École nationale des ponts et chaussées’s scientific policy is focused on four socio-economic priorities.
City and Mobility Systems
The sustainable city is a strategic priority in public policies and urban planning. Highly interdisciplinary, the City and Mobility Systems theme mobilizes research teams that combine the sciences of spatial management, engineering, the living world, and society.
Keywords: Urban water, alternative resources, sustainable mobility, territorial dynamics, hydro-meteorological risks, resilient city.
Management of risks, resources and milieus
The sustainable development paradigm extends the notion of risk to its human, physical, social, and economic impacts. In an interdisciplinary research approach, they are analyzed in terms of resilience in the climatic, environmental, and financial spheres.
Keywords: Atmospheric environment, air quality, renewable energy, natural risks, atmospheric physics, climatic processes
Industry of the Future
The industry of the future is defined as responsible, social, and evolving. It is on the basis of this definition that École nationale des ponts et chaussées contributes to the government’s research program on this topic.
Keywords: Information processing, 3-D vision, megadata, uncertainty modeling, numerical simulation, system optimization, eco-materials, digital production, innovative structures, geomechanics
Economy, Practices, and Society
The issue of Economy, Practices, and Society is historically linked with the School, which was a pioneer in tackling the topic and developing research programs, by combining approaches to homo oeconomicus with the tensions between growth, development, and environment, as well as with societal inequalities and public policies.
Keywords: Public policies, environmental economics, markets and governance, cities of the future, infrastructures, practices, climate change, sustainable development
These socio-economic issues are structured through four target sectors: transportation, construction, energy, and environment. The advantage is that the research strategy is embedded within a production chain logic and a perspective of global competitiveness, with a view to meeting the expectations and needs of the market. This strategy is underpinned by a strong triple foundation of skills in Modeling and Simulation, Structural Mechanics and Physics, and Political and Social Sciences. The disciplinary plinth on which the skills, sectors, and socio-economic priorities rest has four pillars: mathematics and information technology, mechanics, physics of materials, fluids, and structures, environmental science and engineering, and economics and social sciences.