Inria - Activity report 2018

Summary
Strategy 03
Editorial - Bruno Sportisse
Inria’s CEO 03
8 Research Centres in France 04
Key Figures 04
Increasing the impact on society and the economy 05
Support functions, the backbone of the Institute 06
Committed to the success of public policies 07
Research 08
Editorial - Jean-Frédéric Gerbeau
Deputy CEO for Science 08
Inria Project Labs 09
2018 Awards 10
HACL*, a cryptolibrary proving its worth 13
Innovation 14
Editorial - François Cuny
Deputy CEO for Innovation 14
Dilepix and OneAngstrom, two Inria start-ups 15
The scikit-learn initiative, a reference software
library for machine learning 16
A joint laboratory with Nokia Bell Labs 17
Inria’s commitment 18
Financial report 20

EDITORIAL
03
2018 marked the start of a new cycle for the Institute. Playing
a unique role in digital research and innovation ecosystems,
Inria has reasserted its goals of achieving scientific excel-
lence and increasing its economic impact, while striking
a balance between reinforcing its regional presence and
enhancing its international standing.
These goals are being achieved in many different ways: from
our internationally recognised research and the vitality of
our entrepreneurial ecosystem, to the impact of the centres
created ten years ago in Bordeaux, Saclay and Lille, and Inria’s
role in developing an open web via the European node of the
W3C.
Remaining true to our motto: “scientific excellence and trans-
fer”, we have begun to define a new institutional policy. Digital
technology is “engulfing” the world, disrupting everything in
its path and making it more necessary than ever for research
institutes such as Inria to embark on a new era.
For research and innovation are changing quickly and radically:
interdisciplinarity and the hybridisation of competencies, the
ability to become a key player in open ecosystems and rapid
experimentation with new and therefore risky methods and
procedures, are major challenges. To meet them, Inria must
rethink its positioning, its choices and how it operates. We are
well equipped to do so, because digital technology is, of course,
embedded in the Institute’s DNA, but we must not underesti-
mate the challenges posed by the speed of the developments,
which we were so impatient to see! For example, other centres
of high-level expertise in digital technology are emerging
or growing stronger: universities, major private groups and
start-ups.
In this context, our institutional policy has reasserted Inria’s
key responsibility as the national institute for research in the
digital sector, by setting ambitious goals: increasing the mo-
mentum of digital research and innovation in order to raise
France’s profile while boosting its scientific and economic
attractiveness, supporting the digital transformation of
society, and using digital technology to improve the
research, higher education and innovation ecosystems.
The State has therefore asked Inria to coordinate the research
component of the National Artificial Intelligence Plan – a role
that needs to be defined, for everyone’s benefit.
This responsibility also requires choices to be made in order to
encourage the emergence of ambitious entrepreneurial pro-
jects. In research, we need to adopt a positioning based on a
long-term perspective and on embracing risk, while prioriti-
sing key issues such as cybersecurity, responsible AI, or health
and energy applications. In innovation, our challenge is to
scale up our activities, using procedures that favour technolo-
gical entrepreneurship, to develop our economic fabric. For all
that, the choices made must not cast our priorities in stone. As
the Institute’s track record shows, Inria must remain an agile
organisation.
These choices will guide our actions for the years to come.
Bruno Sportisse
Inria’s CEO
We are responsible for developing
an ambitious and dynamic approach
to research and innovation in the
digital technology sector,
in France and throughout Europe
”
”

04
8 Research
Centres
in France
8 Research
Centres
in France
8 Research
Centres
in France
Inria Research Centres
Local sites
54ERC
4300papers
2500Inria's employees
1350PhD researchers
180project teams
92associate teams with
foreign universities
and research bodies
236million euros
budget, 26% of which
is self-funded
160start-ups founded
More than
Paris
Saclay
Île-De-France
Rennes
Bretagne
Atlantique
Bordeaux
Sud-Ouest
Grenoble
Rhône-Alpes
Sophia Antipolis
Méditerranée
Nancy
Grand Est
Lille
Nord Europe
Centre de recherche Inria
Antenne
Strasbourg
Pau
Lannion
Nantes
Montpellier
Lyon

