HOW DOES RESEARCH CONTRIBUTE TO THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS ?

HOW DOES RESEARCH CONTRIBUTE TO THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS ?

In partnership with the Observatoire Océanologique de Villefranche

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ���������������������������������� 3 FOREWORD ���������������������������������������������������������������������4 Jean-Marc Gambaudo

INTRODUCTION �������������������������������������������������������� 5 Jean-Paul Moatti

FOOD, AGRICULTURE, HEALTH, BIODIVERSITY ���������������������������������6 Interviews of Thibaut Malausa/Anne Vuillemin Projects summaries • SDG2 : BOOST, • S DG2 SDG 3: Food intake, brain control and human health: the paradigm of “humanized” mouse models, • S DG3: Detection of thyroid-disruptor chemicals • S DG3: Exposome, genetics and cancer: Southern Brazil as a model

ENERGY, INNOVATION, SUSTAINABLE CITIES, RESPONSIBLE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION, CLIMATE ACTION, BIODIVERSITY �����������������������������������������������������������12

OCEAN �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 20 Interviews Paolo Guidetti/Pascale Steichen Projects Summaries • S DG14: Accumulation of radionuclides in marine species, localization and speciation • S DG14: ISOtopes of Metal Elements for Tracing marine METabolism - ISO2MET

Table of contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

JUSTICE ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 26 Interviews Jean-Christophe Martin/Valérie Pietri Projects summaries • S DG16 Sustainability from the perspective of human and social Sciences • S DG16 Sustainable development and handicap • S DG16 SLAFNET: Slavery in Africa: a dialogue between Europe and Africa • S DG16: URACE

SYSTEMS OF OBSERVATION ������������������ 32 Interviews of Philippe Charvis/Bernard Mercier de Lepinay Projects Summaries • M ERMAIDS - from fairy tale to real world • Can a Raspberry Shake Seismic Network Complement a National Seismic Network ? A case study in Haiti • Nautilus • MUSE

Interviews of Adel Ben Youssef/Jackie Krafft Projects summaries • S DG 12, 11 : MANTRA Project, MAgnetic Nanoparticles for environmenTal Applications and Risk Assessment: towards a “zero waste principle” paradigm • S DG9,11, 13: IRIS • S DG13: Climate change • S DG15, 14, 5, 1: Assessing the health of an African proprietary mangrove ecosystems in order to help changing policies toward shared benefices of conservation • S DG15, 7: Morpho-sedimentary evolution of trout spawning areas in the Roya River

ECONOMICS, BUSINESS, MANAGEMENT ����������������������������������������������������������38 Interviews of Edward Lorenz, Nathalie Lazaric Projects summaries • Measuring nudges’ efficacy on energy consumption • TICELEC

DATA SCIENCES, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ��������������������������������������������������������� 44 Interview of Benoit Miramond

CONCLUSION ����������������������������������������������������������� 46 UNIVERSITÉ CÔTE D’AZUR

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Sustainable Development Goals

Acknowledgments

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We are grateful to the workshop’s speakers for their contributions: J. Andrieu, M-P. Ballarin, A. Ben Youssef, M. Chapuis, C. Charlier, P. Charvis, R. Collomp, F. Courboulex, C. Den Auwer, K. Falkenberg, A. Galvey, P. Gilabert, P. Guidetti, C. Hurel, J. Krafft, E. Lalli, N. Lazaric, J. Lebrun, R. Lemée, T. Long, E. Lorenz, T. Malausa, J-C Martin, N. Martin, S. Mellet, M. Mensah, B. Mercier de Lepinay, B. Miramond, J-L Nahon, M. Nanteuil, M-A. Ngo, G. Nolet, A. Parmentier, V. Pietri, T. Pourcher, P. Steichen, M. Uhle, N. Vigier, A. Vuillemin.

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Foreword Jean-Marc Gambaudo

FOREWORD

Jean-Marc GAMBAUDO The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent a global agenda for sustainable development at the horizon 2030. They have been agreed upon by 193 countries, including France, at the United Nations in 2015. The SDGs cover a wide scope of social, environmental and economic challenges for the future, highlighting the need to consider interlinkages and partnerships to address them.

Since its creation, Université Cote d’Azur has the ambition to construct a model of university that is fully integrated with the developmental strategy of the region and that fosters a new dynamics of research, innovation, and education.

We are a research intensive university which promotes connections and interactivity among research labs and among research labs, companies, and local authorities.

For instance, our core research program on risks in Northern Mediterranean fosters interactions with actors coming from these three groups. Why? because our region faces multiple risks: earthquakes, floods and ozone air pollution. If we want to address them, we need to put various expertise in common.

This is what the Sustainable Development Goals are about: interdisciplinarity and interdependence, putting together various skills and expertise together to build a society that is more respectful of the environment and more equitable. The role of science in advancing the goals is essential, because the goals set new challenges which require scientific evidence, innovation and in some cases disruptive knowledge.

This brochure reflects the outcomes of a workshop which brought together our researchers to discuss how the University Côte d’Azur contributes to the SDGs. I would like to thank IRD and CNRS and the Observatoire of Villefranche which have co-sponsored the workshop. This cooperation mirrors well the willingness for partnership and cross-disciplinarity of scientific actors in our region.

We found out through the workshop that UCA labs contributions to the SDGs are already significant in various fields, such as health, agriculture, innovation, sustainable cities, ocean and justice. The workshop also highlighted the need to continue building synergies that will make UCA research more impactful.

I hope that you will enjoy discovering the length of scientific experience and contribution to the SDGs of the researchers who participated in this workshop.

Jean-Marc Gambaudo

President Université Cote d’Azur

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Introduction Jean-Paul Moatti

INTRODUCTION

Jean-Paul MOATTI ©IRD-Studio Cabrelli

WHY DO WE URGENTLY NEED SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCE? Two key messages of the 2019 Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR), the first independent assessment of the sustainable development Goals agenda (SDGs) are of special importance for the scientific community. First, with some exceptions, most of the 169 SDG targets are unlikely to be achieved in 2030 at current rates of progress. More worrisome still is the fact that recent trends along several dimensions with cross-cutting impacts across the entire 2030 Agenda are not even in the right direction. These include rising inequalities, global warming, biodiversity loss, and increasing amounts of wastes from human activity. Recent scientific analysis suggests that for at least some of these dimensions, the planet and human societies may be moving towards irreversible negative impacts, beyond which it would be impossible to recover. Second, transformations toward sustainable development will be successful only if they holistically integrate all goals, and if they are backed by an appropriate understanding of the complex causal chains which affect socioeconomic and environmental systems and of the interlinkages across goals and targets. As strongly advocated by the GSDR, increased science–policy-society cooperation can harness breakthroughs in our understanding of coupled human–environment systems and shaping innovative pathways to achieving the SDGs. However, in order to effectively contribute to the 2030 agenda, science itself must engage in a process of change, by giving more emphasis to the emerging academic field of “sustainability science” that mobilizes across all scientific disciplines, including social sciences and humanities in a problemsolving approach, and sheds light on complex, often contentious and value-laden, nature-society interactions, while generating usable scientific knowledge for sustainable development; and by coconstructing research programs with affected communities to recognize problems and goals and identify key trade-offs. Because 60% of total scientific literature and most R&D comes from highincome countries, facilitating multidirectional science and technology transfers from North to South but also from South to North and through South-South collaborations is also a major component of sustainability science. Because its mandate is fair scientific cooperation with academics from developing countries, IRD is in the front line to promote sustainability science in France and strongly welcomes the contribution of other partners such as the University Côte d’Azur (UCA).

Pr Jean-Paul Moatti

CEO of French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) and member of the Independent group of scientists in charge of the UN Global Sustainable Development Report (2015-2019) UNIVERSITÉ CÔTE D’AZUR

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Facilitated by Thibaut Malausa - INRA This workshop covered Sustainable Development Goals 2, 3 and 15, which address issues of agriculture, food, health and biodiversity.

It included presentations by a dozen researchers who are leading projects sponsored by the organizations represented.

Three major themes stood out during this workshop: 1. Sustainable production of foodstuffs, with research focused on agro-ecology: the production of various products using green chemistry.

The lengthy discussions on this point highlighted the driving role of France, and particularly of Université Côte d’Azur in the development of bio-control solutions. These recommend the use of natural organisms to protect crops and present an alternative to pesticides. Rich transversal projects are being conducted on this subject, which is a good example of inter-disciplinarity.

2. The impact of human activities on health and biodiversity. Two major points were discussed under this theme: - The impact of inputs currently used in agriculture.

- A more precise understanding of the exposome, i.e. the totality of exposures to various substances and their links with broad health issues.

Many laboratories are working on these topics and are making significant progress in research.

A very interesting project led by France and Brazil is currently examining exposures to different pollutants and their correlations with certain types of cancer. Even when there are no direct causal links, these strong correlations can serve to refute the messages communicated by some lobbies.

3. Lifestyle and health, with concepts such as nutrition, obesity, physical activity and longterm health.

Substantial progress has been made as regards obesity. The Sophia Antipolis site is at the cutting edge on these issues and several government plans have been introduced to improve public nutrition practices. Researchers and public officials are working hand in hand on these

subjects. A large number of studies have been conducted, providing extensive data. They form the basis for a very structured plan designed to encourage manufacturers to engage in a more sanitary production and achieve tangible results.

However, much progress can still be made in terms of communication, both to researchers and to the general public.

Some communication is already being done, but it is not ambitious enough. It is true that information from a specific field of research seems unrelated to the other fields, but when examined from the perspective of the Sustainable Development Goals, all this information can be gathered into an overall communication strategy.

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FOOD, AGRICULTURE, HEALTH, BIODIVERSITY

The workshop also highlighted the difficulty of implementing truly interdisciplinary practices.

Even if interdisciplinarity is a worthy goal in theory, its implementation has proved more complex than expected. The question remains whether the results obtained are really worthwhile. Specific training in interdisciplinarity might be needed.

This question is all the more relevant now that the Sustainable Development Goals represent a field of research in their own right, in which interdisciplinarity is essential.

However, action on these themes of general interest is often hindered by political and administrative realities. Another obstacle is that they do not necessarily arouse the interest of investors.

An emphasis on sustainable development can make it more difficult to build public/private partnerships. Industrialists who are developing products for agriculture rarely agree to finance research that could potentially jeopardize their profitability. On the other hand, the tendency to use research for boosting production or obtaining tax credits can be clearly observed in all fields.

It is essential however to allow research to evolve independently, away from conflicts of interest.

The key ideas that came out of the fruitful discussions in this workshop were: the need for a holistic approach, for multidisciplinarity and to present the Sustainable Development Goals as a new field of research in its own right.

