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IFP and competitiveness clusters
France’s competitiveness clusters aim to nurture innovation and thereby bolster French industry’s competitive edge over the short and medium term.
IFP is involved in six – and especially active in four – competitiveness clusters (including two global ones).
Axelera, for avant-garde chemistry
IFP is one of the founding members of the Pôle Chimie-Environnement Lyon et Rhône-Alpes (Lyon and Rhône-Alpes Chemistry and Environment cluster). Axelera, association, is at this global cluster’s helm.
This cluster’s goal is to develop avant-garde chemical processes that factor in and curb their environmental impact upstream.
Arkema, Rhodia, Suez and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) are the other founding members. Since its inception in July 2005, it has gathered 115 members (one in three is an SME or an SMI, and one in three a research institute or a laboratory).
Its six technology-based projects will share a €70 million budget.
IFP is most particularly involved in two of those projects:
- intensifying processes (engineering more compact, more energy-efficient and environment-friendlier solutions),
- replacing fossil-based raw materials with renewable ones, and treating water.
Lyon Urban Trucks and Bus 2015: optimizing in-city transport
IFP helped organize and is actively involved in Lyon Urban Trucks and Bus (LUTB) 2015. This cluster devises, experiments, fine-tunes and exports transport solutions that will allow large cities to streamline human and merchandise flow management. Its 50 members include business firms (23 are small or very small companies) and laboratories from the Rhône-Alpes region. It is currently working on about 30 projects.
IFP is especially active in this cluster’s work on environment-friendly hybrid and internal-combustion engines, through the Powertrain and Drivetrain program it is leading. The goal, here, is to provide new solutions to the issues that heavy-duty vehicles have to face (cutting consumption, blending internal combustion and electric powertrain technology, using alternative fuels, and cutting noise and air pollution).
Mov’eo, safer and cleaner transport
Mov'eo, another global competitiveness cluster, was founded when Normandy Motor Valley and Vestapolis, two clusters that IFP was already involved in, joined forces. This cluster is working on four strategic fronts: energy and propulsion systems, environment and life cycles, road safety, and mobility and services. Its main goal is to spur safer and environment-friendlier cars and public transport.
IFP is pooling its expertise in two areas:
- energy and propulsion systems,
- environment and product lifecycles.
Mov'eo partners include industrial firms (Renault, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Safran, Siemens, Total, Valeo, Véolia, etc.), research centers and academic institutes (CEA, Écoles des Mines, INRETS, etc.), and a broad-based structured network of SMEs. They are active across Lower Normandy, Upper Normandy and Greater Paris, and aim to rank among the top four global clusters in the car and public transport field, addressing energy-efficiency, road-safety and environmental- stewardship challenges it has to face. Its key strength lies in the fact that it can count on strategic test sites (the Technopôle du Madrillet in Rouen, Versailles-Satory test tracks and IFP’s test benches) to do so.
System@tic: enhancing computing efficiency
This cluster counts around 200 Greater-Paris-based industrial, academic and institutional partners working on high-efficiency computing for the automobile and transport, security and defense, and telecommunications sectors. IFP is specifically involved in research on:
- advanced control and simulation methods involving turbulent combustion in engines,
- molecular modeling,
- simulations forecasting fluid flows in oil and gas reservoirs (on the projects dealing with simulation software tools and infrastructure and “Software factory”).
Other clusters
IFP is also sharing its expertise with several other competitiveness clusters.
- It is working with EnRRDIS, a national cluster, on projects involving synfuels from lignocellulosic biomass. This cluster counts organizations from the Rhône-Alpes region (from the Drôme, Isère and Savoy departments) and is developing new energy technologies for transport and construction.
- It has also joined Aerospace Valley, a competitiveness cluster in the Midi-Pyrenees and Aquitaine, to contribute its expertise in fuels through the CALIN project and to propose alternative jet fuels.