05
Increasing the impact
on society and the economy
Inria is developing its new institutional policy in response to a major challenge
over the coming years: increasing the impact of digital research and innovation
on society and the French economy.
This impact is a central
concern in the
development of the
Institute’s new Objectives
and Performance Contract.
Firstly, the Institute needs to produce
scientific results that will make a major
contribution to furthering knowledge,
and perhaps, to invent new disciplines
in which digital technology will play a
formative role.
We also need to optimise the econo-
mic impact of our research, especially
by creating and supporting a large
number of technological start-ups
created by our project teams or
working in partnership with them:
job-creating start-ups which will then
become “true” companies, or which
will be acquired by existing companies
based in our regions, and from which
internationally important players may
emerge.
This requires us to contribute to the
revitalisation and sustainability
of a French and European industrial
base in the digital sector, create a
technological infrastructure for
innovative firms, and support the
digital ambitions of our regions.
And lastly, because our society has
become a digital society, it is incumbent
upon the Institute to meet the
challenges of digital transformation
by improving the dissemination of
scientific knowledge, by shedding light
on all the issues – including ethical
concerns – raised by digital
transformation, and by contributing
to the creation of a digital society built
on innovation and trust by participating
in the implementation of national
public policies.
4 major priorities to ensure success
The following priority actions have been defined to
accomplish these aims
Maintaining the pursuit of scientific excellence,
in our core digital activities but also in our interdisciplinary
undertakings. This excellence is the bedrock on which Inria, as a
research institute, is built;
Increasing the economic impact of the Institute;
Creating an efficient and smooth-running
organisational structure;
Enhancing Inria’s contribution
to the emergence of major, world-class research universities
and consolidating its value added for the French research and
innovation ecosystem, in support of public policies.

06
Support functions,
the backbone of the Institute
All of the staff working in support of Inria’s project teams are essential to the success of our
ambitious and dynamic approach to research and innovation. They are at the heart of Inria’s
organisational structure and are also responsible for the Institute’s performance.
Promoting the emergence of
ambitious scientific projects and
providing support for entrepreneurial
projects both require the services
of Inria’s highly competent support
teams working to promote the
Institute’s ambitions. One of the keys
to Inria’s positioning resides in its
ability to establish itself as a hotbed
of scientific and technological vitality,
as an innovation driver, and as a
public infrastructure that is central to
the French digital ecosystem and at its
service.
Via the project teams, upon which
Inria’s organisational model is based,
the researchers must be able to attain
their goals with the support of an
agile framework built on academic
excellence, in a context that promotes
interdisciplinarity and integration into
local ecosystems with international
ambitions. Researchers, engineers
and PhD researchers must also be
able to participate in start-up projects
under the best possible conditions,
which is the ideal way to go beyond
the confines of scientific activity. The
entrepreneurs in our regions must
be able to access technologies and
competencies. Companies based
in France and Europe must be able
to develop ambitious research
partnerships.
These are central concerns of the
support teams’ missions, which
provide support for the technological
development of project teams and
industrial partnerships, but also for the
creation and accelerated development
of technological start-ups in the
digital sector. They also support Inria’s
activities in the European Research
and Innovation Area. The support
teams also play an active role in the
digital transformation of the Institute
itself, whose positioning requires the
adoption of an exemplary approach.
They guarantee the performance
of two key functions: support for
human resources and financial & asset
management. Lastly, by implementing
a communication policy that also
promotes our public research partners,
our support teams are contributing
to the creation of the Inria brand and
enhancing the profile of France and
our regions.
Support functions are carried out
by administrative, technical and
communications teams based in
different departments, at Head Office
and in the eight centres.
2018 was a transitional year for Inria,
with the priority given to reflecting
upon the changes impacting
professional functions, promoting
the importance of support services
as the backbone of the Institute and
the need to improve the fluidity of
daily activities between the centres
and the support departments. All
these issues point towards the need to
collaboratively develop a framework
to facilitate risk-taking and enable the
Institute to act quickly and collectively
to achieve world-class performance.
SonarQube, promoting collective performance
SonarQube won the Inria 2018 Research Support Prize. This innovative
Open Source platform has been developed by engineers at the Lille,
Rennes and Bordeaux centres. This software has been used at Inria
since 2018 in order to test and measure the quality of the source code
for IT projects. It is a benchmark solution on the market for continuous
quality control.
“