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Thibaut MALAUSA Thibaut Malausa, researcher at the Sophia Agrobiotech Institute (ISA) of the National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), is working on insects the size of a freckle, and more specifically on auxiliary insects. These are living organisms used to help plants fight against aggressors. “Until now, their virtues were rarely scientifically analyzed, even though farmers were sometimes unconsciously aware of them as they are of urban legends,” explains the researcher. Poorly understood and rarely studied, auxiliary insects have not always been considered as a credible alternative to pesticides. The same is true for the entire range of biocontrol agents, such as bacteria, parasites, natural chemical mediators, essential oils or degradation products from microorganisms.

Chemistry, on the other hand, although extremely effective, is now reaching its limits and showing its undesirable effects. In order to preserve the environment and biodiversity, agricultural strategies focusing on biocontrol agents have progressively been developed. Thibaut Malausa is fully involved in this process. He divides his time between research and national coordination of the public/private consortium “ResearchDevelopment-Innovation” on biocontrol, launched in 2016, which brings together 48 partners. In the laboratory, he chose the perspective of population biology. He studies specimens, especially micro-wasps, from every angle. The researcher examines, among other things, whether the most effective individuals are those with special anatomical features such as longer legs, antennae or wings. The power of these insects obviously does not reside in their appearance, also called phenotype. However,

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these characteristics reflect genetic differences with respect to the general population, which may give insects more or less control over pests.

To counter mealybug infestations on orchards in France, Thibaut Malausa is exerting selective pressure on the profiles of the individuals that seem the most promising. “Feedback from the field has been very positive so far, but that is not enough,” points out the scientist. “To guarantee the results, a 3 to 6-year follow-up is recommended, because we do not expect an immediate impact,” he adds. Genetics is not the only factor to consider. With Bioline AgroSciences, a company specialized in using Trichogramma to control corn borer, the ISA demonstrated notably that efficiency could be improved in the field by 10 to 15% by mixing auxiliaries. “The mechanisms involved are very delicate,” insists Thibaut Malausa. “Too much inbreeding can reduce the effectiveness of the insects by 30%, but sometimes crossbreeding can be equally harmful for their reproduction,” he says. “Our tests may have been carried out on the wrong insect, since closely related species tend to be very similar. Weather conditions and temperature may have also influenced the development and activity of auxiliary insects...,” explains the researcher. As part of his assignment at the head of the public/private consortium on biocontrol, which now occupies 80% of his time, Thibaut Malausa is not only evaluating the effectiveness of biocontrol agents, but he is also involved in innovation. “We have been working on the same biological systems since the 70s and 80s. We need to explore new paths, especially in the field of natural antagonists,” he points out.

Anne VUILLEMIN When asked what led her to a career in the science and techniques of sports and physical activity (STAPS), Anne Vuillemin first fights the usual stereotype: it was not because she liked sports! She decided to study in that field, because it seemed to satisfy her spontaneous attraction to multidisciplinarity. “Of course, I have always practiced many different sports, but I was mainly attracted by the variety of approaches that include anatomy, physiology, sociology, psychology, theoretical and practical physical activities,” she insists. “That is still what interests me today,” she continues.

In fact, now that she is a University Professor and researcher at the Kinesiology, Expertise, Sport, and Health Laboratory (LAMHESS), Anne Vuillemin still feels that she does not have a high expertise in any one discipline. “I make connections between the different specialties to achieve a common goal,” explains Anne, who is in charge of the research program “Promotion of health through physical activity” at the LAMHESS. Even if being a “jack-of-all-trades” set her apart from her colleagues at first, now it helps her stand out and makes her work more relevant. Her socio-ecological approach is perfectly in line with the new public health objectives. Anne Vuillemin is not trying to “advertise” sports, but is seeking to promote a vision. The best way to understand this vision is to remember that physical activity starts with walking, or as soon as a person starts moving, even if very little energy is spent in the process. The next step is to look at targeted populations and how they live in their specific urban ecosystem. “It’s a good thing to study the impact of a physical

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activity policy on the health of people, but we also need to look at the conditions in which these policies are carried out. We need to see if the conditions are gathered to ensure that the activity is maintained over time, to make sure that its benefits are sustainable, “ explains Anne Vuillemin. That is why she is interested in infrastructure, policies, and all the environmental and socio-economic conditions that encourage or prevent new behaviors from emerging. “My main concern is to find the way to bring about a change,” she says.

As a member of the steering committee of HEPA Europe, a European network for the promotion of health-enhancing physical activity, her approach is also fully in line with the WHO’s plan to reduce physical inactivity by 15% by 2030. “The World Health Organization compared the benefits of increasing physical activity with the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The study showed that physical activity has an impact on seemingly unrelated issues, such as the improvement of air quality, social cohesion, and the development of active transportation methods such as walking or biking,” says the researcher. Part of her work is focused on these environmental aspects, but also on measuring the level of physical activity of different populations and the impact of physical activity on quality of their life, in terms of health.

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PROJECTS PROJECT Boost Aura Parmentier, GREDEG, CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur Valbio : Valuation of Biocontrol (Boost Axe 1) Agriculture is growingly criticized for its environmental print. Those critics target in particular the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers by farmers. Chemicals are under scrutiny because of their ecological impacts on waters, soils and workers.

Alternatives to pesticides exist. They are labelled under the term Biocontrol & Biostimulation Products and Technics (BBPT). They are available but largely underused. The Valbio project aims at understanding the reasons for such a difficult diffusion of biocontrol innovation.

Today agricultural system is mainly productivist. It ensures high yield to farmers under a constraint of systematized practices: mechanization of huge cultivated surfaces associated to a systematic use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. BBPT have different properties than chemical intrants, as such they are not perfectly substituable to current chemical intrants. This lockin participates to limit the diffusion of BBPT and invites for a renewal of agricultural practices, tools and beliefs.

Valbio pluridisciplinary project team (management, sociology, linguistics, law, psychology, philosophy) aims at unveiling the difficult integration of BBPT by investigating various research question. We aim at identifying and characterizing the perception of biocontrol by the public, at studying and analysing the socioeconomic structuration of the nascent biocontrol industry, and also at identifying and specifying innovation and development processes by both public and private actors. Those research objectives are jointly elaborated between the different social sciences at stake in the project and in interaction with our colleagues in Biology.

PROJECT Food intake, brain control and human health: the paradigm of “humanized” mouse models Jean-Louis Nahon, IPMC, CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur Obesity and associated pathologies are major public health problems. Numerous therapeutic trials targeting peptide networks (such as the Melanin Concentrating Hormone encoded by the PMCH gene) and its MCHR1 and MCHR2 receptors have proved unsuccessful due to the inadequacy of the rodent model to account for the complexity of the control of energy balance in humans. The existence of primatespecific regulatory mechanisms has recently been discovered. In the context of the MCH peptide network, we have identified PMCH gene-regulatory mRNAs derived from the AROM (common to mammals) and PMCHL1 (Primate-specific) genes.

Based on our expertise on this issue, we propose to analyze and manipulate the expression of these regulatory RNAs in “humanized” mouse models expressing the MCHR2 and to compare their phenotypic responses to different diets (including the Mediterranean diet) by targeting three questions: 1) How are these genes regulated, and how is brain inflammation modulated by different diets? 3) What molecular and phenotypic consequences are observed when AROM lncRNA production is modified in specific brain areas in “humanized” mice? 4) What molecular and phenotypic consequences are observed when PMCHL1 lncRNA production is modified in the same brain regions? We thus hope to obtain relevant informations linking the expression of these regulatory RNAs to changes in the activity of the MCH network under obesogenic contexts in animal models mimicking, ideally, the human gene environment for this system. This study will pave the road for generating relevant animal models to investigate the impact of food on human health.

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PROJECT Detection of thyroid-disruptor chemicals Thierry Pourcher, UMR TIRO-MATOs, UCA/CEA, School of medicine, Nice Thyroid disruptors are emerging risks of environmental or professional exposure to chemical agents. They are often products proposed by the agrochemical industry or other pollutants ingested through drinks or food. High-throughput and sensitive assays for thyroid disruptor effects are required for regulation and durable use of many chemicals. Better understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying thyroid disruption is also required. The members of the TIRO laboratory have all the expertise and the tools necessary to assess thyroid function. The TIRO group routinely uses cell models to analyze thyroid function and disruption. They also study iodine metabolism in living rodents using radiotracers and a SPECT camera.

More recently, the group has developed original metabolomics- and proteomicsdedicated methods to further study thyroid disruptor effects. Proofs-of-concepts have been obtained and results are highly promising. For example, using SPECT imaging and omics analyses, TIRO showed on both, pregnant and lactating mice, that exposure to the polluting endocrine disruptor nitrate at authorized concentrations in the drinking water evokes significant persistent effects on iodide metabolism (manuscript in preparation). Another study, named Metarisk and funded by the JEDI program, aims to develop completely new methods to assess a population’s exposure to elements presenting chemical or radiotoxicological risks. This will be achieved through innovative metabolomic methods focusing on urine signatures of the biological effect of thyroid disruptors. To conclude, the TIRO team has original skills to identify direct thyroid disruptive effects with significantly higher sensitivity than the commonly used standard methods (i.e. hormone level determination and histology analyses).

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PROJECT Exposome, genetics and cancer: Southern Brazil as a model EXPOGEN-CANCER CNRS International Associated Laboratory Dr. Enzo LALLI - IPMC Sophia Antipolis, France Bonald C. FIGUEIREDO - Hospital Pequeno Principe, Curitiba (Paraná), Brazil Raul C. RIBEIRO – St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis TN, USA The exposome is defined as the sum of all environmental influences and the accumulation of a person’s environmental exposures from conception onward, including all factors that are non-genetic. It represents a biological index of our nurture and the context in which specific exposures have impact on health. Our program aims to investigate how the interaction between genetic and environmental factors modulates prevalence of cancer and other diseases. These studies will leverage on the unique situation present in the State of Paraná in Southern Brazil, where the prevalence of a specific, low-penetrance germline mutation of the TP53 tumour suppressor gene is high in the population. We have developed Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to build maps of the state of Paraná for the visualization and comparison of statistical data on environment (distribution of environmental pollutants, water contaminants etc.) and health (congenital malformations, all major types of cancer, neurodegenerative diseases etc.; http://geomedicina.org.br).

However, the importance of our project far exceeds its application to a, though large, population in Latin America, since it will shed new light on the factors involved in determining cancer development in carriers of other low-penetrance TP53 alleles which are present throughout the world. Our project relies on the long-lasting and fruitful partnership already established among the project participants since more than 15 years.

