Innovation, our core strategy

As an international high-technology company, Naval Group uses the outstanding know-how of its 17,000 employees, its unique industrial resources and capacity to set up innovative strategic partnerships in order to meet its customers’ requirements.

Innovation

At Naval Group, innovation serves two major challenges: guaranteeing the technological superiority of our customers, and improving our competitiveness, a condition for our leadership on all continents.

Innovation is also about ambition: offering excellence in naval defence and energy. Naval Group has introduced innovation into its technological strategic plan, in six major areas: Smart naval force, Invulnerable ship, Smart ship, Blue ship, Smart availability, Smart industry.

To accelerate its efforts in the field of innovation”, Naval Group is basing its efforts around three fundamental pillars: collaborative innovation, open innovation and breakthrough innovation. An agile approach - just like that of our various laboratories and technology incubators - which, combined with the recognised scientific expertise of the Naval Research teams, does not overlook any promising conceptual designs.

Governance

The Technical and Innovation department (DTI) governs research and development (R&D) at Naval Group. This department carries out their mission by drawing on all the group's entities and expertise, including Naval Research which has three R&D centres of expertise.

Centres of excellence: the world of Naval Group

Innovation knows no borders. Thanks to Operational excellence centres (COEs) in France and around the world, Naval Group is investing massively to extend its sphere of influence, surround itself with the best partners internationally and stay one step ahead.

Discover the Centres of excellence

Estelle Hotellier devant un écran de la cybersécurité et une maquette de la FDI

more than 100

collaborative R&D projects in progress

more than 40

international partners

1,500

employees involved in R&D work

85

areas of technical expertise

30

doctorates overseen per year

30

million euros in research tax credit

15

nationalities represented

50

publications and participations at annual congresses

400

families of patents

35

patents filed per year

A 4,500

sq. metre area dedicated to collaborative innovation within the Innov’Factory in Angoulême- Ruelle

11

joint laboratories and research chairs

9

cross-functional scientific fields

Scientific Council

Naval Group’s multi-discipline Scientific Council comprises 14 figures of international scientific, all renown in their field of expertise, and brings five nationalities together.

It makes a genuine contribution to the future of Naval Group. The Scientific Council provides advisory opinions whose goal is to push the innovative capacity of the group towards the breakthrough innovation that set will it apart. Naval Group organises working groups whose mission - steered by the Scientific Council - is to choose the subjects of scientific and technical interest on themes with high stakes for the group or those involving breaks, such as functionalised materials, high-density energy storage, numerical simulation, human factors, distributed architecture, or simplexity.

The Scientific Council’s feedback is added to research and innovation strategic thinking on the group's prospective plan which looks ahead to 2040. It supports the company in identifying what is effectively transformative and replying to fundamental questions for the future of Naval Group: which major scientific and technological innovations are coming to the forefront? How can these innovations have an impact on our products and services? How do we deal with them internally? Which networks of players should we cooperate with?

The Scientific Council also actively promote the group's scientific work by awarding its La Pérouse prize, rewarding the scientific value, originality and audacity of our researchers' work with regards to innovation.

Members of the Scientific Council

  • Joël Bertrand

    President of the Scientific Council
    Emeritus Senior Research Director, CNRS (French Centre for Scientific Research)

    Joël Bertrand

  • Sophie Brétésché

    Vice-President of the Scientific Council
    Professor of Sociology
    IMT Atlantic (French national business school)

    Sophie Brétésché

  • Armel de la Bourdonnaye

    Director of INSA (French national applied sciences school) Hauts-de-France, Certified Doctor in scientific computing

  • Jean-Luc Fihey

    PhD, Ing., FCAE, Adjunct Professor and Manager Valorisation Research and Innovation, ÉTS (French school of higher education in technology)

    Jean-Luc Fihey

  • Hubert Girault

    Honorary Professor of physical chemistry at EPFL (Lausanne federal polytechnic), Lausanne, Switzerland)

    Hubert Girault

  • Saadi

    Professor of Social Psychology

  • Thierry Massard

    Engineer in mechanics and PhD from Ecole Centrale Paris in physics
    Former Scientific Director of CEA (French Atomic Energy Commission)

    Thierry Massard

  • Maria Nadia Postorino

    University Full Professor in Transport Engineering

    Maria Nadia Postorino

  • Dominique Vernay

    Member of the National Academy of Technologies of France, former Chief Technical Officer of Thales group

    Dominique Vernay

  • Cécile Godé

    Full professor in management science, Aix-Marseille University

    Cécile Godé

  • Elisabeth Crepon

    General Director of ENSTA Paris (French Engineering school)

    Elisabeth Crepon

  • Olivier Rey

    Research follow at CNRS (French Centre for Scientific Research)

    Olivier Rey

  • Brigitte Plateau

    General director of INP (Grenoble polytechnic institute)
    Associate professor in mathematics


    Brigitte PLATEAU

La Pérouse scientific prize

Each year, the Naval Group Scientific Council awards the La Pérouse Prize to one of its researchers for the value, originality and audacity of their research project.

Discover our unifying focuses

Videos

All videos

L'innovation, un enjeu pour les navires, mais aussi pour les chantiers.

Innovate today to conquer tomorrow

Transcription

Naval Group reveals the SMX® 31 E, its 2020 concept ship

Unifying focuses

Smart naval force, Invulnerable ship, Smart ship, Blue ship, Smart availability, Smart industry.

Discover

Open Innovation

Opening up, identifying talented partnerships, inventing new ways of working together, in France and around the world, to accelerate the implementation of new on-board technologies.

Discover