Territoires’InnLab

Territoires’InnLab offers guidance to both entrepreneurs and local stakeholders who want to address specific needs, creating the conditions for a collaboration between them in order to overcome the challenges involved. 

Territoires’InnLab draws from AgroParisTech’s ability to approach the full complexity of innovation. It is able to support projects that propose not only innovative deep-tech goods and services, but also projects that stem from social innovations and low-tech approaches. 

Both a physical collaborative space established at the Clermont-Ferrand campus and a mobile laboratory, Territoires’InnLab is a place devoted to experimenting to find solutions for local players, public authorities, businesses, stakeholders in social and solidarity-based economy, foundations, etc. 

For territories, TIL offers assistance in: 

• Redefining the contours and content of public policies by integrating more users; 

• Prototyping tools for implementing transition policies;  

• Moving toward more resilient local organizations that are open to learning; 

• Jointly crafting integrated territorial engineering strategies. 

This involves: 

• Offering an observatory of ideas, experiences, and tools to inspire action: 

• Producing original data; 

• Designing and experimenting with custom-tailored tools and methods; 

• Translating experiments into skills via education; 

• Encouraging the emergence of multi-partner projects that are suited to the complexity of local transitions. 

TIL offers a range of support mechanisms, from designing webinars to building action research projects, keeping in mind project time constraints. Ad hoc teams are assembled at the beginning of each project. 

For project coordinators: 

• It helps consolidate and give concrete form to projects, from the conceptualization process to acquiring early clients.  

• Project coordinators receive support from a specific person with experience in the project theme and have the opportunity to take part in meetings and exchanges with the teams in Clermont-Ferrand.  

• Project leaders have access to physical facilities (a personal workspace, meeting rooms, documentation center, and digital resources) and a network of operational partners (local governments, businesses, SSE networks, etc.).  

• Support ranges from 3 to 6 months. 

• TIL therefore acts as a meeting place between project leaders and local stakeholders (in the broadest sense of the term), teaching and research staff, technicians, students, professionals, etc., where public and social innovation projects can be crafted in a collaborative way. 

Territoires’InnLab’s first support project, jointly implemented with the Puy-de-Dôme Departmental Council’s local innovation laboratory, focused on the territorialization of cultural policies. The two entities jointly responded to a call for interest from the Auvergne Regional Office of Cultural Affairs (DRAC) to build an experimental protocol with the municipalities of Chavanon Combrailles and Volcans. Several events brought our teams and localities together and mobilized AgroParisTech students. 

Additionally, Territoires’InnLab supported its first project coordinators: 

• Diatoterre: Promoted diatomaceous earth among distributors of synthetic inputs (July-October 2019); 

• ADELIA Conseil: Created a research department to support policies devoted to childhood and youth (December 2019-June 2020);  

• Eco-locaux: Raised awareness of local and responsible consumption in Clermont-Ferrand (March-August 2020).  

There are no prerequisites apart from having an interest in green, agricultural, social, or food-related transitions.