Major facilities, laboratories, experienced scientific teams and excellence in research place Caen Normandie at the forefront of scientific expertise in a number of fields: health, food safety, nuclear physics, energy, materials, digital technologies, humanities and social science, etc. A total of xx research laboratories are within reach.
Among the scientific facilities established in Caen, the most remarkable is undoubtedly the GANIL national heavy ion accelerator and its recent extension, Spiral2, one of the five leading laboratories in the world enabling exotic nuclei to be synthesized (for they do not exist in their natural state on Earth) and studied. Every year, the facility hosts 700 researchers from 30 different countries and 65 laboratories; they come to participate in experiments and to attend colloquiums and seminars. Knowledge on the properties of these new nuclei has led to major and applicable technological advances including, for example, materials and healthcare.
The Archade centre will be the 1st European Hadrontherapy centre. This innovative radiotherapy technique enables cancer cells to be killed without impacting healthy tissue. As from 2018, the medical teams at the François Baclesse Comprehensive Cancer Centre will be able to offer protontherapy to certain patients. Concurrently, the Archade research centre will continue study and developments towards the creation of a carbon ion accelerator.
Cyceron is an IBISA (Infrastructures in Biology, Health and Agronomy) platform for in vivo imaging hosting, within 6,000m2 of premises, a unique set of laboratories and facilities accessible to the entire scientific community. Since 1985, biomedical research in the field of medical imaging and the neurosciences has been conducted here.
The equipment available at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Virtual Reality (CIREVE) positions Caen University among the best equipped in France for exploiting virtual reality in all research fields. Its technical platform includes an amphitheatre equipped for stereoscopic projection and an immersive room which enables work to be conducted in a closed environment, whilst recording parameters pertaining to the subject immersed within the virtual environment. In particular, the centre hosts work on the human memory, road safety, mobility disorders, etc.
Relying on expertise from its associated research laboratories (CIMAP, CRISMAT, LCMT, LCS, LOMC), the CNRT (National Technological Research Centre) on Materials develops partnership research operations in the field of materials and chemistry in response to industrial, economic and societal issues in fields such as transport (automobile, aerospace, nautical), electronics, energy, construction, health, agrifood, cosmetics, mechanical engineering and the environment.