Partners

The University of Montpellier (UM) has nearly 49,000 students and 4,800 staff. Heir to the Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier (1220) and boasting an exceptional historical heritage, it brings together a wide range of disciplines. With the I-SITE label, the UM coordinates, alongside its 18 partners, the “Montpellier University of Excellence” (MUSE) project, which aims to address 3 major and interdependent societal challenges: “Feed, care, protect”.

UMR IATE (Joint Research Unit in Agropolymer Engineering and Emerging Technologies) brings together staff from INRAE, the University of Montpellier, CIRAD and Montpellier SupAgro. This unit is developing a multidisciplinary scientific approach for the characterization, processing and use of renewable agro-resources from the agricultural, forestry and agrifood sectors. It is particularly interested in the structure and functionalities of biopolymers and biomolecules. Its research work aims to describe the complexity of agro-resources and to design original processing technological itineraries in the fields of agri-food, bio-based materials, biocatalysis and bioenergy in order to meet the challenges of sustainable food, reduction of environmental impacts and the circular economy. To this end, it relies on 10 research teams and also includes a PLANET platform (Platform for Processing of PLANt products with Emergent Technologies) dedicated to the transformation of plant resources, which was labelled as a collective scientific facility by INRAE in 2018.

The Biological Reaction Engineering (IRB) team masters the control of microbial cultures and their application to industrial bioprocesses for the valorization of renewable substrates. This expertise leads the team to focus on the relationships between the dynamics of a biological reaction and the physiological state of biocatalysts in relation to the environment in order to better understand and direct the activity of biocatalysts. In particular, the team seeks to better take into account the phenotypic variability of a cell population by coupling “real-time” and “near-line” measurements. For this purpose, an integrated and multidisciplinary approach is being developed, notably associating cultures in instrumented reactors and metabolic modelling. This approach takes into account the complexity of biological systems (enzymes/cells) and the various production constraints on a laboratory or industrial scale in order to deduce strategies for controlling and optimizing the production of compounds such as the biopolymers targeted in the LOOP4PACK project.

https://umr-iate.cirad.fr/equipes/irb/presentation

The eco-efficient Polymeric and Organic Packaging (ePOP) team remains more than ever focused on the challenges of food packaging by reinforcing a major common thread that is the reduction of the environmental impact of our packaged food products and the eradication of plastics that persist over the long term : How can agro- and bio-polymer science facilitate the development of bio-materials and new food packaging solutions in a context of competitiveness, food security, and sustainability ? To carry out this project «Zero plastic and food waste», the team’s scientific strategy aims to structure itself around (1) approaches and tools for eco-design of food packaging and (2) lifting locks for the implementation of a circular economy. bio-waste conversion, persistence, recyclability and biodegradation of (bio)plastics. https://umr-iate.cirad.fr/equipes/epop/presentation

Other current projects : https://noaw2020.eu, https://glopack2020.eu, https://www.bbi-europe.eu/projects/usable-packaging

The Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Toulouse, a public, multidisciplinary and international engineering school, is recognized for the excellence of its training in 5 years after the baccalaureate and the quality of its research going from fundamental research to technology transfer covering the major societal issues of the 21st century.

INSA Toulouse brings together 8 research laboratories, including TBI, and 2 technological research centers, including the CRITT Bio-Industries.

TBI, Toulouse Biotechnology Institute, Bio & Chemical Engineering (ex. LISBP) (UMR INRA 792 and UMR CNRS 5504) is a research laboratory located on the campus of the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA) in Toulouse. Internationally recognized and rated A+ by the HCERES, and awarded four times in the framework of the “Investissements d’Avenir”, TBI is positioned in an innovative way at the interface between life sciences and process sciences. Its work has applications in the biotechnology, water and environmental sectors, agro-industries, eco-industries and chemistry.

The SYMBIOSE team is part of the Microbial Engineering cluster of TBI whose aim is to understand the process-environment-microbe interactions that limit production performance in order to improve bioprocesses, microbial strains and microbial communities.

The overall objective of the SYMBIOSE team concerns the disposal and recovery of liquid and solid urban and industrial waste and is based on three main areas: reducing the environmental impact of bioprocesses through a bio-purification mechanism, the recovery and production of biobased molecules from the recovery of carbon and nutrients (phosphorus in particular) from biomass, and the control of health risks related to micropollutants and biocontaminants.

From ecology to the modelling of processes and chains: To achieve its scientific objective, understand the dynamics of microbial populations and functionalities and define the most efficient bioreactors and systems, the team has adopted a project approach based on the alliance between a “Modelling” vision and a “Microbial ecology coupled with bioprocesses” approach. The production of biopolymers in open mixed cultures is one of the team’s key themes.

CRITT Bio-Industries is a Technology Transfer Center from INSA Toulouse specialized in Industrial Biotechnology. Thanks to the implementation of microorganisms, enzymes and operations of bioseparation, it helps companies to renovate or develop innovative processes and products in several areas such as Agro-industry, Environment, Health, Cosmetology, and Chemistry.

CRITT Bio-Industries can intervene from proof of concept to pre-industrial scale, through the production of demonstration batches.

coming soon

EuraMaterials is a cluster at the service of the materials processing industries, supporting companies and research players to enable them to find solutions, perform and grow. EuraMaterials, labelled as a competitiveness cluster, creates links and fosters collaboration between players in the transformation of textile, paper-cardboard, plastic, glass, composites, wood, etc., serving many markets, including packaging. The cluster federates and supports its members – SMEs, ETIs, large groups, professional associations and unions, universities, laboratories and research centers – around a broad range of services: search of partners, setting up and coordination of projects, technical expertise in materials and processes, market intelligence and studies, thematic events, etc.