Think & do tank for transitions
A pioneering vision of the transitions
Since 2013, we have spotted early the subjects that matter. What seemed marginal yesterday has often become a recognised issue. Here are eight subjects on which we were ahead of the curve, and how we anticipate those of tomorrow.
Yesterday & today
Engaged students
Our intuition: We anticipated students’ search for meaning by offering them concrete projects for the transition.
Today: More than 200 students and 37 projects supported, with Centrale Nantes, Polytech, Mines Saint-Étienne, Audencia and ENS Rennes; ten courses in Centrale Nantes’s low-tech engineering option.
Sustainability indicators
Our intuition: We helped to standardise low-tech approaches and played an active part in their emergence at national level.
Today: A diagnostic tool and applied low-tech indicators, built with engineering students, and a dedicated training module.
Food efficiency
Our intuition: We identified early on that shifting diets towards plant-based foods is a key to food sustainability.
Today: An idea now widely taken up in work on the food transition, which we develop in our analyses and training courses.
Processed foods
Our intuition: We deconstructed the controversies over their nutritional quality and studied their value for the food transition.
Today: Analyses to distinguish what science says from received ideas, just as the debate on ‘ultra-processed foods’ intensifies.
Transfermation
Our intuition: We saw the retraining of livestock farmers as a way of making them key players in the food and societal transition.
Today: A lead we are following, explored in particular by a case study by ETH Zurich students for the association TransiTerra, and by the research of Nicolas Salliou, a member of our scientific council.
Biodiversity
Our intuition: We distinguished between final and instrumental objectives, which are often confused in environmental policy.
Today: A clarification developed by our think tank, to establish what we are really trying to protect, and why.
Animal welfare
Our intuition: We predicted that a tax on animal cruelty would come, backed by emerging scientific indicators.
Today: Animal welfare indicators are becoming more precise: we follow their development in our scientific monitoring.
CSR policies
Our intuition: We identified the current limitations of CSR policies and opportunities to maximise companies’ societal impact.
Today: Masterclasses and courses such as ‘Engager son entreprise pour la transition’ or ‘Réduire notre empreinte carbone efficacement’.
Tomorrow
Our history
How did these intuitions come about?
From the low-tech rocket stove of 2013 to today’s think & do tank: six eras, our changes of mind and what has never changed.
How we anticipate
Continuous scientific monitoring
Every week we follow scientific publications on food, biodiversity, welfare and technology, to spot weak signals before they become obvious.
A network of experts
Our expert committee, around Thomas Lepeltier, Antoine Buéno, Jacques Lecomte and Eddy Fougier, tests these signals against facts, data and ethics.
The Think Tank →Research with higher education
With the students and schools that put their trust in us, we test ideas in the field, through concrete projects.
The Training Division →Anticipate tomorrow’s challenges
Thanks to our scientific monitoring and our network of experts, we help local authorities, companies and institutions to get ahead on the transitions.