Open Innovation Our Research & Development partnerships draw on skills from outside the Group to create innovative products and services. Imprimer “Research partnerships give us access to the best of science and technology externs." Emmanuel Custodero, Scientific Director of the Michelin Group Our strategy Our partnership strategy is global. We have built a collaborative and open network of partners that combines internal expertise and external creativity to foster cooperation among all players, including researchers, startups and students. This network increases the Group's capacity to use an agile approach to draw out ideas for the mobility of the future. Enhancing our skills Research partnerships are an ideal way to detect emerging technologies or mobilize a critical mass of targeted resources for a specific period or topic to accelerate our research process. Diversifying our sources of innovation through Open Innovation 2021 ambitions of Michelin Open Innovation : Expand our interactions around the world Support our research in tires and new domains Strengthen our attractiveness as a partner FACTOLAB, a joint public-private lab The Factolab, which opened in 2017, combines the strengths of Michelin's research teams and three university research labs in Clermont-Ferrand: the Institut Pascal (IP), the Social and Cognitive Psychology Lab (LAPSCO) and the IT, Modeling and Systems Optimization Lab (LIMOS), all under the aegis of the CNRS. FactoLab, which is dedicated to innovative technology for the plants of the future, works in R&D on human-machine cooperation to assist operators, with a focus on collaborative robotics, augmented reality and self-driving transport trolley design. ChemistLab, a joint lab to create even more durable elastomers Created in 2019, ChemistLab is the last of a series of 5 joint laboratories. It combines the expertise of Michelin and two academic laboratories from Lyon under CNRS supervision: Chemistry, Catalysis, Polymers and Processes (C2P2) Laboratory and Institute for Molecular and Supramolecular Chemistry and Biochemistry (ICBMS). This joint laboratory aims to create, from biosourced raw materials, new generations of high-performance elastomers. This approach is unique because it involves all stages of the elastomer’s life cycle, from the choice of raw materials to their ability to be recycled. In order to obtain “tailor-made” elastomer structures, the process will use state-of-the-art solid modeling techniques and high advanced polymerization control. Blackcycle, a consortium to make new tires from end-of-life tires Coordinated by Michelin and uniting 7 industrial partners, 5 research and technology organizations (RTOs) and an innovation cluster into a European consortium in 5 countries (France, Spain, Germany, Greece, Switzerland), the BlackCycle project aims to create a massive circular economy for tires by designing world-first processes to produce new tires from end-of-like tires (ELTs). The BlackCycle project involves 13 organizations in a unique European public-private partnership that will demonstrate the technical, environmental and economic viability of the world-first circular processes. The consortium will develop specific solutions to produce sustainable raw materials for tires: ELT collection and feedstock selection, pyrolysis optimization, oil refining and valorization, furnace process optimization and sustainable tire performance assessment. The BlackCycle project aims at creating, developing, and optimizing a full value chain form ELT feedstock to Secondary Raw Materials (SRMs), with no waste of resources in any part of the chain and a specific attention for the environmental impact. These SRMs will be used to develop new ranges of passenger car and truck tyres, which will be sold commercially in European and global markets. As early as 5-6 years after the project, close to 1 out of every 2 European ELTs will be incorporated into the only virtuous cycle of this magnitude amongst all industrial sectors for the recovery of end of life products. The BlackCycle project is funded by the Horizon 2020 program (project number 890625). Michelin Innovation Lab: Innovating to prepare for tomorrow Read more Participative innovation Read more
