The new R&D center: EDF Lab Paris-Saclay opened its doors in March 2016. The center spearheads the Group's innovation drive for a competitive, low-carbon energy production mix, with the aim of developing both the power systems of tomorrow and the new services expected by its customers.

At the heart of the Saclay plateau, EDF's location is designed to foster exchanges with the academic world, universities and grandes écoles, as well as with industry. Collaborations, partnerships, joint research, sharing of knowledge and expertise... EDF aims to be a driving force in the creation and development of the Paris-Saclay campus project, which aims to become a world-class center of research and expertise. Since March, the site has been home to 1,500 researchers and R&D staff (doctoral students, trainees and partners), and from September onwards, 20,000 EDF trainees who will attend the training center every year.

Key figures :

400 million euros invested

79,000 m 2 - 2/3 for research and development - 1/3 for training

1,500 workstations at the EDF Lab Paris-Saclay R&D center

60,000 training days per year

20,000 employees trained per year

15 vocational academies

Jean-Paul Chabard will talk to us about the huge project to create the EDF Lab Paris-Saclay center, which he directed for 8 years. He will also tell us about new projects and academic partnerships planned within this new structure.

Jean-Paul CHABARD :

A graduate engineer from the Ecole Centrale de Paris, Jean-Paul Chabard has spent his entire career with EDF's Research and Development Division. He joined the Laboratoire National d'Hydraulique at Chatou in 1984 as a research engineer, a department he headed from 1990 to 1994. He has held a number of management positions within EDF R&D, and since September 2008 has been in charge of the project to create a new EDF R&D site on the Paris-Saclay campus. Since April 2012, he has also been Director of Partnerships France.

Jean-Paul Chabard has taught for many years at Ecole Centrale de Paris and Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, where he is professor in charge of the "Aerodynamics and Heat Transfers" module. He also holds executive positions within learned societies, in particular the Association Internationale d'Ingénierie et de Recherches Hydrauliques et Environnementales (AIRH), of which he has been Vice-Chairman since 2009.