The VR-MARS project represents a support system for urgent healthcare delivery in isolated environments, based on virtual reality and embodied conversational agents (ECA). We hypothesize that these two technologies enable better situational awareness and care coordination between 3 parties: a care provider in an isolated location, a critically ill patient and the control centre on Earth. VR-MARS explore the scientific fields of emergency medicine, human factors and virtual reality. The use case of VR-MARS will be related to space medicine, in particular emergency care during a manned spaceflight to Mars. During these missions, temporal isolation will add to physical isolation, because of delays in communication between the care provider (on Mars) and ground control (on Earth), which will preclude real-time telemedical support. VR-MARS will be built around two simultaneous decision loops which will allow task assignment and synchronisation between the care provider, the ECA and ground control. The ECA will interact with the care provider via augmented reality. Upon request, it will deliver step-by-step guidance on medical protocols, using reassuring verbal tone and cues in order to mitigate the stress of the care providers. As soon as it is available, ground control on Earth will be made aware of the situation on Mars and of the procedures being undertaken by the care provider. This will improve situational awareness on the ground and enable the most optimal decision making in the mid- to long-term. In return, ground control will deliver its recommendation to the care provider via the ECA. Therefore, the ECA will represent the central hub of communication between the two sites. VR-MARS will be tested on two medical scenarios involving a critically ill patient represented by a high-fidelity simulator. Technical and non-technical skills of the care provider will be assessed at two levels: immediate interactions between the care provider and the ECA (for urgent, life-saving decisions) and delayed interactions between the care provider and ground control (for mid- and long-term decisions). With regards to research output and spinoffs, we anticipate that VR-MARS will improve medical care in remote environments, such as humanitarian missions, the combat environment, medical evacuations, expedition medicine, etc.

Critical thinking is at the heart of the latest educational policies. Yet if educational projects multiply, there still exist only very few scientific studies assessing the methods proposed by different stakeholders in education and training. These methods themselves in the norm do not build upon the existing scientific knowledge either. The present project aims at filling this gap by (1) designing and testing the first evidence-based critical thinking training for 8-14 year olds and, thanks to the complementarity of researchers and teachers of different disciplines (2) converging towards a more precise definition of critical thinking and providing a psychometric scale of critical thinking for French-speaking participants (3) testing the educational resources using this new scale in two stages (a qualitative pilot study, a quantitative large-scale study) (4) spreading these resources to institutions and teachers, as well as to the media and the general public.

This Franco-Quebecois research project focuses on the co-construction of adaptation scenarios to coastal risks between researchers and society stakeholders. We know that, in a context of climate change and of concentration of human and built stakes on the coasts, the risks of coastal erosion and sea flooding are constantly increasing, both on the French and Quebec coasts. In addition, the difficulties of integrated coastal zone management and the multiplicity of positions of different and numerous stakeholders (citizens, elected officials, public administrations, local and regional organizations and other stakeholders) complicate the management of these risks, on a complex territory, at the interface between land and sea, but also between the river and its catchment area. Projecting these vulnerable spaces in a sustainable future becomes a challenge to which interdisciplinary and partnership research between researchers, coastal risk managers and inhabitants will provide crucial insights. The aim of the project is to better understand and promote the adaptive capacities of populations and coastal territories subject to coastal risks by co-constructing, with the stakeholders, scenarios for the adaptation of these coastal territories. Our fundamental hypothesis is that to achieve this, it is necessary to investigate three nested levels of the problem: (1) understand the systemic vulnerability of these maritime territories, through knowledge of both natural and societal dynamics, (2) analyze public policies, stakeholder dynamics and the use of management tools in the two territories (France and Quebec), (3) characterize and analyze the adaptation and resilience capacities of coastal communities in the two test areas (group of municipalities of the Pays Bigouden, Brittany, France and group of municipalities of La Mitis, Québec). These three angles of approach complement each other and allow an integrated approach to analysis, in an interdisciplinary perspective. Throughout the project, progress on these three research questions will feed into the (4) co-construction with stakeholders (managers and inhabitants) of socio-ecological-economic scenarios for the adaptation of coastal territories and communities.The expected results are multiple. In addition to the development of these adaptation scenarios, at different time horizons, on the the test areas, several tools will be realized (vulnerability indicators, digital data platforms, timelines and story maps, serious games…) so that they can be transferred to other sites. One of the original features of the project is to be based on a triple exchange, (i) between two territories, France and Quebec, (ii) between two disciplinary sectors, natural sciences and human and social sciences, (iii) and between several fields of knowledge, that of researchers and those of stakeholders (management professionals and inhabitants). We will work in mixed Franco-Quebec and researcher-managers teams. The systemic approach and the enrichment provided by cross-border international experiences will make it possible to respond to the strong societal demand for sustainable management of these spaces that have very special natural and social dynamics.

