WSTnet Lab Profile: Inria

Inria is the French national research institute for digital science and technology. World-leading research and technological innovation are an integral part of its DNA. Inria’s 3,500 researchers and engineers put their passion for digital technology to work in nearly 200 project teams, most of which are joint teams with our academic partners, including major research universities and the CNRS. They explore new fields, often in collaboration with different disciplines and industrial partners, with the aim of meeting ambitious challenges.

As a technology institute, Inria supports the development of numerous software products, sometimes making a global impact via the open source model. Because technology start-ups are powerful channels for research outcomes, Inria also supports entrepreneurial risk-taking and start-up creation (Deeptech). Firmly established on major university campuses and in industrial ecosystems, the Institute is at the heart of the digital revolution.

Our role is to further the progress of risky, ambitious projects in the fields of science and digital technology: Inria enables researchers and innovators to nurture either scientific or entrepreneurial projects, before helping to move them forward.

Our responsibility is to create value on a large scale both for society and for the economy , helping to boost France’s appeal and standing.

Inria is a place for scientific vitality, where research is organized based on agile project team model. Its mission is to accelerate, through digital research and innovation, the construction of France’s scientific, technological and industrial leadership in European dynamics.

 Today Inria has 3 500 Researchers & Engineers working in 200 Project Teams located in 9 research centers at the heart of major research universities in France. Inria also had 93 international associated teams active in 2019 with academic institutions from other countries. 

 

Fabien Gandon is a Research Director and Senior Researcher at Inria, France.

Fabien’s PhD in 2002 pioneered the joint use of distributed artificial intelligence (AI) and semantic Web to manage a variety of data sources and users above a Web architecture. Then, as a research project leader at Carnegie Mellon University (USA), he proposed AI methods to enforce privacy preferences in querying and reasoning about personal data. In 2004, recruited as a researcher at Inria, he started to study models and algorithms to integrate social media and knowledge based AI systems on the Web while keeping humans in the loop. In 2012 he became the representative of Inria at W3C and founded Wimmics, a joint research team on bridging social and formal semantics on the Web with AI methods. In 2017 he established and became the director of the joint research laboratory between Inria the QWANT search engine.

Fabien remarked :

“In Web Science, we should build our research program as a joint effort with two research fields born in the 50s: “AI” for Artificial Intelligence and “IA” for Intelligence Amplification and Intelligence Augmentation. The Web Science research agenda must account for the fact that the long term potential of the Web is to augment and link all forms of intelligence.”

The same year he also became responsible for the research convention between the Ministry of Culture and Inria with a special interest for cultural data and applications. In 2018 Fabien became Vice Head of Science for the research center of Inria Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée. Over the years and since 2002, Fabien also never stopped teaching Semantic Web and Linked data, and he authored several MOOCs on the topic.

Many research topics at Inria have a direct impact on the Web: Data and knowledge representation and processing; Networks and Telecommunications; Optimization, Learning, and Statistical Methods; Interaction and visualization; Security and Confidentiality; etc. And Inria researchers are internationally recognized and, for instance, Inria received 56 ERC grants since 2007.

Inria has driven digital innovation and research in France and in Europe for over 50 years. Set up to act as a bridge between the academic world and industry, straddling new frontiers in digital research, a pioneer in pushing through new disciplines with their roots in applied mathematics and IT, a pioneer in supporting the dynamism of tech start-ups both in France and across Europe, the Institute has been a visionary and a trailblazer in a range of different fields (computational science, the Internet, the Web). For instance, in 1995, Inria was selected by MIT as a partner within the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), which is responsible for standardizing web technology, becoming leader of the European hub. Today, Inria continues to support the digital transformation of science, the economy and society as a whole: Inria created 170 startups since 1984 75% of which are in operation or acquired. More than ever, “software is taking over the world”, giving scientists new challenges, opening up new opportunities for tech entrepreneurs, and making it more important than ever to enter into dialogue with society to “make sense of the digital world”. More than ever, Inria is supporting those taking scientific and entrepreneurial risks and research with the biggest possible impact.

Click here to visit the Inria website

 

Two globally-renowned research institutes join WST Network

WSTNet – The Web Science Network of Laboratories – is delighted to announce that two globally-renowned research institutes have joined the network this month.

The Data Science Institute at Imperial College, London, and the Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (INRIA) both become full members of WSTNet, demonstrating the growing reach of the Network, and the long-term global significance of its collaborative focus in Web Science and Data Science.

The Data Science Institute at Imperial College is at the forefront of research in data science, working across Imperial College to support the deployment of cutting-edge technologies in wide-reaching data-driven research. The Institute hopes to expand its collaborations with the Web Science community, in particular to explore the value of big data technology for applications in social machines.

INRIA, the French National Institute for Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, promotes scientific excellence for technology transfer and society. INRIA’s 2600 employees – graduates from the world’s leading universities – rise to the challenges of digital sciences. With its open, agile model, INRIA is able to explore original approaches with its partners in industry and academic research, providing an effective response to the multidisciplinary and application challenges of digital transformation.

Established in 2010, the Web Science Network of Laboratories brings together some of the world’s outstanding academic researchers, based in 20 leading research institutes around the world. WSTNet aims to advance global research and education, outreach to industry, and the exchange of ideas. It supports collaborative research and education programmes, facilitates the exchange of researchers and graduate students, runs conferences, workshops and symposia, and aims fundamentally to advance the study and engineering of the Web for the benefit of society.

‘We are delighted to welcome our two new member institutions to WSTNet,’ said Professor Steffen Staab, Chair of the WSTNet Labs. ‘This is a rapidly expanding community, reflecting the significant impact of the Web on every aspect of our lives and futures.

‘Both Imperial College Data Science Institute and INRIA have already played eminent roles in advancing fundamental knowledge and technical approaches in their research areas. We look forward to the contribution they will make to WSTNet and to the high levels of engagement which will result from the increasing opportunities to share and advance our knowledge.’

Fabien Gandon of INRIA commented: ‘INRIA has actively supported the Web since its beginning, participating in the very first R&D that produced the Web in the early 1990s, and as a founding member of the W3 Consortium (W3C). Many of INRIA’s research teams contribute to computer science domains which are very relevant to the Web’s architecture, including data security and privacy enforcement, distributed and decentralized architectures, programming languages, natural language processing, and formal methods.’

Professor Yi-Ke Guo of the Data Science Institute at Imperial College, commented: ‘’The Web Science Network is committed to enlisting the help of research organisations working on the future of the Web. The development of data science will benefit greatly from this revolutionary research. We are excited to be part of the Web Science Network, and we are keen to contribute to this field to ensure the Web is even more integral to our lives.’