07
Committed to the success
of public policies
Inria is a key player in the development of successful public policies for the
rational development of digital technology in society. As such, the Institute is
supporting highly significant policies, on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity
and open science, for example.
Promoting responsible
AI based on trust
According to the “AI for Humanity”
strategy, informed by a report by
the Member of Parliament Cédric
Villani, research and innovation
must spearhead the development
of AI. Inria has been appointed to
coordinate a national programme
which includes the establishment of
the “3IA” network of Interdisciplinary
Institutes for Artificial Intelligence
based at academic institutions. Inria is
also participating in three of the four
projects selected following the 3IA call
for expressions of interest.
At the same time, Inria is actively
involved in several French and
European programmes.
The Institute is also running TransAlgo,
a research and mediation platform
dedicated to responsible and ethical
algorithms and to responsible AI.
Guaranteeing the security
of cyberspace
France possesses a first-rate
cybersecurity ecosystem with
public players such as the National
Cybersecurity Agency of France
(ANSSI), the Government Arms Agency
(DGA), several industrial groups, highly
innovative technological start-ups and,
of course, public research.
Around thirty Inria teams specialising
in this ecosystem are rising to the
scientific and technological challenges
of cybersecurity. A new Inria White
Paper has just been published, in
which the Institute, as a recognised
scientific authority in this field, takes
stock of the key issues and research
activities carried out in these areas.
Reinforcing France’s role
in open science
The National Plan for Open Science,
announced by the Minister of Higher
Education, Research and Innovation,
Frédérique Vidal, in July 2018, makes
open access a mandatory requirement
for publications and data derived from
publicly funded research on projects.
In numerous projects, Inria has
confirmed its commitment to open
and reproducible science, including
the key issues posed by software and
scientific data.
The President of the French
Republic set an ambitious
target in March 2018:
to make France a world-leader
in artificial intelligence, by
striking the right balance of
performance and humanity.
”

08
Jean-Frédéric Gerbeau
Deputy CEO for Science
2018 was the first year of our new Scientific Strategic Plan.
Among the five major challenges it contains, particular
attention was paid to artificial intelligence (AI) and cyberse-
curity. In each of these strategic fields, a new post of Deputy
Scientific Director will enable broader mobilisation within
Inria. 2018 was also the fifth anniversary of Inria’s involve-
ment in MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), an activity
aimed at a wide audience.
Artificial Intelligence
With the launch of the National Plan, Inria is developing a
new role: coordinating the research component of a public
policy. Our participation in three of the four preselected
proposals for the Interdisciplinary Institute of Artificial Intel-
ligence (3IA) reflects Inria’s national importance.
Inria is also prominently positioned on the global AI map.
After 10 years of R&D, the launch of the “scikit-learn” consor-
tium has brought together seven international industrial
sponsors in a project to develop the second most down-
loaded machine-learning library in the world.
In another significant milestone, Inria is ranked 12th of 58
academic institutions and industrial establishments in terms
of the number of articles accepted for ICML 2018 – one
of the most prestigious IA conferences, and 7th among
the academic institutions, rubbing shoulders with Oxford,
Princeton, EPFL, ETHZ and Cornell. At NIPS – another major
conference held in 2017 – Inria was ranked 14th out of 57,
tied with Harvard.
In 2019, five project teams will be combining their expertise
in an effort to move towards a human-centric form of AI,
in the “HyAIAI” national incentive project. Their challenge
is to enable the “interpretability” of machine learning, by
combining approaches based on symbolic and numerical AI.
Cybersecurity
In cybersecurity, one of Inria’s strengths is the complemen-
tarity of our teams specialising in systems, networks, cryp-
tography and program proofs, as set out in the Inria White
Paper published at the start of 2019. Several of these teams
have joined forces in two national incentive projects, SPAI
and RIOT-FP. SPAI is seeking to guarantee the inviolability
of security properties for the Internet of Things by using the
Coq proof assistant to certify programs written in a multile-
vel language. RIOT-FP is developing cryptographic primitives
and verified communication protocols for the RIOT Opera-
ting System dedicated to the Internet of Things.
E-education
Inria regularly places its expertise at the service of society as
a whole. In 2013, Inria helped to establish France Université
Numérique, the French national platform dedicated to the
useofmassiveopenonlinecourses,whichnowhasmorethan
50 partners and one million subscriptions to its MOOCs. Inria
Learning Lab has produced 19 MOOCs which have attracted
160,000 subscriptions. From the learning of programming
and the protection of privacy to reproducible research and
the training of trainers, Inria’s MOOCs propose scientific
innovations for the training of scientists and citizens.
EDITORIAL