Several studies analyzed the transfers of knowledge between research laboratories and firms. They identified in particular, the importance of the nearness and of the constitution of networks in the production of innovations, mostly technical. Public policies appropriated these analyzes by creating the conditions of this nearness and by insisting on (from the 1970s onwards), the creation of science parks ,and later, of poles of competitiveness, allowing to move closer, the world of research and the business world. On the other hand, in the United States (Gibbons et al.,1994) or in France (Callon et Al.,2001), various authors laid the foundations for a renewing of the relations between sciences and society, involving the society more in the production of knowledge, including the definition of scientific questionings. These discussions still continue today within various political and scientific cenacles and the governance of research continues to be modified in different contexts. While researchers and firms meet daily within the framework of a bilateral exchange, or can be urged to exchange during debates, which are the controversial scientific questionings discussed and how to estimate the innovations, that are of course scientific but also structural and social ? These questionings impose at the same time, to identify or to conceive the devices of science –firms debates, but also to analyze how to get people involved. Our project is double : on the one hand it is a question of conceiving and of experimenting a deliberative space consisting of scientists related with several disciplines and of business managers or their representatives, on the other hand, we shall analyze scientific questioning produced during these open debates, and within the framework of the couples firm-laboratory, in order to enrich the comparisons. The objective of the study will aim at the environmental questions because they concern the entire society, because they are complex and because they sustain the debates, (top-down or bottom-up). The study area is Western Brittany. The fact that it allows us to join a geographical nearness and the number of researchers concerned with environmental issues on the relatively restricted territory is consequent. Besides, an initiative of collaborative platforms science-companies was introduced in 2010. The debating process of environmental questionings will be discussed and tried (task 1). In order to feed the comparisons, two configurations of the scientific-firms relations will be precisely observed and analyzed : the specifically conceived debates within the framework of this research (task 2) and experiences associating a firm and one or several research laboratories (task 3). The analysis of the innovations (task 4) will be led in a multidisciplinary and reflexive way, meaning that it will associate all the participants whether they be scientists or from the business world. Through these various aspects which we suggest developing, the project concerns at the same time, fundamental research (acquisition of knowledge) and applied research, without the limitations of ideological and normative aspects.

Global change has a critical effect on biological and socio-cultural diversity leading to a strong demand for the development of sustainable food-agro-ecosystem. In this context, a better understanding of these diversities in the bakery food chain would facilitate development of more sustenance in this food chain. Hence, the objectives of BAKERY are to provide a detailed description of biological and socio-cultural diversity to enable a better understanding of the interactions and services in an organic or low input “Wheat/Human/Sourdough” food-agro-ecosystem. The aim is to develop a pluridisciplinary and participatory research project aiming at (i) describing socio-cultural diversity of bakers’ practices and consumers’ representations, (ii) studying the effects of wheat varieties, terroir and bakers’ practices on the diversity of sourdough microbiome, sensorial and nutritional bread quality as well as consumers preferences, (iii) analyzing the nature of the sourdough microbial interaction (complementation or selection) and their consequence on the sourdough fermentation and bread quality, (iv) integrating all the data to find determinants of the biological and socio-cultural diversity in the bakery chain, and (v) propose strategies for the conservation of biological and socio-cultural diversity in bakery. We will survey 30 French bakers and farmers/bakers who make sourdough breads, using flours resulting from agro ecological practices and distribute their production locally. Information on bakers’ practices as well as wheat seeds’ origin (for baker/farmers), flour, sourdough and bread samples will be collected. In addition we will interview thoroughly a total of thirty consumers of some of the surveyed bakers. The wheat seeds, flour and sourdough microbiome will be analyzed using metagenomic pyrosequencing and phylogeny analysis of rDNA loci. Biochemical characterization as well as sensorial analysis will be performed for sourdoughs and breads. This will delineate sourdough biodiversity, bread quality, and also the diversity of baker practices and consumer representation and implementing an integrated database. Simultaneaously taking advantage of previous works of the project partners on participative wheat breeding, we will use control experiments for analyzing the effect of terroir, of bread wheat varieties (ancient vs modern) and bakers’ practices on the sourdough microbiome and bread quality. Furthermore, we will study the sourdough microbial interaction by analyzing fermentation and population dynamic in reconstituted communities composed of lactic acid bacteria and yeast species. This approach will allow the characterization of the nature of the microbial species interaction (ecological facilitation or selection) and their consequences on the sourdoughs services (dough characteristics and bread quality). Thus, the analysis of these controlled experiments will provide candidate determinants of the diversity in “Wheat/Human/Sourdough” food-agro-ecosystem. The BAKERY project will allow us: (i) to increase our knowledge on the diversity of bakers’ and farmers/bakers’ practices and consumer representation of sourdough breads, (ii) to characterize and to conserve the microbial diversity of French sourdoughs, (iii) to better understand the impact of different determinants on the biodiversity and functioning of the “wheat/Human/Sourdough” food-agro-ecosystems, (iv) to think about the complementarity of ex situ and in situ conservation of wheat and microbial genetic resources and (v) to identify action promoting sustainable bread making practices. This ambitious project is based on the integration of innovative approaches and advanced tools (participatory research, pluridisciplinary interactions, mathematical modeling, post-genomic data) and will benefit from the strong complementarity between partners.