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RESPONSIBLE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION, CLIMATE ACTION, BIODIVERSITY Facilitated by Marianne Mensah - Université Côte d’Azur This workshop discussed about research and the SDGs 7, 9, 11, 12 and 13. There are obvious relations between SDG11 (cities) and SDG13 (climate action), since the cities will represent 70% of the world population in 2050 and the world biggest Greenhouse Gas emitters. There are also strong synergies between SDG 7 (Energy) and SDG13 (Climate Change). Clean energies are essential for the transition to a low carbon economy. SDG 12 (Sustainable Production and Consumption) in relation with the circular economy, has also been mentioned in the strategies proned to reduce carbon emissions. Moreover, the workshop highlighted the fact that SDG13 was a crosscutting issue, that had a great impact on all the other SDGs.

Since climate change is a cross-cutting issue, other projects were presented in other sections such as oceans and economy that were also related to the causes and the impact of this topic.

The workshop highlighted to importance of mobilizing international collaboration and international research networks, particularly research institutions in developing countries.

Africa deserves a special attention, with great issues in terms of urban development, climate change and access to energy, in a context of a fast growing population. During the workshop, Julien Andrieu presented a project on the socioeconomic and environmental role of mangroves in Senegal.

Université Côte d’Azur has developed a number of research projects in the field of climate change mitigation and adaptation. The European H2020 IRIS project managed at Université Côte d’Azur by Dr Jackie Krafft brings together cities, industry and citizens to develop sustainable solutions in the field of clean energy, clean mobility and ICT. Professor Ben Youssef looks at efficiency of renewable energy. Dr Charlotte Hurel studies the use of nanomaterials to foster a “zero waste” industry. Prof Nicolas Martin analyses the main causes of climate change in the Côte d’Azur region, and the relevant actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and their impacts. Dr Margot Chapuis looks at the impact of hydroelectricity dams on the biodiversity.

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Energy, Innovation, Sustainable cities, Responsible production and consumption, Climate action, Biodiversity

ENERGY, INNOVATION, SUSTAINABLE CITIES,

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Jackie KRAFFT When she turned 50, Jackie Krafft changed her point of view. She switched from conducting research in economics at the global scale, to working with visible concepts: the city or the neighborhood, as possible fields of investigation, examined from the perspective of the environment and sustainable development. “I decided it was time to change the focus of my research from innovation to eco-innovation. This turning point reflects a general trend that runs through most articles published in academic journals,” she says.

But the main thrust of her research remains unchanged and her notoriety is still global. She became well-known for her work on corporate governance and innovation processes, and is currently trying to describe how companies can requalify employees to higher levels, by developing green activities, for example. She is also investigating how “green” industrial activities can spread to “non-green” sectors.

Currently director of CNRS research at the GREDEG laboratory and in charge of the core project Governance of Firms and Innovation (GFI), Jackie Krafft is scientific manager for the European IRIS smart city project (Integrated and Replicable Solutions for Co-Creation in Sustainable Cities) at Université Côte d’Azur.

“In 7 cities: Utrecht in the Netherlands, Gothenburg in Sweden, Vaasa in Finland, Alexandroupolis in Greece, Santa Cruz de Tenerife in Spain, Focsani in Romania and Nice in France, we are trying to measure citizen engagement with what was developed for their well-being,” explains the researcher. The objective is to make the city council aware of the needs of its citizens rather than seeking UNIVERSITÉ CÔTE D’AZUR

to create virtuous behaviors by imposing new technological services, such as a public fleet of electric cars. The project also aims to measure how an eco-neighborhood can create a ripple effect and have an impact on a more disadvantaged neighborhood. Jackie Krafft’s current approach is also based on the model of companies with fast-growing activities in sustainable development, otherwise known as “gazelles”. Economic assessments tend to show that these gazelles generate impressive growth, creating 30% to 40% additional jobs. “We are trying to see how many of these companies are setting up in the South Region and in the Nice area. In light of the first results, we have nothing to be ashamed of. Our figures place us in good position compared to results observed at the national or European level,” reveals the economist. “For me, it’s a new experience to have this local perspective.

But it’s particularly interesting today because things are developing fast enough for us to observe the changes we are studying. At this point in my career, I need to feel the impact of my research on the life of citizens.” That’s why Jackie Kraft does not hesitate to leave her comfort zone, in other words her laboratory, to meet political stakeholders and energy suppliers.

Adel BEN YOUSSEF Adel Ben Youssef’s career has a “before” and an “after”. “After ten years spent in research ‘for research’s sake’, without any concern for the possible impact of my work, I changed my strategy,” announces the Franco-Tunisian economist, specialized in energy and climate change issues. For the last seven or eight years, he has only taken on projects that could have an impact on specific issues already on the agenda of an institution. “This can only be done by finding partners, meeting the stakeholders, seeing what they are working on and filling the gap where there is a lack of expertise,” says Adel Ben Youssef. The turning point came when the African Development Bank asked him to help draft the first human capital development strategy, in Africa. “I was given the opportunity to write a series of articles showing how energy leads to health, gives access to education and even drives overall economic growth,” explains the researcher.

“These impacts on human development are usually underestimated in Africa,” adds Adel Ben Youssef. He was able to contribute to the debate between those who consider that physical capital, i.e. infrastructure, should be built first to promote the development of human capital, and those who believe that human capital can already be developed by improving access to energy, even without a standard power grid, by promoting access to energy on a small scale, for example. This is a fundamental question, considering that only 30% of the African continent’s population currently has access to electricity. “North Africa and the Middle East, on the other hand, use too much energy, and generate

a lot of greenhouse gases,” points out Adel Ben Youssef. This led him to examine how the concept of energy transition can be applied to that part of the continent. “I supervised a study on the efficiency of renewable energies, commissioned by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). It was approved at the beginning of March and will be presented at the United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation (BAPA +40),” adds the economist. He believes it is essential to collaborate in these projects with other academics but also with representatives of the World Health Organization (WHO), the African Bank and stakeholders in the field. For the last two years, Adel Ben Youssef has been in charge of negotiating Tunisia’s commitment to fight climate change, which made him realize that he also has a political role to play.

However, his main interest, as he says, is to clearly identify the issues that need to be investigated in order to meet the challenges of energy and climate change. “We need to focus on technological issues and innovation, but also on legal aspects. That includes finding mechanisms that are more efficient than non-binding agreements and that can ensure cooperation between more than two hundred stakeholders,” he concludes. Adel Ben Youssef summarizes his mission: “My goal is to lobby and represent the university at the highest political level. But it is also to make the general public and students more aware of environmental and ecological issues.”

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PROJECTS PROJECT MANTRA Project, MAgnetic Nanoparticles for environmenTal Applications and Risk Assessment: towards a “zero waste principle” paradigm Charlotte Hurel, Inphyni, CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur MANTRA project involved 4 research teams from 3 Université Côte d’Azur laboratories (INPHYNI, ICN, ECOMERS), and one team from Paris 6 laboratory (PHENIX). It received the financial support of Academy 3 of UCA IDEX JEDI for 1 year, followed by a 6 months’ extension (MANA2 project). The objective of this project relied on the principle of byproducts (from industry or food) valorisation, in order to fit into the “zero waste principle” which is a goal that is ethical, economical, efficient and visionary, to guide people in changing their lifestyles and practices, to emulate sustainable natural cycles where all discarded materials are designed to become resources for others. For that, a new generation of organic and inorganic composites in which magnetic nanoparticles were incorporated has been developed. These new-generation magnetic composites were obtained from by-products of two origins: (i) an industrial by-product stemming from biorefinery activity, (ii) biopolymers stemming from sea food carapaces (shrimp for example). They presented numerous advantages: (i) they were able to efficiently trap pollutants, (ii) their magnetic property allowed their easy recovery when dispersed into a solution, (iii) they can be regenerated for further reuse, (iv) are low cost materials, and (v) have a low ecological impact.

By this way, these new magnetic composite could be considered in urban or industrial wastewater treatment plants to remove organic and inorganic pollutants, in replacement of membrane-filtration processes, that are not economically viable.

PROJECT IRIS Jackie Krafft, GREDEG, CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur, Project Manager H2020 IRIS IRIS Smart Cities project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation under grant agreement no 774199. The project supports the lighthouse cities of Utrecht (The Netherlands), Gothenburg (Sweden) and Nice Côte d’Azur (France) and the following cities Vaasa (Finland), Alexandroupolis (Greece), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Spain) and Focsani (Romania) to respond to their urgent need to provide cheaper, more accessible and reliable energy and mobility services in their local ecosystems and contribute to a better and more sustainable urban quality of life.

By demonstrating intelligent solutions that integrate energy, mobility and ICTs, anchored in a City Innovation Platform, IRIS quantifies their value and connects the interests of many stakeholders to innovative business models, enabling replication of integrated solutions for sustainable cities across and beyond Europe.

To do this, IRIS is working on five Transition Tracks based on common challenges, encompassing 16 integrated solutions that cities can combine according to their characteristics and specific local ecosystem needs.

Transition Tracks 1, 2 and 3 aim to improve energy efficiency and maximize network flexibility, using second life batteries and V2G storage to enable renewable energy generation and deployment of e-cars and e-buses.

Transition Track 4 supports a City Innovation Platform, providing a common digital architecture, the use of related standards and governance practices.

Transition Track 5 integrates the co-creation of citizens in Tracks 1-4, linking the needs of end-users with those of other stakeholders to further support innovative business models.

The expected impacts of IRIS are an open innovation ecosystem that motivates citizens to act as prosumers; more effective urban planning and governance of integrated solutions; the exploitation of innovative business models based on multi-stakeholder collaboration; more stable, safer and affordable energy and mobility services for citizens, and improved air quality.

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PROJECT CLIMATE CHANGE Nicolas Martin, ESPACE, CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur The best way to understand climate change is to identify its causes: the explosion of the global population combined with our growing thirst for fossil fuels has led to a surge in greenhouse gas emissions. Global emissions of carbon dioxide have increased by more than 60% since the third Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, even though the whole world had concluded at the time that emissions needed to be reduced...

Today almost all of the daily actions we consider normal cause greenhouse gas emissions without our being aware of it. The entire organization of our societies and our economies needs to be thoroughly reexamined to attempt as much as possible to limit the climate changes already underway. The main characteristic of the physical mechanisms involved is temporal inertia, which creates a time delay between the causes and the effects, and considerably complicates the task before us all: to act today to achieve results that will only be clearly manifested later. If the climate crosses certain irreversible thresholds, we will no longer be able to control the destiny of our climate for thousands of years, even if our greenhouse gas emissions drop to zero.

PROJECT Assessing the health of an African proprietary mangrove ecosystems in order to help changing policies toward shared benefices of conservation Julien Andrieu, ESPACE, CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur Land degradation narratives most often serve to justify coercive environmental policies and lead to dispossession and marginalization of local people. Mangrove policy is a good example of tensions between reclamation and conservation (Cormier-Salem & Panfili, 2015). Mangrove is a rich, fragile and threatened ecosystem, which must be protected from human pressures and global change. The national and international political agenda of the last decade put mangroves in the spotlight because of their ability for sequestering carbon, thus justifying politics of reforestation in the frame of REDD+.

