The Kick-off meeting of HiFunMat, celebrating its renewal for the next four years, was held at the Institut Charles Sadron on Monday, January 20.
The event began with an inspiring speech by Catherine Florentz, who highlighted HiFunMat as the "coup de cœur" of the jury among the 15 ITIs. She proudly noted that HiFunMat, was the only temporary ITI received the highest possible grade, "A+." This grade was shared with just two other ITIs, both of which are former LabEx initiatives. Catherine emphasized HiFunMat’s strong interdisciplinarity, the invaluable contributions of its technicians to the research consortium, their active involvement in student training, and the consortium’s remarkable scale—comprising 250 researchers across four campuses: Mulhouse, Esplanade, Cronenbourg, and Medicine.
Following her remarks, we were honored to welcome Rémi Barillon and Jean-François Brilhac, vice-presidents in charge of research and doctoral training at Unistra and UHA, respectively.
The morning session included a comprehensive review of HiFunMat's 2025 initiatives and perspectives. Fouzia Boulmedais, ITI coordinator, presented the research-focused plans, while Mehdi Vahdati, a member of the Graduate School committee, detailed the Graduate School’s objectives.
The afternoon featured engaging scientific presentations from laureates of previous project calls. The presenters and their projects included:
- Catherine Galindo | IPHC | ProBIOTIon | Seed Money 2021
- Madeline Vauthier | ICS | NanoHeatCAPs | Seed Money 2021
- Laure Biniek | ICS | COMPOMOF | Seed Money 2022
- Igor Kulic | ICS | DREAM | Seed Money 2022
- Carlotta Figliola | ICPEES | SMARTY | Starting Grant 2021
- Tristan Asset | ICPEES | ANIMALS | Starting Grant 2022
- Aurélie Hourlier Fargette | ICS | FoamFibMat & PhyStraFoam | Starting Grant 2021 & RIC 2023
- Béatrice Heurtault & Stéphane Bellemain Laponnaz | LCAMB & IPCMS | Hydro NHC | PhD 2021
- Arnaud Spangenberg | IS2M | PHOTOCAT | PhD 2021
For a complete list of funded projects, please visit: Discover all our research projects.
The meeting concluded with heartfelt acknowledgments to all members, including administrative and management support teams, and ended on a high note with a convivial cocktail.
