Forward to the FUTURE

2017 also marks the beginning of a new process for IFSTTAR and its partners - the I-Site FUTURE project.

This will fundamentally change the establishment and its research: its institutional aspect includes the creation of the so-called Gustave Eiffel National University, which has the ambition of becoming a scientific leader in the field of urban research, based on the various IFSTTAR sites and their partnership dynamics, and on the institutional merger with an existing University (Université Paris Est Marne-la-Vallée), three engineering schools (EIVP, ESIEE and ENSG) and an architecture school (EAVT). For IFSTTAR, this is a tremendous opportunity to work with other partners and in other disciplines, such as history and urban planning, on the sustainable development of regions and socially desired public policies.

Significant resources have been allocated to the project in order to support some twenty flagship initiatives. This resourcing will be maintained if the international committee set up by the General Secretariat for Investment is satisfied with the quality of the organisation in place. 2017 was marked above all by the launch of interdisciplinary calls for projects that generated a large number of high-potential responses and by a series of "Mutual Understanding Seminars" whose primary objective was to forge closer links between the research teams and support staff of the various institutions.