While mangroves provide well-known and recognized benefits or services to people, particularly women in the studied mangroves, their drastic decline is undeniable in several countries, their current status and socio-ecological dynamics at the regional level are poorly known (Andrieu et al., 2019) and the recommended solutions for their sustainable conservation are debatable. In fact, more and more scholars are questioning the legitimacy (bio-ecological, economic and social) of protection and reforestation actions, analyzing changes in governance mechanisms and regimes, and pleading for inclusive and sustainable actions for a fair sharing of benefits or “co-benefit” between mangrove conservation and the people well-being.

Research led by Université Cote d’Azur develops an original interdisciplinary approach based on remote sensing for ecosystem assessment; botanical and population biology of mangrove trees for change processes identification; interviews and participatory approach to understand the local resource management systems.

Retrospective modelling enables the identification of change factors; prospective modelling enables participatory approaches at changes in policies or in resource management.

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PROJECTS PROJECT Morpho-sedimentary evolution of trout spawning areas in the Roya River Margot Chapuis, ESPACE, CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur Hydro-power plants can significantly modify river hydrology and consequently their morphodynamics (Kondolf, 1997). Flow diversions and regular water releases at dams are expected to modify sediment fluxes and thus affect trout habitats, especially spawning areas. In the case of the Roya river (at the border between France and Italy), several dams of various sizes strongly modify the river hydrology, especially for low- to medium-flows. But the river is locally well known for its fishing spots. The study presented here aims at assessing the link between river hydrology and morpho-sedimentary evolution of trout spawning areas, in order to better understand what specific conditions could explain the persistence of indigenous trout populations in the Roya despite its modified hydrology and Mediterranean intense floods.

To study the morpho-sedimentary evolution of spawning areas, fine gravel particles of spawning grounds were equipped with RFID passive transponders that provide each particle with a unique identification code (Lamarre et al., 2005). RFID tags allow to track particles’ displacements after flooding. Sediment particles locations and topography of the reach were also monitored with GPS before and after the flood event. Preliminary results suggest hydraulic control of the location of the spawning area, probably due to structural control exerted by rocky blocks on fine gravel deposition. Monitoring also highlighted sediment material renewal of the spawning ground within flooding.

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OCEAN

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OCEAN Facilitated by Rodolphe Lemée - Laboratoire d’Observation Oceanologique de Villefranche

Several laboratories participated in this workshop sponsored by the Villefranche Oceanography Laboratory (France) and the IMEV (Villefranche Institute of the Sea). Even though the latter is affiliated with the Sorbonne University (with the marine stations of Roscoff in Brittany and Banyuls in the Pyrénées-Orientales), it collaborates actively with Université Côte d’Azur.

In addition to contributions by the GeoAzur, IRD, and IRCAN laboratories, and the Institute of Chemistry of Nice, the GREDEG gave an interesting presentation. This laboratory, which conducts research in the field of human sciences, asked lawyers and young people to address issues relating to oceans by speaking in the name of the sea.

Many different topics were examined. Microplastics, metals and their impact at sea or the consequences of overfishing, with the example of a project led by several Côte d’Azur laboratories studying the impact of noise on fish.

It appeared during this workshop that few participants had a good knowledge of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, even though their work relates with these objectives. The conclusion was that research projects should emphasize the SDGs as well as political action.

Work presented at this workshop originated from all over the world. Contributions were very rich and complementary, and covered both Mediterranean and tropical zones (Pacific and French West Indies).

Because of the large number of issues to be addressed under this topic and their multidisciplinary nature, it is difficult to define specific themes associated with this particular SDG. Each of the research projects mentioned was linked to several objectives, further underscoring the interface role played by the oceans.

The health of marine environments is often emphasized in the different Sustainable Development Goals because oceans are markers, strong signals of the dangers and challenges that await us.

It was also surprising that workshop participants made so little reference to the Nagoya Protocol, which entered into force in 2014. The objective of this agreement is the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the use of genetic resources derived from «plants, animals, bacteria or other organisms, for commercial, research or other purposes». By signing this protocol that protects natural wealth and resources, the different countries commit to act in a responsible way, declare their sampling and share their results.

But this protocol is still largely ignored, and this further confirms, if that were still necessary, that the SDGs can only be achieved if international rules are respected.

It also highlights the need for true interdisciplinary collaboration to encourage such commitments.

Most speakers addressed the concept of multidisciplinarity, essential to approaching oceans. Because the sea is the place where many SDGs converge. It is not only the link between continents and people, but it is also the repository of their mistakes. The international program steered by the Belmont Forum is an example. This project focuses on Sargassum, macroalgae that wash ashore and produce toxic gases on the Caribbean beaches. Beyond scientific issues, there is a strong societal demand to solve this problem because communities in the impacted areas mainly live from tourism.

The answer, whether it is to remove the algae or find ways to commercialize it, must come from science.

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Paolo GUIDETTI Brown-marbled groupers can live to be half a century old and reach the size of a schoolboy, according to the literature. “But in reality, I have only seen this phenomenon twice in my life and always in protected marine areas,” says Ecology Professor Paolo Guidetti. A native of Genoa, he developed his interest in local fishing practices and fish preservation along the Italian coast. Now director of a research unit at the ECOSEAS laboratory of Université Côte d’Azur, he practices marine socio-ecology.

“This means that we take into account the human component in our work,” explains the scientist. He is studying the impact of human activity on marine ecosystems but also the impact of marine protected areas (MPAs) on the local economy. This has led Paolo Guidetti to conduct a long-term study on the condition of the Mediterranean grouper. He carried out a visual inventory and estimated the size of individuals on several sites, comparing the grouper’s biomass index in no-take marine protected areas, in buffer zones where fishing is regulated, and in areas outside MPAs. “We also included a time component, when we had datasets spanning several decades,” says the researcher. His next project is to analyze fish bones found on archeological sites, in collaboration with the CEPAM laboratory (Cultures and Environments Prehistory, Antiquity, Middle Ages). By studying how groupers are represented on mosaics dating back to Roman times, he has already confirmed changes in the more superficial marine ecosystem, in other words, the disappearance of groupers in the shallower marine layers.

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that it is at the very top of the marine food chain. Since all nature is connected, when the grouper is threatened, it puts less pressure on its prey and lets very voracious herbivorous species colonize the seabed, among other things. These species leave complete deserts behind them,” insists Paolo Guidetti. The situation is already critical in the south and east of the Mediterranean, where it is mimicking and accelerating the expected effects of global warming. “As a result of the disappearance of predators, combined with the increase in temperatures and the opening of the Suez Canal, herbivorous species from the Red Sea, such as rabbitfish, have entered the Mediterranean,” continues Paolo Guidetti. Hence the importance of ensuring that marine areas are effectively protected.

“The signatory countries of the Convention on Biological Diversity are committed to protecting at least 10% of territorial waters.

But they have forgotten the clauses of the agreement that require effective and fair protection,” points out Paolo Guidetti. He believes that controls should be reinforced and poaching reduced, by using drones, for instance, and mobilizing onshore security forces. As part of the European Interreg MED program, his laboratory is studying the joint management of local fishing in eleven MAPs. “We noticed 10 to 20% higher fish production when fishermen were involved,” underlines the researcher. When local people contribute, the feeling of justice is strengthened, and the resulting benefits are both ecological and socio-economic.

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Pascale STEICHEN Pascale Steichen talks about her profession with such passion that it is hard to image that she ever was anything other than an environmental legal expert. And yet, before starting her university career, she first worked in tourism. Not for a second does she regret closing that chapter of her life and embarking on the discovery of a “rich and evolving” subject matter that had only a few years earlier appeared in the field of law. “I saw it grow, expand, diversify but also fluctuate in times of crisis,” says the researcher, associate professor of private law. “At first I chose environmental law because I thought it was a great laboratory for legal experimentation.

Whether at the international, European or national level, it is always at the crossroads between public and private laws,” says Pascale Steichen. Her dissertation already dealt with the complementarity between soil contamination standards. In her further studies, she maintained an interest in pollution, disturbances, and liability regimes, and particularly in the Natura 2000 network, which is “a very strong incentive for protecting biodiversity”. Her current research deals with the issues of compensation for damage to the environment. For example, explains Pascale Steichen, “when a developer wants to carry out a project of a certain size, he must suggest measures to the public authorities for avoiding, reducing and compensating for damage to the environment.” As a legal expert, she is also a contributing author of the Précis DALLOZ in Environmental Law, the reference guide on the subject. In terms of education, Pascale Steichen regrets that “in too many universities,

unless students have chosen to specialize in environmental law, they never touch the subject throughout their studies.” This makes it all the more difficult for lawyers, magistrates and corporate lawyers to apply these complex laws. Pascale Steichen is delighted that Université Côte d’Azur has included the subject in all branches of the Faculty of Law. As codirector of the master’s degree program, Risk and Sustainable Development Law, she also strives to implement innovative educational projects and, where possible, go beyond theoretical concepts. With this objective in mind, she supervised two flagship actions for the year 2018-2019 alone. In November, the students in the Masters of the Mediterranean Institute of Risk, Environment and Sustainable Development (IMREDD) were invited to imagine what risks will be caused by global warming in the Alpes Maritimes department 30 years from now. Then in February, Pascale Steichen participated in organizing a court of public opinion, the Court of the Oceans, on the model of the Monsanto trial. “We wanted to deal with the issue of plastic waste in the Mediterranean Sea and give the opportunity to legal and scientific students to work together,” explains the researcher. After pleading the case, the students presented a draft convention that could pass into international law in either New York, Geneva or Nairobi. The convention is now available on the official website of the Global Environment Pact.

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PROJECT Accumulation of radionuclides in marine species, localization and speciation

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J. M. Schwantes et al. Environ. Sci. Technol. (2012), 46, 8621.

B. Reeveset al. Env. Sci. Technol. submitted 3 M. Maloubier et al. Env. Sci. Technol. (2016), 50, 10730-10738.

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Beccia M. R. (1); Reeves B. (1,6), Maloubier M. (1,7), Solari P. L. (5), Monfort M. (6), Moulin C. (6), Den Auwer C. (1) Seawater comprises the largest percentage of the hydrosphere and covers about 71% of the earth’s surface. It is also the final environmental repository for contaminated waters from rivers and basins. Possible dissemination mechanisms of radionuclides resulting from accidental or chronic releases of nuclear activities in the environment, particularly in sea water, is therefore a scientific challenge but also a political issue. For instance, the Fukushima accident in March 2011 had a major impact in terms of energetic policies in various countries because of the decrease of social acceptance of civil nuclear power.1 Hence, the need for managing the risk, for controlling the environmental fate and transport, and for preventing human exposure is essential. It is therefore crucial to attempt to understand the transfer and accumulation mechanisms in marine species taken as bio indicators.

Sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus2, sponge Aplysina cavernicola3 (both animals) and algae Laminaria Digittata (plant) have been selected. Our investigation covers actinides (U, Pu and Am (only at tracer scale and Eu as a surrogate). We have combined several spectroscopic techniques among which X ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) plays a central role. In this strategy, space resolved speciation is also essential and imaging techniques have been implemented as well, in particular micro and nano X-ray imaging. Our results show that accumulation mechanisms depend on speciation which in turns defines bioavailability and therefore transfer to the trophic chain.

PROJECT ISOtopes of Metal Elements for Tracing marine METabolism – ISO2MET Nathalie Vigier, Observatoire océanologique de Villefranche Trace metals play key roles in the metabolic cycles of marine organisms. Metal enrichment in polluted areas may also be responsible for reproductive anomalies and ecological disturbance since the onset of the industrial era. Despite recent advances in ecotoxicology and in molecular biology, the relationships between the concentrations of trace metals and marine biomass or biodiversity remain uncertain.

Members of ISO2MET consortium have evidenced that trace metals are isotopically fractionated in biological organisms. They recently discovered that this is due in a large part to the action of specific ion transporters that can be measured with a great accuracy. This offers a novel and unique approach to trace the mechanisms of accumulation, elimination and/or toxicity of trace metals in marine organisms.

ISO2MET will target three trace metals with intensive industrial application and high potential in marine ecotoxicology: zinc, copper, lithium. At the biochemical and cellular levels, we will quantify and model biological isotope fractionation performed by the major transporters of these metals, using state-of-the-art ion transport and electrophysiology techniques. At the organism level, we will perform high sensitivity isotopic measurements both on natural samples of plankton, plankton eaters and sediments collected in contrasted environments, and on laboratory aquacultures in controlled conditions. We will also explore bivalve shells and coral skeletons as new proxies in isotopic ecotoxicology.

To achieve this work, several internationally recognized laboratories decided to merge their resources and their competences. Thus, ISO2MET consortium is composed of physiologists and ecotoxicologists (LIENSs, IAEA-REL), experts in trace metal regulation by marine species, biochemists (LP2M), specialists of metal transfer in animal cells, geochemists (LOV, LGLTPE), specialized in non-conventional isotopes in the environment, and ecologists of marine plankton and trophic transfer (LOV, LIENSs). Owing to this innovative combination, the expectation is to provide a quantum leap improvement in our understanding of the link between metal levels and marine life evolution.

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JUSTICE

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Facilitated by Jean-Christophe Martin - IDPD, Université Côte d’Azur This workshop 2 focused on Goal 16 and the issues of «peace, justice and effective institutions». Five presentations served as a basis for discussions on these issues. They focused on: • The intersection between disability and sustainable development.

• The role of the humanities and social sciences in sustainable development.

• Issues relating to the practice of modern slavery.

• The concept of race and how it is used.

• The contribution of the Université Côte d’Azur’s Institute for Peace and Development Law to the achievement of SDG 16.

Social justice is an essential driver of development. One of the general lessons that can be drawn from this workshop is the importance of the Humanities and Social Sciences in providing a better understanding of sustainable development and helping achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The workshop highlighted the major role that universities have to play in this respect. Participants drew from research conducted within the university to contribute to discussions on the Sustainable Development Goals.

participants. They all agreed that universities contribute to the achievement of the SDGs not only through their research but also through their educational role, which is particularly evident with respect to peace and justice.

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Universities should therefore strengthen their role and not only offer training for students, but also develop training or awareness-raising activities for the general public. An important way of achieving this would be through collaborations with different partners.

Discussions within the workshop gave participants the opportunity to express how they believe the university can contribute to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. Greater support in showcasing and promoting the results of research in the Humanities and Social Sciences is essential and will contribute more significantly to meeting the SDGs. Like the other workshops, which all emphasized the importance of multidisciplinarity, this one was the opportunity to reflect on the role of the Humanities and Social Sciences, and their interaction with the hard sciences, in successfully achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

To draw maximum benefit from this research, it is essential for institutions to create links between the different research themes and activities. These bridges make it possible to identify correlations between the different projects, and form a broader view of the issues at stake, which is crucial with respect to sustainable development, and particularly social justice. Even though significant progress has been achieved in establishing connections between disciplines, the need to go even further was emphasized.

Discussions during the workshop demonstrated this need and highlighted possible interactions.

One of the ways of increasing collaboration is to create and strengthen multilateral partnerships, with the aim of improving cooperation between universities and other research organizations on one side, and public authorities and relevant international institutions on the other. This is particularly critical for Goal 16, which links issues of peace and justice with the need for stronger institutions, and relies on scientific expertise to address issues of governance and decisionmaking.

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Jean-Christophe MARTIN “The United Nations and the European Communities were created for the purpose of guaranteeing peace and development,” points out Jean-Christophe Martin, Professor of Public Law and Vice-President of International Relations at Université Côte d’Azur. Today, a few decades later, these themes are still at the heart of the international agenda and new creative initiatives are once again arising in these fields.

“In 2018, the Paris Peace Forum was created,” notes the researcher, and universities are increasingly involved in various development actions. On the strength of this observation, Jean-Christophe Martin decided to expand the Institute for Peace and Development Law (IDPD), created in 1968, which he heads, and transform it into a resource center tasked with “defining, implementing and encouraging the commitment of Université Côte d’Azur in the fields of peace and development”. He considers this new focus for the institution as a watershed moment in the history of the IDPD. “By assigning these missions of peace and development to the IDPD, my wish is to make the general public more aware of these issues, and give the institution a greater role in meeting these challenges, through much more concrete and visible actions, scientific or not, in collaboration with other disciplines besides law,” explains the professor. JeanChristophe Martin studied law because he wanted “to understand how the rules of law imposed on us are produced.” Since then, he has developed a passion for the legal methods that govern international relations. “In the field of law, when a researcher studies an issue, he first examines the existing legal rules and 28

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evaluates them in light of the challenges of the real world. He then proposes solutions: the use of other existing legal techniques, for example, or sometimes an innovative solution that needs to be added to the jurist’s toolbox,” summarizes Jean-Christophe Martin. The researcher has published extensively on many topics relating to human safety: on the legal framework for fighting terrorism, but also on environmental issues or, more recently, on the rescue of people in distress at sea. Concerned by the challenge of the current major migratory movements, Jean-Christophe Martin was also instrumental in creating a multidisciplinary training program dedicated to the subject. “It’s a master’s degree shared by the departments of international law and European law, sociology and political science,” explains the jurist. Students follow a single program that combines the three disciplines, but choose one of them as a major. “We want to bring international and European law in contact with the other sciences and encourage healthy competition between them,” summarizes the researcher. Jean-Christophe Martin wants to keep on expanding the IDPD. He is proud to have participated in creating a truly innovative training program, which leads to a nationally recognized degree, within the framework of existing university programs.

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Valérie PIETRI To better understand the world in which she lives, Valérie Pietri decided to look at it through the great telescope of History. She enjoys taking a detour in the written traces of the past to find fresh perspectives that might explain the nature of modern phenomena.

A historian and researcher at the Urmis, she is particularly interested in the mechanisms of domination and discrimination. “I want to analyze the origins of these constructions to denaturalize them and make them debatable,” she explains. “The simple fact of understanding a process may not be sufficient to deconstruct it, but at least it gives the victims the weapons they need to keep from internalizing the arguments of discrimination and inequality imposed on them,” continues Valerie Pietri. She started her academic career with a dissertation on the different forms of social domination and the concept of elite. “I did extensive work on relationships with ancestors and on nobility of race. This concerns a category of the nobility that thinks itself superior to other nobles because it has “always” belonged to the nobility, “by nature”, explains the historian. Along the same lines, the idea is used today to explain the emergence of the concept of race, which appeared between the late 18th and early 19th century. “Before that, race referred to lineage, to genealogy,” points out the researcher. Slavery has existed since antiquity, but with the development of colonies, it came to be associated for the first time with an individualized people: black Africans. The relationship between race and slavery essentializes the situation of inferiority in which the victims are placed. “We have

also extensively studied scientific discourse.

Because, as studies on the evolution of species were advancing, naturalists, who had started by identifying and describing differences between populations, gradually established a hierarchy between these categories,” explains Valérie Pietri. Since then, despite the joint statements made by scientists and the United Nations on the non-existence of races, racism has not disappeared. Back from Dakar, Senegal, where she led a unique workshop as part of the European SLAFNET project, Valérie Pietri explains how much these issues still spark strong reactions and debate, reflecting very deep social problems. “In Africa, racism remains a taboo, but I noticed a very strong interest among students for my lectures on European societies. Because it brings them back to their own relationship with genealogy and with the stigma of slavery,” reports the researcher. In the future, Valérie Pietri would like to develop these training programs for students in the southern hemisphere, on the model of the partnerships established by the IRD, the institute that supervises her laboratory with the CNRS and Université Côte d’Azur. “I am also interested in building ties with American researchers, because in the United States, the legacy of slavery remains a central issue,” she says. At UCA, Valérie Pietri is training students to understand the genesis of discriminations and to keep the memory of origins, as part of the new ODYSSEE Graduate School of Research and the International Master’s Degree “Migration Studies”, which opened in September 2018 and is taught in English.

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PROJECTS PROJECT Sustainability from the perspective of human and social sciences Thierry Long, LAPCOS, CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur Sustainable development and the management of natural areas are regularly apprehended from the technical, physical (architectural ...) and biological points of view. Yet, nature, like every other element of our existence, is also the object of a social construction whose societal and scientific significance is often underestimated.

This social construction is directly related to the cultural, economic and ideological characteristics of the society in which we live.

As a consequence, thinking about sustainability cannot do without these reflections on the conditions of construction of our relationship to nature. This is what some colleagues and I are doing in our university. This communication is not intended to be exhaustive on all that can be done in Human and Social Sciences in our university. It will only give an insight of my few collaborations concerning this topic, collaborations which are mostly placed in the field of the environmental psychology and philosophy.

These studies aim to analyze the environmental responsibility (and its determinants) of individuals. This has led us to work on the brakes and triggers of ecological awareness and sustainable behaviors. The brakes are much more often emphasized in the population than the triggers. They most often refer to an economic, political and ideological system that is unsuited to sustainability. Triggers include, among other things, primary socialization, relocation of human activities and personal awareness.

More research is needed in this area to achieve higher levels of complexity and therefore higher levels of awareness, whether scientifically or socially.

PROJECT Sustainable Development and Disability Mai-Anh NGO, GREDEG CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur The work of Dr. Mai-Anh NGO is based on the observation that the social pillar is underestimated in sustainable development.

