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Design Engineering Research Group

logo_DE​

Our research aims at assisting complex system design and engineering activities, combining the product/service, process and organizational dimensions.
The main topics are about diagnosing, modeling, analyzing, simulating and optimizing complex systems through three research axes.

Who are we?

Our research group comprises (December 2024) 34 members of 9 different nationalities:

  • 6 full professors
  • 1 associate professor
  • 4 assistant professors
  • 2 senior researchers
  • 1 post-doc
  • 20 PhD students

Visit our members webpage.

Team_DE_2024

Our three research axes

Design of complex socio-technical systems
The objective is to develop decision-support methods and tools for the design of products/services/systems, organizations, projects and systems of systems.

The main research themes are :

  • Product-project design
  • Human-systems integration (HSI)
  • Decision support for architecture design
  • Configuration and validation of socio-technical systems
    • Including developments for the health sector
  • Knowledge management
  • Industry of the future (also one of LGI's cross-disciplinary themes)
Flagship projects
  • Industrial chair Managing Procurement Risks in Complex Projects with TotalEnergies (2012-2023)
  • Erasmus + Neprev: Towards the next production revolution with Africa (2019-2022)

Neprev

FlexTech

Design of sustainable systems
The objective is to develop methods and tools to model, measure and optimize the sustainable performance of complex systems.

The main research themes are :

  • Circular Economy, including:
    • Eco-design of complex systems
    • Eco-innovation
    • Developments of circular economy for the health sector
  • Sustainable mobility
Flagship projects

 

Anthropolis​

EUSL

CircularIT

  • ANR project GreenLocal3D: global approach for the recycling in short circuit of used plastic by additive manufacturing (2023-2026)
  • MALIC (Marie-Lannelongue Innovation Center) SESAME Filière France 2030 project: eco-design of medical devices
Innovation engineering
The objective is to develop structured innovation methods and tools that create value for beneficiaries and anticipate future environmental and social impacts.

The main research themes are :

  • Usage-driven innovation
  • Reconciling innovation engineering approaches with industrial design approaches
Flagship project

RID​

Design Engineering for Sustainability

Our research activities actively contribute to several Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.

Among the 68 journal papers published from 2018 to 2023, 44 are positively contributing to sustainability, as well as several research projects and scientific advances, among which:

  • Good health and well-being (SDG#3): collaboration with AP-HP (Paris hospitals), Marie Lannelongue Hospital, CHU de Rennes and GE Healthcare about health data management and circular economy; attachment of Tu-Anh Duong (PUPH - University Professor and Hospital Practitioner) to the team; consideration of the social dimension in projects (notably the Anthropolis Chair) and integration of social LCA skills (recruitment of Ghada Bouillass as an assistant professor).
  • Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure (SDG#9): work in circular economy (CircularIT alliance and other projects), eco-design, traceability and end-of-life of equipment (CircularIT alliance and other projects); work in usage-driven innovation (RID methodology); work in future mobility (Anthropolis Chair).
  • Sustainable cities and communities (SDG#11): work on sustainable mobility in Île-de-France region and Cairo (Anthropolis Chair).
  • Responsible consumption & production (SDG#12): work in circular economy and eco-design (research axis Design of Sustainable Systems).
  • Climate action (SDG#13): work in circular economy and eco-design (research axis Design of Sustainable Systems); decision-making integration (Chair in “Managing procurement risks in complex projects”).
  • Partnerships for the goals (SDG#17): two recent European Erasmus + projects on the development of educational programs for developing countries (Sri Lanka and Africa) on the circular economy (project EUSL-Energy) and the industry of the future (project NEPREV).
SDGs_DE_2024
We have contributed to 6 Sustainable Development Goals in the past years

Our PhD theses

We currently supervise 20 doctoral theses, in close collaboration with numerous industrial and institutional partners. Most of these theses are co-supervised with colleagues from other LGI teams, or from other French or international universities.

Visit our past PhD theses webpage.

PhDs_DE_December2024
Word_Cloud_DE
Word cloud generated with the title of our scientific publications from 2018 to 2023

Our research partners

We collaborate with a wide range of partners in industry (large corporations, SMEs, consultancies, hospitals, NGOs...), institutions and academia.

IndustrialPartners_2024
Our industrial partners in 2024
AcademicPartners_DE_2024
Our academic partners in 2024

Our teaching activities

We are actively involved in teaching activities in the engineering curriculum at CentraleSupélec, one of France's top engineering schools, and more generally at Université Paris-Saclay. Our teaching activities deal with engineering design, circular economy (including eco-design, eco-innovation, industrial ecology, Life-Cycle Assessment), systems engineering, project management and innovation management.

Discover an overview of our teaching activities (in French).

Master's degree in Complex Systems Engineering, specialization in Design & System Sciences

We are particularly involved in the Master's degree in Complex Systems Engineering from Université Paris-Saclay. We manage the specialization in Design & System Sciences (8 students per year). Students are integrated into our research group and write a Master's thesis in line with the team's themes.

Contact us!