Today, at the ‘Biennale des territoires’ in Montrouge, Pascal Berteaud, CEO of the Cerema and Philippe Watteau, CEO of VEDECOM, signed an agreement acknowledging the Cerema’s integration as a member of VEDECOM, with the aim of developing large-scale initiatives in their respective areas of excellence.

The Cerema and VEDECOM have thus formalised their willingness to establish a long-term partnership in the field of electric, connected and autonomous vehicles and cooperative roads.

The goal is to contribute to the societal and technological qualification of electric, connected and autonomous vehicles, and also promote their deployment and use. Through this cooperation, the partners will develop new areas of shared interest as well as ambitious innovative projects. According to Philippe Watteau, “this partnership will enable us to complete our systemic vision of new mobilities, which includes vehicles, cooperative infrastructures and road network managers at the local level”. “These new mobilities will permanently shape the development of territories, which will require support by local authorities and an assessment of the medium- and long-term impacts” added Pascal Berteaud.

This partnership also ensures the continuity of the autonomous vehicle training programmes given jointly over the last 2 years by the Cerema and VEDECOM.

VEDECOM is an institute for energy transition (ITE) founded on unique cooperation between firms in the automotive and aviation sectors, mobility ecosystem infrastructure and service operators, academic research bodies and Ile-de-France local authorities. The role of VEDECOM is to forge closer ties between academia and industry. The institute helps them to achieve a high standard of innovation in the area of mobility and, in particular, in electric vehicles, autonomous and connected vehicles and shared energy and mobility infrastructure and services. VEDECOM is a part of the French government’s PIA future investment plan. Its founding members are Cetim, ESIGELEC, ESTACA, IFPEN, IFSTTAR, PSA Group, Renault Group, Safran, UVSQ and Valeo.

The Cerema is a French public establishment of an administrative nature created in 2014 on risks, environment, mobility and urban planning. In terms of mobility, in particular, it contributes to work on standardisation, testing of autonomous vehicles, qualification of road equipment and deployment of cooperative transport systems.

Read the press release