Michel Cosnard, President and Executive Director of INRIA and its delegation visited Chile between July 27 -30 with the goal to create alliances and attain information on Chilean scientific tasks and developments. The French research institute’s goal is to apply to the Program of Competitive Centers for International Excellence summoned by CORFO´s Innova Chile and to establish a presence in the country for a period of 10 years.
The National Research in IT and Automatics is a specialized IT Sciences, theory of control and applied mathematics center.
For Professor Rafael Correa, FCFM professor and visit coordinator, the possibility of achieving the presence of an INRIA center in Chile organizing large-scale projects related to priority subjects defined by CORFO, would be an asset. He points out that “The goal of meetings held with researchers, both Faculty members and other universities, was to explain the various research areas we work on and in so doing, choose five to six areas we could jointly develop within the Program.”
The selection criteria according to Professor Correa, shall be determined by an excellence research with a clear direction in generating products that will later be transferred as productive results into the industry.
INRIA´s contribution to Chile´s development
As stated by Michel Cosnard :“If we refer to basic research, fundamental research, INRIA would be extremely happy to work with Chile, however, the contribution we can make to this country is not there, it is in transferring and validating scientific research into products, by impacting and developing the main productive sectors of Chile.”
INRIA expects to provide IT knowledge and experience, which could be used in areas such as mining, natural resources, energy, telecommunications, etc.
For Michel Cosnard, Chile has an international standing in that which relates to modeling and IT, however, he emphasizes that the country remains overdue in creating and transferring research into business ventures. Professor Rafael Correa concluded, “INRIA´s expertise shall be the contributing factor”.
During the visit, the delegation met with the FCFM Dean Francisco Brieva, and with scientists and officials of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile y Universidad de Valparaíso.
In addition, they held interviews with the Undersecretary of Economy, Jean Jacques Duhart, the Director of Energy, Science, Technology and Innovation, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Gabriel Rodríguez, the Deputy Director of Pre-competitive Innovation and Public Interest – Innova Chile, Thierry de Saint Pierre, and with the President of the National Council on Competitive Innovation Eduardo Bitrán. They also met with members from the Association of IT Companies.
| The Program of Competitive Centers for International Excellence led byCORFO considers setting up a maximum subsidy of US$ 19,5 milliondollars for each International center for a 10 year project.Interested institutions must set forth their proposals in associationwith a national R&D institution to develop innovative solutions tomain economic productive problems, consequently raisingcompetitiveness and accelerating Chile´s development. |