Yet the Brundtland Report states that “physical sustainability implies a concern for social equity between generations, a concern that must logically be extended to equity within each generation”. When applied to the specific case of people with disabilities, sustainable development encourages co-construction, which reestablishes new social relationships with people with disabilities. Dr. Mai Anh Ngo has applied this sustainable development perspective to different sectors, such as sports and tourism. As a reference, she wrote the following article with respect to sports: Keys for extending sports to people with disabilities”, Jurisport: la revue juridique et économique du sport, Juris éditions, Dalloz, 2012, pp.39-43. More recently, with respect to tourism, she gave a presentation on Opportunities offered by adapted tourism, the example of tourism accessible to people with disabilities at the Assises de la transition écologique et citoyenne des Alpes maritimes (Forum on the ecological and citizen-based transition of the Alpes Maritime department), in October 2018, Nice, France, and participated in the Intrepid project.https:// halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/GREDEG/halshs-01912798 https://halshs.archivesouvertes.fr/GREDEG/halshs-01912798 Dr. Mai Anh Ngo is currently working on the interconnection between the social, environmental and economic aspects of sustainable development, as seen through the example of disability, and based on the concepts of inclusive cities, Smart Cities or accessible tourism.

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PROJECT SLAFNET: Slavery in Africa: a dialogue between Europe and Africa

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Valérie Pietri, URMIS, CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur The overall objective of the project is to establish a scientific network of several institutions in Europe and Africa on the field of slavery studies. It aims at focusing mutual efforts of 13 research groups with extended and complementary competences in their respective research fields and at gathering multidisciplinary expertise in slavery-related issues by encouraging the exchange of young and senior researchers from both continents.

In conducting research on both historical and contemporary slavery, it enriches the analysis of the underlying local situations and addresses the impact of slavery and slave trade on population histories in Europe and Africa.

While the analysis of slavery takes into account differences related to race, ethnicity, age, class or religion, the role and place of women and gender hierarchies, understood in the sense of social relations of sex, have received very little attention.

In this respect, Slafnet aims to focus on social inequalities and gender-related marginalization, particularly in collaboration with anti-slavery associations in West Africa that combat stigmas associated with former servile conditions.

The project involves more than 50 researchers in France, Kenya, Mauritius, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Senegal, Germany, Portugal and the United Kingdom. Its main goals are: - To promote and to support cooperation between researchers and institutions from both continents; - To support capacity building for junior researchers; - To develop new synergies between the academic and non-academic worlds; - To encourage exchanges and synergy between researchers, by supporting their mobility and establishing a sustainable network and reach out various communities within and outside academia.

PROJECT URACE Marie-Pierre Ballarin, IRD The purpose of this project is to analyse the scientific, social and political uses of the notion of “race” from a diachronic (16th to the 21st century) and comparative perspective (Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia). The current focus on the “biologisation” of the social field obviously leads to reshape the relation to ancestry.

It also reconfigures the link to otherness, turning differences into naturalized distinctions that can also support claims/legitimacy to social domination as well as emancipatory claims. Our approach thus consists in questioning these social practices according to three angles of approach: scholarly usages of “race” and racialization of social categories; Race as assigned identity, assumed identity or denied identity; Getting out of « race »: emancipation, reparation, de-racialization.

Joint seminar “Race, genealogy and citizenship”: First of all, the purpose is to restore the category of “race”, as it is mobilized in early modern times in a wide variety of fields, within lexicon and genealogical practices. Then, our aim is to better understand transformations at play, both in terms of knowledge and power mechanisms, during the 18th and early 19th centuries. In our understanding, it underlines that the genealogical dimension of “race” did not disappear, but was integrated into a series of new challenges. Finally, this will allow us to extend these reflections to current societies: whether it concerns the link between “race” and genealogy or tensions between citizenship and “race”, and references to communities based on origin and transmission (genetic genealogies and epigenetic).

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CROSS - DISCIPLINARY THEME: SYSTEMS OF OBSERVATION AND THE SDGs

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Facilitated by Philippe Charvis - IRD This workshop focused on the observations systems needed to check that sustainable development goals are achieved, particularly those related to global change. Global change refers to changes occurring on the entire planet earth, including the environment, the biosphere, and human society. It not only concerns climate change and its consequences, but also large-scale changes in society and the impact of human activities on the earth (loss of biodiversity, changes in the environment, soil degradation, etc.). Longterm observation systems are deployed for three main purposes: • To monitor environmental and societal parameters over long periods, typically several decades, in order to quantify changes occurring to them and, if possible, anticipate future developments (e.g. climate change and its impact on agricultural production or the vulnerability of large cities to pollution or natural hazards).

• To prevent disasters, or at least reduce their impact on populations, using real-time warning systems, whether these disasters result from anthropic (pollution, etc.) or natural phenomena (storms, earthquakes, etc.).

• To inform and raise the awareness of populations about the changes that will have an impact on their daily lives. This means involving them in observation activities through citizen networks.

Université Côte d’Azur is involved with its partners in all aspects of environmental observation: from designing sensors, and collecting and processing data, all the way to helping end users (public administrations, decision-makers, civil society, etc.) become familiar with scientific results and learn how to use them. A few flagship projects, supported by the UCA JEDI IDEX initiative were presented during the workshop: • The MUSE project (Urban Environmental & Health Monitoring) of the Nice University Hospital Center, is working on a sensor worn by vulnerable people or those practicing a sport.

It analyzes air quality parameters (fine particles and nitrogen oxides) in real-time and can be used for decision-making.

• In the ocean environment, a wide range 1 2

of acoustic signals can contribute to noise pollution. Their origins are diverse, some are telluric (earthquakes, underwater landslides) or biological (songs of animals sailors); some are due to the weather (wind, rain, waves) or humans (sonar, passage of boats). MERMAID1 drifting buoys developed by the Géoazur laboratory are currently used to detect earthquakes in the ocean, but in the near future, they could record other environmental characteristics and analyze subsea noise pollution and relevant bioenvironmental parameters. Several schools are preparing to launch a Mermaid buoy. Students will be able to monitor the environmental data in real time.2

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• The NAUTILUS project (ECOMERS, I3S and Geoazur laboratories, funded by UCAJEDI’s Academy 3) is using artificial intelligence algorithms to automate the processing of acoustic data collected offshore by MERMAID buoys and other sensors and to recognize signals. Information will feed a database of marine signals that will be used in many research projects. The database will also serve for noise pollution protection and prevention actions (in the Ligure basin especially).

• Finally, a participatory seismology project developed in Haiti with the École Normale Supérieure de Paris will deploy a network of seismological sensors installed directly in the homes of citizens, with a two-fold purpose: the acquisition of seismological data, a fundamental need in the absence of a functioning national network, and ongoing awareness-raising of the population to seismic risk. This should encourage behavioral changes, especially in construction.

These examples illustrate the fact that decisionmaking regarding the Sustainable Development Goals requires extremely varied, environmental and social data, as well as a multidisciplinary approach, associating researchers in the environmental sciences (in the broad sense, including practically all the «hard» sciences), researchers in the humanities, and end users (civil society, political stakeholders). Université Côte d’Azur has a very high potential for developing scientific research projects deliberately focused on achieving a sustainable future.

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Philippe CHARVIS Philippe Charvis is interested in the movements and transformations of the Earth. “In this office, you will not find any rocks,” he jokes, pointing at his shelves. Not attracted by the naturalistic side of his discipline, he quickly turned to the physical aspects of geology. Using measuring devices, he takes sonograms of the Earth, especially around earthquake formations such as the Andes, Ecuador and Peru. But the researcher, now director of the department of Internal Dynamics and Continent Surface (DISCO), agrees that his first position at the Research Institute for Development (IRD), where he started at the age of 24, helped him to very quickly “learn important things that can only be understood by moving around”.

He worked in the Ivory Coast, Haiti, New Caledonia, and has just returned from Senegal.

“There is always something to learn about the way people live and about the problems that can occur on site,” he says. All of these aspects need to be taken into account as he carries out his scientific mission, which is to understand seismic phenomena and help people cope with these events. “We still cannot predict when an earthquake will occur, but we know where it will happen and what damage to expect depending on its magnitude,” explains Philippe Charvis. “Seismology has evolved a lot since the Sumatran earthquake in 2004,” he adds. “The sensor networks that we deployed around the world collect information that we did not have before. For example, we discovered the existence of silent, very slow earthquakes, and of a whole cascade of phenomena which derive from them,” explains the geophysicist. Unfortunately, as before,

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the memory of an earthquake does not stay alive within the affected populations over the generations. Philippe Charvis also knows that policymakers will probably not read the articles published by geologists, which could help them reexamine their construction rules and evacuation plans. “We are trying to work on this lack of communication by collaborating with the human sciences. We want to understand how we can present our scientific results in a better way and have an impact on decision-makers and populations,“ announces the director of the DISCO department. “I think I can contribute something different in this respect, because I have expanded my horizons by leading science outreach activities. Today, I have a broader perspective and I see new possibilities of research, based on interdisciplinarity, that could contribute to development,” he confides. Since the concept of sustainable development is relatively recent and constantly evolving, the IRD chose to develop a type of “hands-on” research, as Philippe Charvis qualifies it, even for very fundamental issues. “In the past, scientists worked in these developing countries without bothering about their population; they were only interested in obtaining good results,” the researcher acknowledges. “Now, we consider our work as a cooperation. We try to involve our partners from the very beginning. We work on topics that interest them; we train their students; we help them develop laboratories,” he enumerates, determined to keep advancing in that direction.

Bernard MERCIER DE LEPINAY Bernard Mercier de Lépinay believes that “in a perfect world, seismic sensors would be placed everywhere”. “When people tell me that there is no seismic activity where they live, I tell them that they do not have any seismometers, which is not the same thing,” he says. This passionate geoscientist studies earthquakes, and especially those produced by major strike-slip movements that appear along faults, when two blocks slide horizontally from each other. This is the case in New Zealand, for example, and in the Mediterranean area of Morocco. “I want to understand the deformations involved, model their geometry, date them, and reconstruct their history,” explains the scientist. In areas where earthquakes are recurrent, even if they are spaced hundreds of years apart, the challenge is to build seismic hazard maps. “We want to predict the movement of the soil at a given point and at a given magnitude,” says Bernard Mercier de Lépinay.

“It’s an ongoing process. We keep on adding to it, as we find new information,” he insists, knowing this map could become a valuable tool for urban developers. Unfortunately, in many countries affected by earthquakes, the geologist notices that it is difficult to spread knowledge to the general population. Nine years ago, after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, Bernard Mercier of Lépinay participated in placing seismometers at sea around the fault that caused it. But to draw up “good maps”, you need triangular signals, which means that sensors need to be placed both onshore and offshore. An international coalition deployed about fifteen seismic stations throughout the Haitian territory. “500,000 dollars were

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invested, and now, in 2019, only one of them still works,” regrets Bernard Mercier of Lépinay.

