Dr Flo­re Val­let, lecturer+cum-research sci­en­tist, duly cer­ti­fied to super­vise research the­ses, is affil­i­at­ed with the Depart­ment of Mechan­i­cal Engi­neer­ing and the Rober­val Lab­o­ra­to­ry with­in the “Inte­grat­ed Prod­uct-Process Sys­tems” (SIPP) team. She is the incum­bent hold­er of the RE USE Chair, launched in March 2025.

After gain­ing her agré­ga­tion title in indus­tri­al sci­ences, she decid­ed to pur­sue addi­tion­al train­ing in indus­tri­al design. Her research today focus­es pri­mar­i­ly on the sus­tain­able design of prod­ucts, ser­vices, and systems.

In March 2025, she became the hold­er of the Junior Pro­fes­sor Chair (CPJ) titled RE USE. In prac­ti­cal terms? “It’s a unique posi­tion in that, con­trac­tu­al­ly, I will hold it for five years. At the end of this peri­od, and if all goes well, it will lead to a tenured pro­fes­sor­ship at UTC. It’s a pro­gramme that allows me to devel­op research projects while assur­ing a rel­a­tive­ly lim­it­ed teach­ing load,” she explains.

Why the name RE USE? “The term RE USE stands for ‘rein­dus­tri­al­iza­tion to the extent nec­es­sary,’ in the sense that it must demon­strate tech­no­log­i­cal restraint in the face of the chal­lenges of envi­ron­men­tal and soci­etal tran­si­tion. This restraint must above all be con­sid­ered ear­ly on, as of the ini­tial design phase, which requires sig­nif­i­cant sim­u­la­tion resources. Two areas where the Rober­val Lab. excels,” explains Flo­re Vallet.

This theme will gen­er­ate numer­ous research projects involv­ing oth­er UTC lab­o­ra­to­ries as well as exter­nal part­ners, while enrich­ing the curriculum.

Flo­re Vallet’s inter­est in the issue of tech­no­log­i­cal lo-tech sobri­ety is not new ground for her, since she has been a mem­ber, since its cre­ation in 2012, of the EcoSD Net­work, a nation­al net­work aimed at fos­ter­ing exchanges between research scientists/engineers and indus­try to cre­ate and dis­sem­i­nate knowl­edge in the field of eco-design of sus­tain­able sys­tems (EcoSD) in France, and beyond that, to pro­mote French exper­tise in this field inter­na­tion­al­ly. A net­work co-fund­ed by ADEME and sup­port­ed by the French Min­istry for High­er Edu­ca­tion, Research and Inno­va­tion, the French Min­istry for the Econ­o­my, Finance and Indus­tri­al and Dig­i­tal Sov­er­eign­ty and the DGA [Nation­al Weapons Agency]. “With­in this frame­work, projects co-led by an aca­d­e­m­ic part­ner and an indus­tri­al part­ner are thus co-fund­ed over 2 to 3 years. I am per­son­al­ly involved as the aca­d­e­m­ic lead on inte­grat­ing the con­cept of resource effi­cien­cy into eco-design (the ASEEC project) with APESA as the indus­tri­al part­ner and two oth­er aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions, viz., the Uni­ver­si­ty of Greno­ble Alpes and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bor­deaux,” she explains.

What are some of RE USE’s objec­tives? “First and fore­most, it is about devel­op­ing knowl­edge around the con­cepts of cir­cu­lar­i­ty and sobri­ety in the design of prod­ucts and process­es and, above all, assess­ing their envi­ron­men­tal and soci­etal impacts. We are con­duct­ing research at mul­ti­ple scales, rang­ing from com­po­nents to prod­ucts and ulti­mate­ly to broad­er sys­tems such as mobil­i­ty or ener­gy sys­tems. Thus, in the lat­est the Rober­val Lab­o­ra­to­ry, 2024–2025, from Hcérès, the inter­me­di­ate light vehi­cle in urban mobil­i­ty was iden­ti­fied as a top­ic of inter­est, espe­cial­ly since this issue is cur­rent­ly gain­ing sig­nif­i­cant momen­tum. It is also a theme around which the laboratory’s research sci­en­tist and engi­neers could unite,” she states.

It is an aca­d­e­m­ic chair that will involve many stu­dents through var­i­ous so-called “TX” projects (exper­i­men­tal projects). “They could work, over a and above their nor­mal course­work, on inde­pen­dent projects over the course of a semes­ter. The top­ic of repair, for exam­ple, rais­es the ques­tion of how to cre­ate an ecosys­tem where repair becomes a rec­og­nized and accept­ed solu­tion that gains ground in Soci­ety and thus con­tributes to tech­no­log­i­cal sobri­ety. Repair­ing rather than buy­ing a new device or new machines, in short. How can we get man­u­fac­tur­ers, inde­pen­dent repair­ers, or cit­i­zens on board with this vision to fos­ter the emer­gence of such an ecosys­tem – that is the ques­tion?” con­cludes Flo­re Vallet.

MSD