How do the innovation policies of universities and Inria fit together?

How is Inria's innovation strategy reflected in its ecosystems?

François Cuny, Deputy Director General of Innovation at Inria: Since 2019, Inria has been deploying an innovation strategy based on impact, structured around four major axes: the creation of strategic partnerships with French companies, support for the emergence of deeptech startups stemming from or backed by public research, the dissemination of software and technological infrastructures, and the transfer of skills in the major fields of digital technology.

At a regional level, this strategy is anchored in the strengthening of our partnerships with universities, through the Inria University Centres, because universities are at the heart of regional innovation ecosystems.

This strategy is particularly evident in Inria's commitment to the University Innovation Poles (PUI), which are genuine levers for strengthening local innovation. Present from the outset in 15 of the 29 PUIs, Inria shares its innovation facilities - entrepreneurship, industrial partnerships, technological development, continuing education - with partner institutions. Inria plans to gradually extend this presence to all the PUIs where digital technology is important.

This strategy is also being deployed at national level, within the Strategic Sector Committees (CSF), where Inria represents public research in the ‘Digital Infrastructures’ and ‘Security Industries’ CSFs. More recently, as a programme agency in the digital sector, Inria helped to set up the ‘Software and Trusted Digital Solutions’ CSF, which brings together the main French manufacturers working in the Institute's core areas of activity: cloud, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, immersive technologies and software. The Chairman of the CSF, Michel Paulin, is also a member of Inria's Board of Directors. Since the launch of the CSF, Inria has actively contributed to its activities, in particular in the bureau and in the working groups on innovation.

Sophie Pellat, co-director of Inria Startup Studio: Inria Startup Studio (ISS), heir to Inria's previous schemes over the past 30 years, was created in September 2019 to scale up and support digital scientists wishing to become entrepreneurs, whether they are experienced or young PhDs.

This approach, based on transfer through technology entrepreneurship, is different from approaches based on asset transfer and stems from the specificities of digital: previous IP is fragile (few patents, code that can be recoded) or even non-existent (it's the knowledge and the approach that count), the barrier to entry is built around the product and does not necessarily mobilise previous code, getting into a marketing approach, in the sense of understanding the market, is imperative to identify the product to offer based on a real market need, and above all the ability to evolve and build. However, nothing is possible without the total commitment of those who master the technology and can make it evolve.

ISS therefore offers a support programme for these scientist-entrepreneurs: one-year funding for one or two people, exposure to entrepreneurial culture, exposure to ecosystems and meetings with start-up partners and board members, contacts with French investors, building a national community and raising the profile of projects through the Studio's local and national events, and above all support within ISS from dedicated and experienced staff.

Since its launch, ISS has been positioned as open to all public research, and therefore first and foremost to our partner universities.

In 5 years, a real dynamic has been established: more than 700 projects have been examined, and more than 160 have been supported, with a start-up creation rate for completed projects of 45%. And when you look at the winners of the i-PhD competition run by BPIFrance to reward outstanding public research projects, since 2020, Inria has been by far the biggest supporter, with one project out of 8! If we zoom in on the digital sector, 45% of winning projects were supported by Inria Startup Studio.

This is a collective success: it's the success of our ecosystems and also that of our partner universities.

Régis Bordet, President of the University of Lille: We weren't starting from scratch when we built the PUI: the University of Lille has held the Initiative of Excellence label since 2017. As such, we already had a value-adding policy in place, with industrial chairs, joint laboratories and CIFRE theses, in conjunction with the entire Lille ecosystem (research bodies, Lille University Hospital, Institut Pasteur, École Centrale de Lille, IMT Nord-Europe). So we were already used to working together, particularly as part of the steering committee for the Excellence Initiative: everyone speaks the same language, sees each other and collaborates regularly.

One concrete example is the integration of Lille University Hospital into the PUI. This is very important for digital health, because Inria, the Lille CHU and the universities have been able to adopt a common strategy, enabling them to promote applied research and also to envisage the creation of start-ups very quickly. This is where the Inria startup studio plays a key role, enabling project leaders to compare their ideas, develop their thinking and benefit from a methodology.

This makes our capacity for innovation more transparent, including to the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and enables us to move away from duplication and build continuity into our systems, in the interests of effective exploitation of research and for the benefit of the socio-economic fabric.

It also plays a key role in the reindustrialisation of the region. Hosting large companies is not enough: you also need a fabric of SMEs and a strong digital ecosystem, fed by local universities. That's the whole point of our work at regional level, with the other universities, to stimulate this ecosystem. There's room for everyone.

Ultimately, the integration of the SATT into the PUI represents a crucial milestone. Although this poses organisational challenges, it is an opportunity to establish the PUIs definitively in the French higher education and research landscape. Provided that long-term support is guaranteed. We need to create an in-depth partnership between the worlds of research and entrepreneurship. And that can't be built over five years.