Seas and the Ocean Hold Their First Forum at IP Paris
One year after its launch, CIMO is gathering the IP Paris scientific community and its partners to review its activities, but above all to collectively reflect on the future of science in the center’s three areas of expertise: the sustainability and decarbonization of maritime transport, ocean observation for societal needs, and finally, marine renewable energy and the coastal environment.
Scaling Up
This first Forum aims to create synergies and facilitate exchanges between researchers from the IP Paris member schools, Ifremer, and their partners. “The goal is to allow different projects to move beyond the exclusive relationship between a scientist and their network of partners, and to bring them to another scale,” explains Laurent Mortier, Scientific Director of CIMO. “For example, the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées has strong expertise in coastal engineering, and ENSTA in navigation decarbonization. Opening these fields to research teams from CIMO with other specialties is a key asset for addressing major research questions from all angles and launching more ambitious projects. Our interdisciplinary approach, with its engineering component, is a strength that distinguishes us from other major academic research hubs,” he adds.
In this spirit, CIMO demonstrated its strengths at the UNOC in Nice in June 2025, supporting the “10,000 Ships for the Ocean” initiative, now internationally recognized and under development. The goal was to call on the entire maritime sector to unite in order to intensify global meteorological and oceanographic data collection and to build the observation fleet of tomorrow using commercial vessels.
A Focused Look at Maritime France
The Seas and Ocean Forum aims, for the first time at the IP Paris level, to shine a focused light on maritime France. “External partners of CIMO will open the day with keynotes offering an overview of the challenges we now face in terms of research and innovation,” says Laurent Mortier. European initiatives for a “Digital Ocean,” for instance, provide a unified and coordinated framework for all maritime activities and research. This “Digital Ocean,” as well as the French landscape of marine renewable energy and the maritime sector’s decarbonization roadmap, will be presented to give CIMO contextual elements and highlight current opportunities to better implement its research strategy.
In the afternoon, three conference sessions will present research projects led by CIMO across its various areas of action. The event will highlight the strong interactions between academic, industrial, and societal activities.
CIMO currently brings together nearly 120 researchers across 22 laboratories. Its Seas and Ocean Forum may well become a major annual event for the Institut Polytechnique de Paris and its partners.
About Laurent Mortier
Laurent Mortier works at ENSTA and has dedicated the past 20 years of his career to developing major Research Infrastructures (RIs) and Ocean Observation Systems (OOSs). He is currently the coordinator of the Horizon Europe project Advanced Marine Research Infrastructure Together (AMRIT), after having coordinated GROOM II, which was recently completed.