Support for research activities

IFSTTAR is putting in place dedicated policies to support its research activities

IFSTTAR is implementing dedicated policies to support its research activities, which are in line with the major research priorities at national and European levels.

Digital policy

To respond to the issues resulting from the digital transformation of research activities, several practical support projects for research structures have been carried through. The establishment of a centralized computing and storage centre for the entire Institute now offers new possibilities for the development and hosting of data or applications. Similarly, the development of a research data management policy aims to assist the modification of practices to comply with new data requirements (laws and regulations, cybersecurity, etc.). 

If we look at a more precise level, that of travel simulation activities, the existing operational organisation has been revamped and a project to overhaul software tools is ongoing.

Our policy for capitalising on our research

This has led to the implementation of the "IS Research" tool. Designed to meet the needs for capitalising on information about research projects and expertise, it avoids the fragmentation, or even the loss, of information, reduces the number of internal audits conducted into our laboratories, streamlines data collection and validation channels, and finally presents information that is distributed across various applications in the information system in an intuitive and standard form (financial information, time spent)

The system was deployed in early 2017 in all our departments and laboratories. In a year, 500 files were submitted, bringing the total number to 1200. Each contains between 10 and 100 items of data: title, type, summary, related projects, funders, stakeholders, opinions, documents...

"SI recherche" was constructed in agile mode by a group of future users from the Institute's laboratories and management departments, in continuous dialogue with the in-house development team.

Scientific and technical information policy

This is part of a national initiative for open science which is accessible to all researchers. To encourage direct communication between researchers, IFSTTAR is actively seeking open access distribution for its publications.  Thus, the order of July 31, 2017 for dissemination and free access is in compliance with the provisions of Article 30 of the Digital Republic Act codified in Article L533-4 of the Research Code. This Article gives researchers the opportunity to disseminate the final version of their manuscript once it has been accepted for publication and specifies the terms and conditions for so doing.  By this order, IFSTTAR has introduced a depositary requirement and confirmed its decision to gather together all its scientific literature in its local institutional open archive. This archive, which is interfaced with the national open archive HAL and the European OpenAIRE platform, can also be consulted in the HAL-IFSTTAR series.

In line with this policy and with the concern to combat the pricing increases and models that are imposed by the major Anglo-Saxon publishers, IFSTTAR was the second signatory of the Jussieu Call for Open Science and Bibliodiversity. This call, the result of an initiative by a French group representing researchers and scientific publishing professionals, is aimed at scientific communities and research institutions. It advocates open access to scientific publications to encourage bibliodiversity and innovation that is not restricted to a single approach based on the transfer of subscriptions towards APCs ("Article Publishing Charges").