09
Algae in Silico:
the potential of microalgae
Micro-algae can produce an
extraordinary variety of molecules
with a lower environmental impact
than other energy sources. They are
used in the energy, chemistry and
nutrition sectors and are a rapidly
developing source of innovation.
Several project teams at Inria are
conducting projects based on these
organisms. Biocore (Sophia Antipolis)
is developing tools to optimise the
production of biofuels by microalgae
and protein-rich formulas for animal
feed or wastewater treatment. It forms
part of the Algae in Silico Inria Project
Lab (IPL) with other teams providing
complementary expertise: Ange (Paris)
for modelling the hydrodynamics
of the microalgae growth medium,
Coffee (Sophia Antipolis) on modelling
microalgae biofilms, Pleiades
(Bordeaux) on lipid production by
micro-organisms, and Dyliss (Rennes)
on the metabolism of microalgae.
Algae in Silico is also a partnership
with Université Pierre et Marie Curie,
the French National Institute for
Agricultural Research (INRA) and the
French Research Institute for the
Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER). The
research priorities of this IPL include
the development of a digital platform
to assess the performance of micro-
algae species given the growth process
envisioned and the prevailing climate.
Its goal is to save time and calibrate
investments more accurately before
establishing microalgae cultures, while
also optimising production.
In 2018, Algae in Silico fostered a start-
up – Inalve – which exploits some of
the patents derived from the IPL.
Fratres:
controlled nuclear fusion
At a time when 80% of the world’s
energy is produced by fossil
resource-based processes, finding
new alternative energy sources is
becoming one of the major challenges
for the coming years. Controlled
nuclear fusion could be one of
these alternatives, particularly via
tokamaks: experimental machines
which exploit the energy released by
fusion. One of the main difficulties
concerning the construction of these
machines is that several different
approaches from theoretical and
numerical physics are used to describe
them, all based on equations that
are very hard to solve numerically
as they include numerous spatio-
temporal scales. Several Inria teams
are developing mathematical and
numerical tools that will help to solve
these problems. Different areas of
expertise are concerned: physical and
mathematical modelling, algorithmics
and software development, and the
implementation of high-performance
simulation codes (HPC). The Fratres IPL
organises the collaborations between
these different scientific expertises. It
brings together the Castor, Mingus and
Tonus project teams, in partnership
with IRFM-CEA Cadarache, Max Planck
Institute-IPP Garching, LJLL-Jussieu
and IMT-Toulouse.
Fratres operates in association with
national and European initiatives on
nuclear fusion.
For example, the numeric code
developed by the Castor team
provided the key to finding the correct
structural parameters for the ignition
of the WEST tokamak (formerly Tore
Supra) on the CEA Cadarache site. It is
also contributing to the ITER fusion
reactor project and two members
of the IPL are among the group of
scientists known as “ITER scientist
fellows”.
Inria Project Labs:
mobilising complementary teams to
meet multidisciplinary and inclusive challenges
Inria Project Labs (IPL) work on research topics that are too extensive for a single team and
require additional complementary expertise. Such topics are generally consistent with the
Institute’s strategic plan and bring together researchers from different project teams, as well
as external academic or industrial partners.

