovate for each other, but together, for a third party .”
A collective project of public utility
Supported by the Fondation Mines-Télécom, recognized as being of public utility, the chairs contribute to the general interest.
Businesses thus participate in a collective project, beneficial to the entire industrial ecosystem. As Dominique POIROUX, President of the Fondation Mines-Télécom, reminds us: ” Through this programme, partner businesses engage in a patronage approach that goes beyond their own challenges to contribute to a collective project of innovation, training and applied research. It is by joining forces with the academic world that they actively participate in major industrial and societal transformations “.
This new programme is also part of a dynamic of change launched in 2025, with the creation of the Development Directorate of the École des Mines de Saint-Étienne.
