SEA AND COAST POLE, TRANSFORMATIONS AND CHALLENGES

In accordance with the name of our University, the theme “Sea and Coast” is very strongly linked to the identity of our institution. This pole includes two laboratories: The LOG and BPA-ICV.

Research on this theme tackles major issues: the marine environment, coastal systems and biodiversity (including marine ecology, physical oceanography, marine geology, biogeochemistry and coastal dynamics), fisheries, aquaculture, and their enhancement (including the safety of food of marine origin).

Numerous cross-cutting activities are also involved in this cluster: underwater geopositioning and reflectometry, modelling of aquifer pollution phenomena, social and/or spatial uses of coastal territories (and the legal, economic, cultural and spatial stakes involved), shipbuilding, reinvention of port cities, legal regulation of commercial activities, maritime safety, environmental concerns.

POLE TECHNOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE

The environment has been an identity theme for ULCO since its creation. As environmental issues are generally linked to technological transformations, this justifies bringing them together in the same pole. This pole includes 7 laboratories (LISIC, LPCA, LMPA, UCEIV, UDSMM, PMOI, URePSSS), and is the secondary pole of TVES and ISI.

Technological changes : Theoretical foundations and applications

This involves fundamental research in the fields of artificial intelligence, mathematical models of physical phenomena, the resolution of very large systems of linear equations and image processing, massive data processing, scientific instrumentation in the fields of optics (UV to medium IR) and optoelectronics (THz domain), and the physical properties (electronic, thermal, optical) of new materials.

Applications include software engineering, multimodeling, image analysis and synthesis, atmospheric physico-chemistry, the study of liquid crystals and polymers and their composites.

There is also research on the perception, management and governance of energy, risks, and the environment or health (individual and social); as well as on innovation trajectories combining technological, organizational and commercial forms of innovation (e.g. innovations for ageing populations, or those associated with the circular economy).

Environmental transition ; Energy ; Health

The work concerns the mechanisms of atmospheric pollution (atmospheric dynamics, chemical reactivity, aerosols), the effects of pollutants on living organisms, the development of methods to limit the impact of pollutants, the use of agroresources and biomass, the search for sources of pollution, and the optimisation of traffic.

In the field of energy, this involves the development of functional materials in the field of energy, components for electronics such as sensors and energy generators, the study of materials dedicated to energy such as thermoelectric and electrocaloric materials, the field of wind energy (energy availability) and storage (solid electrolyte).

In the field of health (in addition to the effects of pollution on living organisms, already mentioned), work is being carried out on the involvement of bone marrow adiposity in diseases such as osteoporosis, anorexia nervosa, ageing, diabetes and obesity; as well as on physical exercise as a determinant of health and physical performance; finally, there is research on the perception, management and governance of health (individual and social).

POLE HUMANITIES AND INTEGRATED TERRITORIES

This is the main pole of four laboratories (TVES, HLLI, ISI, LARJ) of human and social sciences, which are also present in the previous poles, because the transformations, mutations and issues addressed in the other two poles apply to territories and affect individuals or are embodied in people.

The more specifically cultural, societal, legal, management and innovation-related aspects are found in this third cluster.

They combine work on the evolution of territories, cities and their environment; on cultural boundaries, at the geopolitical level, on competition for access to energy, or again with regard to major human migrations, the cohabitation of ethnic groups in urban spaces, or identity, territorial and national claims.

But it also concerns research on new tools for cultural mediation (historical reconstructions, analysis of works), on the economy of innovation and entrepreneurship (entrepreneurs, firms, innovation trajectories and networks; sustainable entrepreneurial territory), and on law with a publicist axis oriented towards local and environmental public action, and a privatist axis focused on the reactions of business law to economic developments such as the social and solidarity economy or the collaborative economy.