The AI4ENV integrative program aims to unite the multidisciplinary academic expertise of the Toulouse community in the fields of computing, environmental, space, and universe sciences, through the lens of current industrial challenges.
Its ambition is to initiate exploratory research projects that apply recent advances in artificial intelligence to develop methodologies adapted to environmental and space-related challenges.
The core essence of this program lies in strengthening collaborations between academic and industrial partners (research laboratories, public industrial and commercial establishments, micro-enterprises, mid-sized companies, and large corporations) to create a continuum between scientific challenges and the needs of the socio-economic world.
In the short term, the program’s actions will focus on:
- Engaging the community through events bringing together academic and industrial partners;
- Co-financing research engineering resources for high-impact collaborative projects between academics and industry;
- Co-financing of multi-partner pre-doctoral internships (particularly through CIFRE agreements) to strengthen the transfer of research results from academia to industry.
Ultimately, one of the objectives of these initiatives and outreach efforts is to foster the emergence of new industrial chairs focused on specific themes, and even ANR LabComs (French National Research Agency Labs).
Supporting the search for joint funding between public and private stakeholders, as well as accelerating the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of innovative solutions, are inherent priorities of this integrative program.
Regarding the chairs, this program currently relies on three ANITI chairs: ExplEarth, PiLearnWater, and RELEO.
AI4ENV operates under an agile governance structure, designed to evolve based on interactions and with flexibility, through partial renewals every 18 months. The steering committee for this program is composed of about twenty members, representing academic laboratories, private companies (VSEs, ETIs, large groups) or EPICs.