On site, people do not recognize the value of scientific tools. “They do not see how they can benefit from them. But who can blame them? I went back there three weeks ago, and it seems like the earthquake happened just a year ago,” the geologist commiserates.

This motivated him to get involved in a project at the frontier with sociology, funded by the Interrog program, the Géoazur laboratory and the Ecole Normale Supérieure of Ulm. “When people have a sufficiently high income to have ongoing electricity and WIFI, we equip them with small seismic stations,” he explains. Researchers are waiting to see if the devices will spark an interest for seismic measurements and change the way people feel about danger. Since everyone, even the underprivileged have cell phones nowadays, the geologist also decided to develop an application in Creole, similar to LastQuake.

The idea is to give people the opportunity to report what they felt when an earthquake occurred. Finally, in 2009, Bernard Mercier de Lépinay joined the “young research team” set up by the Research Institute for Development.

The RID supports young Haitian researchers trained in Europe and helps them once they are back in their country to pursue scientific work, participate in conferences, stay open to the outside world and publish in international journals. Without this help, researchers in Haiti, who are paid an average of $125 a month, all have to hold a second job. And most of them decide never to return...

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PROJECTS PROJECT MERMAIDS - from fairy tale to real world G. Nolet, Y. Hello, S. Bonnieux, M. Blaye-Fornarino and S. Mosser Geoazur, in close collaboration with OSEAN-SAS in Le Pradet and with financial assistance from the ERC, has developed a Lagrangian float for the monitoring of the oceanic environment. Originally developed for the detection, recording and transmission of seismograms, the instrument was baptised MERMAID (Mobile Earthquake Recording in Marine Areas by Independent Divers). The acoustic signals generated when a seismic wave enters the water column yield information about seismicity, as well as the mechanical properties of the mantle (seismic tomography), in oceanic areas. The current version is entirely autonomous and also measures temperature and salinity. It is powered by lithium-ion batteries with a lifetime of five years, drifts at a depth down to 2000m and comes to the surface to transmit data (typically 100kB) via satellite (Iridium).

The next version of the MERMAID will be able to host up to eight sensors and serve marine (bio)geochemists, meteorologists, oceanographers and biologists. A domain specific language is being developed in collaboration with I3S in Sophia Antipolis, which will enable scientists to programme multidisciplinary monitoring applications without violating limits inherent to the instrument, which includes power consumption and data transmission bandwidth and cost.

We expect that the next MERMAID will entice scientists from different communities to use one float to monitor variables as dissimilar as carbon, nutrients, rainfall rate, temperature and salinity, together with ship noise, whale sounds and seismic signals.

Such collaborations will lead to significant cost savings for ocean-going missions.

PROJECT Can a Raspberry Shake Seismic Network Complement a National Seismic Network ? A case study in Haiti (S2RHAI) Françoise Courboulex, Bernard Mercier de Lepinay (GeoAzur, CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur) Complex networks of high-technology sensors are challenging to operate and maintain in developing countries – but new low-cost, low-maintenance instruments may help. Because they are “connected objects” they also provide new opportunities to engage the civil society in citizen-science. Here we describe a seismological instrumentation experiment in Haiti with sensors that cost less than 500$ and can be installed at individuals, businesses, and schools. We seek to test how such instruments can (1) complement the national seismic network for regional earthquake monitoring, and (2) open a new communication gateway between seismologists and the civil society.

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PROJECT MUSE : Urban Health and Environmental Monitoring Remy Collomp The project’s goal is the establishment of a multimodal observation and monitoring system for air quality (smart monitoring), with various vulnerable populations (neighborhood, elderly, patients).

The actions focused on the collection and exploitation of air quality data via various sensors, health data called weak signals (genes, seizures, drug consumption), adapted means of communication and support. The first phase took place at the Quartier des Moulins in Nice, which has an extensive network of sensors. Then the project was extended to elderly people and patients for whom an adapted sports activity has been prescribed.

The operational goals were to: • Improve the characterization of air pollution exposures at a neighborhood or individual scale • Finalize the decision support and management for communities which could be duplicated to other territories • Identify the data needed excluding health and air quality • Collaboratively develop a monitoring of air quality (multimodal approach including a smartphone application).

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PROJECT NautIlus (Marine noise in the Ligurian Sea: From systematic signal analysis to the impact on marine species) Jerôme Lebrun (I3S), Audrey Galve (GéoAzur), Paolo Guidetti (Ecomers) Through a multidisciplinary collaboration between researchers in marine biology and ecology, geosciences and signal processing, this pilot project will provide essential information to i) assess the multilevel consequences of anthropogenic noise at sea, and ii) automatically analyze large datasets from the marine sciences and geosciences community.

The undersea environment has long been depicted as a silent world.

However, research carried out in the last decades has raised a growing awareness that sounds and noises are important components of the marine environment and its “soundscape” that consists of biotic (produced by animals like fish and mammals), abiotic (e.g. breaking waves, currents, ice breaking), and anthropogenic sounds (e.g. sonar, seismic prospecting, drilling, recreational and fishing vessels). Global industrialization and trading have dramatically raised the level of anthropogenic noises and impacted all marine animal species, either with little effect or sometimes immediate death.

Here, we will simultaneously deploy i) highly sensitive hydrophones used by acousticians to record both low-amplitude biogenic sounds (e.g., fish calls) and anthropogenic noise in the 10 kHz to 50 kHz band, and ii) earth sciences’ OBS/H (Ocean Bottom Seismometer and Hydrophones) to assess the potential impact of noise on marine organisms, from coastal waters to open sea in the Ligurian Sea. In selected coastal sites around Villefranche, the putative effects of marine noise will be evaluated on juvenile fish behavior, settlement rate, morphology, growth and other physiological variables and in the open sea, modifications in fin whale acoustic signaling will be investigated.

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CROSS - DISCIPLINARY THEME: ECONOMICS, MANAGEMENT, BUSINESS AND THE SDGs

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Facilitated by Edward Lorenz - GREDEG, CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur This workshop focused on the contribution of research programs in economics, management and business to the Sustainable Development Goals. The presentations focused on two themes: the «nudge» that encourages people to change their behavior without legal obligation or constraint, and the debate around Industry 4.0 and the impact of new technologies such as robotics and AI on employment and skills.

At the heart of Industry 4.0 lies a «smart factory» based on robotics and automation embedded in cyber-physical systems, where humans and machines communicate via the Internet of Things.

Industry 4.0 can help human workers by providing the information they need to make informed decisions and by carrying out expensive, difficult or dangerous tasks. These new technologies also offer promising possibilities that support the circular economy and increase energy efficiency.

Nevertheless, it was pointed out that the deployment of robots and other automation technologies has raised serious concerns about their possible negative effects on employment, as the possibilities keep multiplying for replacing tasks carried out by workers, with new automation technologies based on robotics and artificial intelligence. But there is little evidence to support this fear, once «compensating» effects have been taken into account. Also, paradoxically, data available on European companies do not show that the deployment of robots has an impact on the employment levels of companies adopting them.

As new technologies are introduced, the most pressing problem seems to be the need for new skills and standards. This puts a lot of pressure on the educational system to modify its programs and to interact more closely with companies when designing their educational programs.

Universities should no longer limit their role to providing initial education, but should play an active role in lifelong learning.

more impact if the expected results are clearly stated and shared.

Along the same lines, the MUFFINS project highlighted the effectiveness of nudges in reducing the energy consumption of companies.

Academy 5 of Université Côte d’Azur and the CMA of ParisTech MINES collaborated in this project that is designed to encourage, by means of non-monetary incentives, positive behaviors contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals. The project focused mainly on companies in the services sector, but its scope included waste management and soft mobility.

In the project Environmental Preservation and Renewable Energy Policies «at Borders», discussions centered on how to take environmental issues into consideration in international trade disputes. In other words, how to introduce a green industrial policy on a large scale. In this context, the rules of competition within the European Union and the World Trade Organization need to be taken into account. An environmental policy can only be effective if it goes hand-in-hand with strategic economic and commercial policies.

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ECONOMY, MANAGEMENT, BUSINESS

When considering climate change, we also need to anticipate its impact on industry, tourism, agriculture and all economic stakeholders. One of the major questions is whether new advanced technologies will provide opportunities to adopt «green» growth strategies that can contribute to the sustainability of the environment. Another issue to be considered is the quality of life in urban areas that keep spreading. What political and organizational measures can be introduced to anticipate these changes or to adapt? How can we deal with this type of change?

The economists found these discussions particularly stimulating, and felt that they highlighted many opportunities for cooperation.

«This multi-disciplinary approach is exciting,» said one of the participants.

The question of energy consumption was examined from the perspective of «nudges», in experiments such as TicElec or Smartlook, both conducted in the South Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur region. Particular attention was paid to the concept of energy waste and ways of reducing it, either by businesses or households. Using sociological and technical methods, different user panels were compared and areas of progress were defined. It appears that the «nudge» has UNIVERSITÉ CÔTE D’AZUR

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Nathalie LAZARIC Nathalie Lazaric’s career started in a context where few people would have expected to find an economist. She supervised the first dissertation in human sciences of the Compiègne University of Technology. “I was teaching in a prestigious engineering school and had to fight to prove to students that my subject was useful, because otherwise they would decide not to take my courses. I had to start everything from scratch,” she recalls. The ten years spent in Compiègne also gave her the opportunity to rub shoulders with fellow cognitologists, biologists, communication specialists or even philosophers such as Bernard Stiegler, who was behind the “Contributive Learning Territory” experiment in the Plaine Commune region, north of Paris. During this time, she started developing her research themes: technological innovation processes in robotics; how theories of individual learning can be transposed to the implementation of organizational routines; and what differentiates the way France and Germany approach innovation in robotics, in terms of organizational routines. She also collaborated with the Bureau of Theoretical and Applied Economics (BETA) of Strasbourg, where she became familiar with the different schools of thought in economics and discovered evolutionary economics, a central theme of her work. But a meeting, ten years ago, with the student who has since become her coauthor set her on the track of her future research.

