Why is Yncréa Méditerranée interested in this field?
A large part of an engineer's job is to design technical systems to meet the needs of humans, their organizations and companies, as well as those around them: civil society, the environment, etc. Understanding design activity is therefore essential, because the technologies we design systematically have an impact. Understanding design activity is therefore essential, because the technologies we design systematically have an impact. They influence the way we think, learn, collaborate, move and communicate, just as they have an impact on the carbon and water cycles, and on biodiversity. That's why, for over ten years now, Yncréa Méditerranée has been conducting specific research to understand, through the prism of the human and social sciences, the interactions between humans, their organizations and their technologies. For us, the challenge is to produce and test tools and methods for responsible design activities, usable by our students, engineers and partners.
What does this research involve?
This research is oriented towards research/action and transformation projects carried out in industrial and educational experimental fields. Since 2022, we have chosen to systematically situate all our work within the framework of the Anthropocene, the current geological era, where human activity is the main geological force. For this reason, we have created the RASSCAS laboratory (Applied Social Science Research for Designing a Sustainable Anthropocene), because we are convinced that engineers have both great power of action and therefore great responsibility to design technologies adapted to this context of systemic crisis.
This line of research also irrigates the Humanities and Social Sciences courses of our training cycles, which allows us to give our students tools for reflection, design and management better adapted to current contingencies and expectations of the environment, society and companies.
How is R&D carried out?
All our projects are collaborative, and necessarily involve cooperation with at least one other player: institutions, industry, students, etc. This philosophy enables us to systematically anchor our research in a real field of experimentation. This enables us to give priority to applied research situations, where our concepts can bring about concrete transformations and reflections for our partners. In turn, this enables us to learn and confront our tools with real, innovative contexts, and thus enrich our knowledge.
Whenever possible, we like to involve students from the school in our research, which allows them to learn more and gain original perspectives on their work. In concrete terms, we use validated field research methods such as ethnography, participant observation, intervention research, and co-design, from various disciplinary fields such as sociology, geography, management sciences, and information and communication sciences.
