INRIA

Inria, the French National Institute for computer science and applied mathematics, promotes “scientific excellence for technology transfer and society”. Graduates from the world’s top universities, Inria's 2,700 employees rise to the challenges of digital sciences. Research at Inria is organised in “project teams” which bring together researchers with complementary skills to focus on specific scientific projects. With this open, agile model, Inria is able to explore original approaches with its partners in industry and academia and provide an efficient response to the multidisciplinary and application challenges of the digital transformation. The source of many innovations that add value and create jobs, Inria transfers expertise and research results to companies (startups, SMEs and major groups) in fields as diverse as healthcare, transport, energy, communications, security and privacy protection, smart cities and the factory of the future. The creation of IRIA, along with a number of other organisations, was a symbol of the proactive policy pursued in France under President De Gaulle. At that time, France was seeking to develop cutting-edge technologies and the means to produce them. This prompted the country to create a national champion in the form of the CII (the Compagnie Internationale pour l'Informatique) in December 1966, following the takeover of Bull by General Electric. The creation of IRIA was also a response to a desire to develop an institute that was close to industry and capable of educating the country in the fields of computer science and control.