“Kevin Maréchal asked me to supervise his dissertation. He wanted to apply the theory of evolutionary economics to the environmental problem. I suddenly realized that my theoretical framework could be used to deal with issues that were particularly important to me,” the director of research points out. Her expertise was useful to UNIVERSITÉ CÔTE D’AZUR

study transition mechanisms from the perspective of institutional and behavioral dynamics. She is interested in the way in which citizens form their habits, but also in the way different behaviors are ultimately connected to each other and how all this can create “cognitive lock-in”, in other words a resistance to change. Nathalie Lazaric is also working on the conditions that could undo these processes. For example, she is trying to identify “good opportunities” that a society can produce, and is also studying the weight of external influences. “The green neighborhood, for example, exceeds all variables in its capacity to produce eco-responsible behavior. Values are disseminated within networks.” the researcher explains. Through her work, she is trying to contribute empirical evidence in the fields of energy, transportation and agriculture. As part of the TicElec program, she analyzed how energy consumption behaviors are affected and habits are changed when people are better informed. These pioneering results allowed her to conduct a similar experience in Monaco with the Smartlook project and to participate in the European IRIS project focusing on smart cities. In addition to consumption habits, Nathalie Lazaric is interested in the management of waste from the perspective of a circular economy. With the Nice Institute of Chemistry, she developed the Calin project, this time within the framework of the UCAJEDI IDEX , to find ecological ways of recycling coffee grounds. Finally, since 2016, Nathalie Lazaric has been President of the European Association for Political Economy (EAEPE) where she defends the basic principles of pluralism in economics and the need to find new ways of understanding and applying economic policies in Europe.

Edward LORENZ A graduate of MIT, Berkeley and Cambridge, Edward Lorenz was first hired by the Compiègne University of Technology, before joining the GREDEG multidisciplinary laboratory, in 2014, to conduct research in economics. Specialized in comparative studies, he began his career by comparing two countries with a contrasting industrial history: England, which was the first nation to industrialize shipbuilding, and France, which followed England’s lead and took “secondplace”. Edward Lorenz went on to examine how trust develops, from the perspective of economics, and the role of knowledge in the mechanisms behind economic development or technological dissemination, between different companies, for instance. Later, “little by little, those who were interested in these topics started talking about new technologies and innovative systems,” he explains. But, until the 2000s, studies carried out in Europe on economic development did not address issues of sustainable development. It was not until the crisis of 2008 and the rise of emerging economies that the idea was born of a “smart” or “intelligent” future with respect to sustainability.

But these questions have a different resonance depending on where you live. “In France, we talk a lot about artificial intelligence and the automation of work, and their impact on the future of industrial production. I am very interested in Industry 4.0 issues and have included them in my current research. But in Africa the problems are different, because industrial infrastructure is in a different state and economies strongly depend on agricultural production,” the researcher explains. One of his first projects with researchers from South Africa,

Tanzania, Uganda and Mozambique focused on the capacity of these countries to develop skills and innovate. It demonstrated that SMEs and micro-enterprises, which represent the majority of companies in those countries, were capable of developing new products and integrating new technologies into their operations. “I presented a summary of this work to African policy makers, and they were very interested.

On a personal level, this experience showed me that I could get involved in research that had more than a purely theoretical impact,” says Edward Lorenz. Since then, he has also decided to share his knowledge with young people in developing countries. “I am trying to develop their ability to conduct research, by giving them the opportunity to take part in workshops, doctoral schools, and by assisting them in their dissertation work,” he points out. In his opinion, the Sustainable Development Goals encourage us to think about the meaning of sustainable and inclusive development in each context. “In Europe, it means what has an impact on the environment, on social cohesion, on inequalities in the access to education and to the “best jobs”. But in Africa, it first means finding ways to reduce extreme poverty, especially in rural and agricultural areas, and producing enough for the whole population to live on,” he insists.

Today, Edward Lorenz works on a regular basis on Industry 4.0 issues, with colleagues from the University of Johannesburg, “because it interests them too”. “One of the questions we are working on is whether new technologies can help us avoid reproducing some of the Western mistakes and contribute instead to a green industrialization,” he concludes.

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Economics, management, business and the SDGs

PROJECTS PROJECT Measuring nudges’ efficacy on energy consumption (MUFFINS) Christophe Charlier, GREDEG, CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur Two projects were presented. The first one consists in a field experiment on energy consumption within firms. The second one deals with considering environmental stakes of some international trade disputes.

The field experiment on energy consumption was the backbone of the project “Measuring nudges’ efficacy on energy consumption” (MUFFINS project) financed by the Academy 5 of Université Côte d’Azur. It aimed at evaluating non-monetary incentives on employees’ energy consumption using three different nudges (stickers, activation of a comparative social norm and communication of a social injunctive norm). The complementary of these three different treatments is evaluated too. Its main result was to show that the combination of an injunctive norm with the stickers treatment is particularly relevant. The methodology (applied economics) used can be applied on other topics such as selective sorting, or soft mobility choice. The sustainable development objectives concerned by this project are n°7, 12 and 13.

The second project is broader and mainly questions the possibility of green industrial policies having consequences for international trade. This question is addressed in light of the EU competition law that leaves room for green subsidies, as well as in light of the WTO international trade law, which is less permissive. The project deals with the interaction between environmental policies and strategic trade policies using theoretical models of imperfect international competition with an environmental externality. The sustainable development objectives concerned by this project are n°7, 9, 12 and 13.

PROJECT TICELEC Nathalie Lazaric, GREDEG, CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur Kendel A., Lazaric N., Maréchal K. (2017) What do people ‘learn by looking’ at direct feedback on their energy consumption? Results of a field study in Southern France, Energy Policy, 108, 593-605, TICELEC (i.e. French acronym for information technologies for responsible electricity consumption) project in Southern France consists of an experiment implemented in Biot with the aim of testing a feedback mechanism and assessing its impact in terms of energy savings.

The choice of this small and wealthy town is driven by its renowned dynamism with respect to environmental policies and the inclination of its inhabitants towards the adoption of new technologies. The project, which was launched on 1 April 2011 and closed on 24 May 2013. The experiment, which includes a control group (G1: the self-monitoring group) and an equipped group (Group 2), serves to explore how consumers are able to learn through providing some quantitative and qualitative insights as to how feedback is used by participants. All participants reduced their consumption and learnt either directly from feedback or indirectly through self-monitoring. The amount of energy savings, which is larger than in similar experiments, can be explained by two factors. First, the specificity of our sample (i.e. high income, high consumption) which allows for potentially large energy savings. Second, high involvement of participants and the building of trust. Additionally, we focus on peak-load shifting in G2 with 2 subgroups (G21 and G22). The higher proportion of shifters in G22 and the higher ‘quality’ of their shifting suggest a higher level of learning enabled by the more sophisticated feedback.

Although this translated into only a moderately higher rate of energy savings, the higher degree of absorbed knowledge (i.e. through ‘learning by looking through connecting’) might lead to a qualitatively distinctive type of energy saving . Our results suggest that the ability to shift is crucial for understanding the variability in the savings induced in an experiment focused on energy reduction. Beyond its focus on the learning process, our experiment collected unique empirical findings and provide the first quantitative measures of energy savings in France and the first scientific publication for this country. http://www.nathalie-lazaric.fr/prj_en.php?a=C 42

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, DATA SCIENCES AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

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Benoît MIRAMOND Professor Benoît Miramond holds a circuit board, just a few centimeters long, between his fingers. A small white ball seems to be grafted to the top of it. “It’s a motion sensor,” explains the researcher, who has been working at the Laboratory of Electronics, Antennas and Telecommunications (LEAT) since 2015. “Here, we design the smallest boards possible, capable of detecting a presence in the environment, for instance, and more generally to capture all kinds of signals, such as the temperature or the level of fine particles or ozone in the air,” he explains. One of the challenges of this work is then to find an optimized arrangement for an entire network of these wireless sensors. Because, “once we know how to interact with the environment, we can envision regulating a building, a tramway line or even an entire city,” announces Benoît Miramond. However, an infrastructure, robot or vehicle can only “react” to its environment if the captured information is processed by an IT “brain”, which is made of constantly evolving algorithms, and these are becoming increasingly complex and using up more and more energy. “Today, considerable computing resources are needed to make them run,” insists the researcher. “My scientific assignment is to try to find new embedded artificial intelligence algorithms that can be powered by a simple battery,” summarizes Benoît Miramond. The manager of the “neuromorphic engineering” team does not fit into a neat category: his activities developed at the LEAT are at the crossroads between electronics, computer science and neuroscience. He is also a member of the scientific committee of the Neuromod Neuroscience Institute of Université Côte d’Azur and leader of the Franco-Swiss SOMA project, which aims to transfer to artificial intelligence the properties of brain plasticity (the brain’s capacity to automatically reorder connections). “For us, a circuit represents a brain that can be embedded in a robot for example,

or a camera, which could be assimilated to a body,” says Benoît Miramond. This approach is based on the theory of embodied cognition (embodiment) according to which our sensory and motor experiences, for example, influence our way of thinking, in other words our cognitive architecture. “We consider that as soon as a computing system interacts with its environment, it becomes an active artificial entity,” explains the researcher. His team is working more particularly on glasses for the visually impaired. “We are developing a mechanism of sensory substitution. Sensors placed in the frame of these glasses send information to the brain using the nerves of the tongue as relays,” reveals Benoît Miramond. This will not restore patients’ sight, but will allow them to distinguish shapes and movements, and help them determine where they are in their environment. The researcher also co-directs a dissertation with the Mediterranean Institute of Risk, Environment and Sustainable Development (IMREDD).

“We are working on the use of wireless sensor networks associated with an artificial neural network. These are algorithms that process information, combined with an architecture inspired by the cerebral cortex. Our idea is to induce automatic responses that evolve on their own towards optimal and energy-efficient operations used in smart cities,” says Benoît Miramond. He invites us nevertheless to consider the societal transition caused by progress in AI “with much caution and anticipation”.

“Firstly, because the gains obtained by automation must be offset by the permanent energy consumption of the invisible machines in the cloud that support these algorithms,” the researcher points out. Secondly, “because the decision to replace human beings with AI in tasks that can be automated must be a collective choice, and must serve to improve the daily lives of everyone. It forces us to reinvent the relationship we will have with work in the future,” he concludes.

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Conclusion

CONCLUSION Research has an essential role in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, as highlighted by the discussions among researchers and by the projects presented during the workshop.

The question of how research contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals is related to the role of science in society.

The role of science is essential to apprehend the world complex phenomena.

Through the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals, science should propose the relevant analytic tools to apprehend complexity. For instance, research will be extremely useful to analyze the fast growing amount of urban data and inform decision making process in cities.

Science can act as an interface to foster a better understanding of the world great issues such as the transition to a low carbon economy and the preservation of biodiversity. Equally important is the concept of “science with impact” and the role of science in advancing innovative solutions to these great challenges.

In this context, we should think of the transformations of the research eco-systems needed to advance the Sustainable Development Goals.

In a fast transforming world, there is a need to develop more interdisciplinary research methods and interactions with other actors. Labs will require to increase their capacities to deal with large amount of data.

This will require more resources dedicated to research projects. However, researchers should be able to attract more funding while protecting their independence from public and private actors.

Thus if research has an essential role in the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals, the agenda 2030 will foster in return a deep transformation of the research eco-systems.

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