10
eorge Drettakis, senior researcher at the Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée research
centre and head of the Grapdeco project-team works in Computer Graphics, which is the
technology used to create images for special effects in films, realistic video games, but also
for the simulation of architectural and urban planning projects and product design,
and the many recent applications of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality. The field has
seen rapid growth recently, with new applications constantly appearing.
t the Inria Sophia Antipolis research centre, she is
working to improve the care of cancer patients by
combining artificial intelligence and medical imaging.
Fanny Orlhac’s objective is to extract diagnostic and
prognostic indicators from the images and combine
them with other biological indicators (genomics,
metabolomics,...) to accurately characterize tumor
heterogeneity. This would allow early identification of
patients who do not respond to standard treatment based
on imaging and biological data available before treatment
is implemented. This information would be provided to the
practitioner so that he or she could consider alternative
therapeutic approaches at the time of diagnosis.
t the Inria Lille - Nord Europe research centre,
Stéphanie Chalita develops research work on the
field of cloud computing and in particular on the issue of
heterogeneity of resources offered by Amazon, Google, OVH
and many others. Its approach aims to unify all providers in
order to mask the specificities of each of them, eliminate
their dependency, ensure the migration of applications
hosted on the cloud to other providers to protect them
from potential failures or optimize costs and performance
by combining the most advantageous offers from several
providers.
A
A
G
Stéphanie Chalita
L'Oréal-UNESCO Award
Fanny Orlhac
L'Oréal-UNESCO Award
George Drettakis
ERC Advanced Grant
Awards
2018

11
T
F
François Baccelli
ERC Advanced Grant
Xavier Pennec
ERC Advanced Grant
he Extreme-scale Mathematically-based Computational Chemistry (EMC2)
multidisciplinary project led by Eric Cancès, Laura Grigori, Yvon Maday and Jean-Philip
Piquemal is at the interface of chemistry, computer science, and mathematics. Molecular
simulation can be used as a virtual microscope to study more or less complex molecules
with atomic-scale space-time resolution. It can also be used as a tool for computer-aided
design (CAD) and engineering of new molecules, materials and nano-devices.
Xavier Pennec, senior researcher at the Sophia
Antipolis - Méditerranée research centre in the
Epione team, works on shape analysis, and in the
variability of human organs in particular, a field called
computational anatomy . The mathematical problems
that these morphological statistics raise are particularly
interesting because one cannot add or subtract shapes.
His project will try to reinvent statistical methods
to work in these non-linear spaces. The potential
applications in medicine are numerous because shape
statistics enables the encoding of a priori knowledge on
normal or abnormal anatomy.
Laura Grigori
ERC Synergy Grant
rançois Baccelli’s project lies at the interface between
mathematics and communications engineering. It
focuses on stochastic geometry, a branch of probability
theory, which looks at the probability distribution of
geometric objects and wants to develop dynamical
stochastic geometry tools in order to understand the
dynamics of these objects. The tools that he developed
are already widely used in the design of cellular networks.
The dynamical version of these tools will make it possible
to address major questions on these networks, but also
to analyse other types of large networks, such as social
networks or neural networks.

téphane Cotin, as senior researcher with his MIMESIS project
team, leads a high-level international research activity
on digital medical simulation in the fields of surgical gesture
training but also intraoperative assistance via augmented reality
techniques. In February 2013, he and several fellow researchers,
InSimo, created a start-up using SOFA, an open source interactive
simulation software framework that he initiated. InSimo is a
creator of surgical simulation applications on virtual organs with
high fidelity behavior. Stéphane Cotin is particularly involved in
clinical innovation.
S
Pierre-Yves Oudeyer
The Inria - French Académie des sciences Young Researcher Award
12
world leader in the sciences of programming languages and program verification and a
professor at the Collège de France on the permanent chair of Software Science, Xavier Leroy
is particularly renowned for his theoretical contributions on typing and semantics and the role
they can have in computer security. Two ambitious projects characterize its expertise: the OCaml
programming language (one of the two most commonly used functional languages today) and the
CompCert compiler, an essential component in the security chain for critical software. Xavier Leroy’s
contributions, both theoretical and practical, represent a considerable step forward in the
field of safe programming of modern systems.
A
ierre-Yves Oudeyer, senior researcher
at Inria, is one of the pioneers of
“artificial curiosity”, an approach to artificial
intelligence through intrinsically motivated
autonomous learning. For several years
now, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer and his FLOWERS
project team have been working in this field
of activity, which aims to combine artificial
intelligence and intrinsic motivation to
develop educational technologies in the
service of human learning. This research
is of particular interest to the world of
education and a project with a consortium
of companies for large-scale experiments is
being set up.
P
Xavier Leroy
Inria-French Académie des sciences Grand Prize
Stéphane Cotin
The Inria - French Académie des sciences
Dassault Systèmes Innovation Award

