FORESITE: facilitating and conducting research excellence across the site

FORESITE reflects the desire to work together to stimulate excellence in research by capitalising on the specific characteristics of each institution and strengthening synergies between stakeholders. This will enable coordinated and shared initiatives to be trialled and developed across the site with a view to offering high value-added services to the scientific community and optimising available resources.  This approach is closely linked to the dynamics of the Bordeaux University Innovation Cluster (PUI) and, more broadly, to the structuring initiatives carried out at the site level (including InnovationS, DREAM, ACT, SUNSET, etc.).

The FORESITE dynamic is built around two shared strategic priorities:

1. Simplifying, promoting and optimising scientific management levers and research resources;
2. Promoting, supporting and encouraging high-risk and interdisciplinary research while strengthening links with European and international opportunities. 

Simplify, promote and optimise scientific management levers and research resources across the site

This aspect of the FORESITE initiative aims to facilitate the work of researchers at the site through experimentation and enhanced coordination between partners. The goal is to offer the site's scientific community high value-added services that simplify their work, free up their time and provide them with enhanced support. In a context of increasingly scarce resources, the aim is also to optimise what can be optimised (through pooling and/or coordination) in order to improve responsiveness and resource consumption. 

Coordinated management of research resources with a focus on certified platforms 

Launch of a forward-looking approach and multi-year planning of resources (HR and equipment) for certified platforms with site partners.

The objectives of this action are to:

• Map resources and identify/anticipate future vulnerabilities on certified platforms with a view to cross-referencing them with the site's scientific priorities in order to aid decision-making and define the priorities that we wish to support/maintain;
• Anticipate the preparation of the equipment section of the next CPER (Regional Public Investment Contract);
• Enable coordinated preparation of HR campaigns by supervisory bodies within the scope of certified platforms, based on the GPEEC approaches of partner institutions;
• Support and equip platforms in building their trajectory.

EUROPE service offer 

In line with the national strategy to improve French participation in European research and innovation funding schemes, each partner is implementing a European strategy at its own level.
In line with these strategies, the OSE approach aims to strengthen collaboration between the partners' European services around a coordinated service offering within the scope of European projects. This approach aims to strengthen the performance of the Bordeaux site in obtaining and managing European funding for research and training. It also aims to position the site as a centre of intensive research and excellence on the European and international stage. 

Bordeaux Research Data Workshop (ABDo)

Raising awareness and supporting the site's scientific community on research data is a shared priority. ABDo aims to bring together existing initiatives and proposals on the site, whether they have been identified for support functions or for research teams working on these issues.

Professionalisation of the purchasing prescription function

In conjunction with the purchasing strategies of each institution, this initiative aims to professionalise the procurement function by establishing shared purchasing advisors, the first link in the purchasing process, to support lecturers, researchers and academics in defining technical specifications. In this experimental phase, it was decided to focus on consumables and reagents, particularly in the fields of health, science and technology. 

Encourage, promote and support high-risk and inter/transdisciplinary research

A shared strategic priority for the University of Bordeaux and its partners, with initiatives already underway, interdisciplinarity is now essential in order to address the growing complexity of knowledge and the issues addressed by science.

Exploring new fields of research, responding to the complex questions of contemporary societies, providing solutions to the challenges of the future and supporting transitions require an interdisciplinary approach.