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| Vinci and ParisTech renew the Chair in Eco-design of Buildings and Infrastructure  Vinci and ParisTech, public scientific cooperation institution, entered into a five-year partnership in 2008 to focus on the eco-design of building complexes and infrastructure. It was supported by an innovative sponsorship of three French graduate schools of engineering (MINES ParisTech, Ecole des Ponts ParisTech and AgroParisTech). The partnership created a Chair designed to generate new concepts and tools for use in eco-urban and biodiversity planning and notably created some 15 measurement tools and methodologies that have become benchmarks in the field, such as nova Equer, Biodi(v)strict and ParkCap.Between 2008 and 2013, the Chair focused primarily on eco-neighbourhoods, refurbishment of built structures, materials life cycle analysis, biodiversity and sustainable mobility. Vinci's subsidiaries served as a testing ground, offering pilot sites for experiments and welcoming researchers and interns. The Group's employees also took part in designing teaching modules for students. The results of this work were made available to urban stakeholders (designers, builders, operators and users), notably via some 25 conferences. Vinci is now renewing this partnership for the period up to 2018 and increasing funding for the five-year period from €3 million to €4 million. For this second sequence, the research work will be even more application-oriented and have a broader international reach, notably via the presence of British and Swiss-German experts in its governing bodies. The main themes in the new period will be energy performance, urban agriculture, smart grids, smart cities, renewable energies, recycling and more targeted topics such as the socio-economic impact of the Grand Paris light rail stations. Vinci has opted to focus part of its innovation work on supporting research, debate and public-private initiatives. In doing so, it promotes a shared approach to research. Innovation is driven by improvements in knowledge and in its dissemination. Vinci's research and development policy concentrates on the major issues addressed by its business activities: eco-design, energy performance, sustainability of infrastructure and new mobility services. write your comments about the article :: © 2014 Construction News :: home page |