13
HACL*, a cryptolibrary
proving its worth
A cryptographic library that is
fast and formally verified, thereby
guaranteeing that it is correct, secure
and without covert channels… Those
were the terms of reference of the
Prosecco project team (Inria Paris)
when the HACL* (standing for High
Assurance Crypto-Library) project was
launched.
This was in 2015, a few months after
Edward Snowden’s revelations, and
in the wake of an international
cryptography conference at which a
call had been made for more research
work on formal verification.
The challenge: find a way of
overcoming the numerous security
flaws in the OpenSSL library in spite
of its being the one most scrutinised
by the entire “crypto” community.
The project was part of a partnership
between Inria and Microsoft Research
that started in 2005, and more
particularly the Everest project, whose
aim was to reinforce transaction
security on the Internet by proposing
a powerful and mathematically
verified implementation of the
HTTPS ecosystem. These efforts led
to the creation of a high-assurance
cryptographic library, written in the
F* programming language and proof
assistant and compiled into C using
the KreMLin compilers and Compcert,
a formally verified C compiler that
came out of the work of the Gallium
project team (Inria Paris). The
resulting code is also as fast as a
library written in C from the start, like
OpenSSL.
Two years after the beginning of the
project, the library made its debut at
several major conferences: ICFP, IEEE
Symposium on Security and Privacy,
Initiated in January 2015,
developing HACL* took
two years of intense work,
led by Karthik Bhargavan,
head of Prosecco, and his PhD
researcher at the time,
Jean-Karim Zinzindohoué.
New developments are
expected in the coming
months, with a version
including new parallel
algorithms for optimum
performance and work on the
verification of more advanced
cryptographic constructions,
such as those based on
postquantum cryptography.
Created by the Prosecco project team (Inria Paris) as part of the Everest project
conducted in collaboration with Microsoft Research, the HACL* cryptolibrary offers
a high-assurance solution to improve transaction security on the Internet.
ACM CCS. Far from being confined
to the role of a tool dedicated to
fundamental research, HACL* has
always found its way into large-scale
applications. Indeed, since September
2017, the library has been successfully
implemented in the Mozilla Firefox
browser, in the WireGuard VPN –soon
be implemented in the Linux kernel –
as well as in the Tezos blockchain.

François Cuny
Deputy CEO for Innovation
14
Supporting start-up projects
In 2018, Inria’s research centres continued to provide
regular support for start-up projects. Participants in the
second round of the Digital Startup programme, which
focuses on the marketing, business and financial aspects
of start-up projects, benefitted from new coaches and
mentors. Inria also continued the Horizon Startup pro-
gramme, which has raised the awareness of over two
hundred scientists about the creation of start-ups and
helped to promote an entrepreneurial culture within
the Institute.
Six start-ups were created in 2018: Dilepix, UT4H, Nurea,
Denimbo, Neurinnov and OneAngstrom. These successes
were accompanied by two excellent fundraising operations
for Therapixel and Mensia Technologies and an Emmy Award
in the Technology & Engineering category for Golaem.
At the beginning of 2018, Inria opened a branch at French
Tech Central, at the heart of Station F, with the aim of
developing relationships between public research and start-
ups. A number of master classes were organised, giving
fledgling entrepreneurs an opportunity to discover the
technologies being developed at Inria.
Software consortia
The InriaSoft initiative continues to pursue its goals of en-
suring the sustainability and promoting the commercial
development of key scientific software developed by Inria
project teams. By the end of 2018, some ten InriaSoft en-
gineers were supporting nine software programs and the
associated consortia from a variety of fields ranging from
artificial intelligence, programming languages and software
security, to bio-informatics and medical imaging.
Strategic partnerships
In 2018, a framework agreement was signed with Google
and an OpenLab focusing on artificial intelligence was
launched with PSA. Our long-standing collaboration with
ANDRA (the French National Radioactive Waste Manage-
ment Agency) on the modelling of underground radioactive
waste storage facilities was renewed, as were partnerships
with Microsoft and Nokia, reflecting the researchers’ com-
mitment to projects developed with industrial partners
and management’s strong involvement in maintaining
these collaborations.
Throughout 2018,
Inria maintained its commitment
to technological development,
strategic partnerships, the creation
of start-ups and the development
of Open Source consortia.
EDITORIAL
”
”

