Arts et Métiers and IRT Saint Exupéry celebrated the opening of a new 8,600 square-metre workspace at the Bordeaux-Talence Arts et Métiers campus on July 4th, along with 150 guests. This facility is dedicated to hosting high tech companies (major industrial groups as well as SMEs) working in partnership on technical innovation and training in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. This original partnership model will bring together students from schools and universities, apprentices, teachers, researchers and businesses to work on shared projects in collaboration with onsite organisations including the University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux INP, the CNRS and Lycée Kastler.

For IRT Saint Exupéry’s Nouvelle-Aquitaine site, which has been based at the campus in the heart of the University of Bordeaux since 2014, this new facility will mean it can begin a number of research projects, starting with looking at ceramic matrix composites materials and innovative assembly techniques.The building will be home to 50 engineers, researchers, PhD students and technicians, and will host innovative and disruptive technology platforms such as France’s first melt infiltration oven for high performance materials.

Acting in conjunction with Aerospace Valley cluster, IRT Saint Exupéry is a powerful force in the local aeronautical, space and embedded systems ecosystem. Supported by seven academic research labs (I2M [1], LCTS [2], IMB [3], ICA [4], IMS [5], MATEIS [6] and ICMCB [7]), it brings together a growing number of industrial partners including seven small to medium-sized businesses that are already taking part in the first Bordeaux-based projects.

For Arts et Métiers Bordeaux-Talence campus this facility is also home to its Tech’In platform, which is dedicated to providing training for high tech companies. It can now enjoy special areas, designed to help encourage new teaching styles and methods with all the latest tools to hand.
“Our common goal is to work on providing more training, conducting more research and producing more innovation to support industrial growth locally,” said Philippe Viot, director of the Bordeaux-Talence Arts et Métiers campus and Xavier Aubard, executive director of IRT Saint Exupéry and manager of the Bordeaux site. “We want to be central to new companies appearing and creating aerospace jobs.”

This project has attracted 10 million euros of funding support from Safran, the National Arts et Métiers Higher Education Establishment, the Arts et Métiers Foundation, IRT Saint Exupéry, local government, the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region and Bordeaux metropolis, the French state and the European Unionthrough the Feder fund [8].[1] Institute of mechanics and engineering (CNRS/Bordeaux INP/Arts and Professions/ Bordeaux University/INRA)
[2] The Laboratory for Thermostructural Composites (CNRS/ Bordeaux University, Safran Ceramics, CEA)
[3] The Bordeaux Mathematics Institute (CNRS/Bordeaux University/Bordeaux INP)
[4] Clément Ader Institute (CNRS/Albi-Carmaux Mines /Insa Toulouse/ISAE/Toulouse University)
[5] IMS (Integration: from Material to Systems) laboratory (CNRS/ Bordeaux University/Bordeaux INP)
[6] Materials Engineering and Science (INSA Lyon)
[7] The Bordeaux Chemistry and Condensed Materials Institute (CNRS)
[8] The European Economic and Development Research Fund