By set­ting up a link between applied math­e­mat­ics lab­o­ra­to­ries and indus­tri­al­ists, Trem­plin Carnot Smiles encour­ages and enhances the emer­gence of research con­tracts that see math­e­mat­i­cal mod­el­ling and dig­i­tal com­pu­ta­tion serv­ing the cause of entre­pre­neur­ial devel­op­ment and inno­va­tion in general. 

The Carnot Smiles Insti­tute is a pub­lic research enti­ty sup­port­ed by the Sor­bonne Uni­ver­si­ties Clus­ter (of which UTC is a mem­ber) along­side the CNRS and UPD (Uni­ver­si­ty of Paris 7 (Diderot)), spe­cial­ized in math­e­mat­i­cal mod­el­ling, dig­i­tal mod­el­ling, opti­miza­tion and data sci­ences, with a focus on con­duct­ing research with part­ners in enterprise. 

Carnot Smiles brings togeth­er pluridis­ci­pli­nary research teams (struc­ture and flu­id mechan­ics, acoustics, biol­o­gy, chem­istry, elec­tron­ics, physics…) that have math­e­mat­ics as tools in com­mon, for the pur­pose of pro­vid­ing glob­al solu­tions to enterprise’s com­plex tech­nol­o­gy-inten­sive challenges. 

The key dif­fer­ence between Carnot Smiles and oth­er, clas­sic pub­lic research lab­o­ra­to­ries lies in the fact that it ben­e­fits from a new set of human resources that enables the unit to respond in a more pro­fes­sion­al and more reac­tive man­ner to the chal­lenges now fac­ing the entre­pre­neur­ial world, as follows: 

• act­ing as a facil­i­ta­tor between the aca­d­e­m­ic and indus­tri­al worlds, prob­ing and assess­ing the R&D needs of com­pa­nies and iden­ti­fy­ing ‘in-house’ those research sci­en­tists with the skills need­ed to han­dle the issue; 

• pro­vid­ing Carnot cer­ti­fied engi­neers, with PhDs in in math­e­mat­ics, who can train the project-teams along­side the institute’s sci­en­tists when col­lab­o­ra­tive con­tracts are signed with enter­prise, focus­ing their efforts on: cre­at­ing and devel­op­ing math­e­mat­i­cal mod­els, like­wise for algo­rithms and draft­ing of assess­ment reports for the indus­tri­al part­ners. Carnot cer­ti­fied engi­neers form a bridge between two time scales: on one hand, the enter­prise time-scale and on the oth­er, the aca­d­e­m­ic time-scale. They ensure a con­stant link with their coun­ter­parts in enter­prise, both in terms of project man­age­ment and also in the pro­pos­al of tech­ni­cal solu­tions, while the research sci­en­tists’ exper­tise is brought to bear when deal­ing with the more crit­i­cal phas­es of a project;. 

The UTC-LMAC Lab (applied math­e­mat­ics lab, Com­pieg­ne) is part of the cir­cle of par­tic­i­pants in the Carnot Smiles Insti­tute and already has con­duct­ed sev­er­al col­lab­o­ra­tive projects, on issues like sus­tain­able ener­gy man­age­ment and new algo­rithms based on com­plic­i­ty reduc­tion and high-lev­el com­pu­ta­tion­al pro­to­cols. Oth­er top­ics will be explored and devel­oped, on data sci­ences as well as mak­ing god use of new skills that have recent­ly come to UTC-LMAC. n 

* In the frame­work of the Carnot Round #3 call for projects, a new cat­e­go­ry, the “Carnot spring­boards” — address­ing lab­o­ra­to­ries wish­ing to increase their knowl­edge-base and skills in build­ing con­tract rela­tion­ships with entre­pre­neur­ial world but who lack prac­ti­cal front-line expe­ri­ence in this area — was cre­at­ed with the sup­port of the French Gen­er­al Invest­ment Agency (CGI).