15
Dilepix - making life easier
for farmers
Dilepix offer an online image analysis
service used to automate the process
of monitoring agricultural holdings.
Behind this project: Aurélien Yol,
engineer and researcher within the
Lagadic project team (Inria Rennes),
specialising in robotic vision.
“Agriculture is a sector undergoing
a process of digital transition, and
one in which our vision equipment
has enormous potential”, says the
engineer. Intelligent sensors and
cameras have been added to a
number of holdings and are used
to observe livestock and crops or to
detect the presence of pests. Dilepix
help farmers to decipher the data
from this monitoring equipment.
They supply an image analysis
Being able to turn to
research teams with a
global reputation has given
a real sense of credibility
to our project
Alban Polba, co-founder of Dilepix
”
”
Inria plays a key role in supporting the creation of start-ups, this being one of its
preferred modes of transfer. There are currently more than 120 companies marketing
technological developments with their roots in work carried out by the Institute’s
research teams. Let’s take a closer look at five start-ups that were created in 2018.
system that functions automatically,
immediately notifying farmers in the
event of a problem. In order to put
the finishing touches to their start-up
project, it was supported by InriaHub,
the Institute’s development unit. They
also sought assistance from an expert
in robotics and precision agriculture,
Alban Polba. In 2018, Dilepix were
one of 64 prize-winners at national
i-Lab awards which aims to support
innovative start-ups. Dilepix were also
awarded the Crisalide Numérique
2018 prize in the Greentech category
and were participants at the
Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in
Las Vegas in January 2019.
OneAngstrom - Towards
revolutionizing the practice
of molecular modelling
Founded in October 2018, the start-up
OneAngstrom came about as a result
of a process started ten years earlier
within the Nano-D team (Grenoble
Rhône-Alpes). The project team,
started in 2008 by Stéphane Redon to
develop algorithms for computational
nanoscience, is behind SAMSON, a
software platform that allows users
to simulate, analyse and design drugs,
materials, electronic components,
nanosystems, etc. Molecular
modelling is a complex topic, in
which the diversity of sciences and
techniques (quantum mechanics,
molecular dynamics, deep learning,
high performance computing, etc.)
makes collaboration and scientific
advances difficult.
The unique open architecture of the
SAMSON platform makes it able to
address this problem. OneAngstrom
has a dual value proposition, aimed
at both consumers and producers
of tools, data and services for
molecular modelling, whether
academic or industrial.
Having previously been awarded
a Starting Grant by the European
Research Council (ERC) in 2012,
Stéphane Redon also received in 2016
a Proof of Concept grant that enabled
him to put together a business model
around SAMSON, which led to the
creation of OneAngstrom.
After raising money in December
2018, OneAngstrom is off to a good
start and is fully focused on its
commercial development.
Dilepix and OneAngstrom,
two Inria start-ups

16
The scikit-learn initiative,
a reference software
library for machine learning
The scikit-learn initiative, a partnership with companies, has been launched on september 2019.
Its objectives are to support the development of this reference software: sustaining its high
quality and adding new functionalities. Scikit-learn is a library in Python programming language.
It is dedicated to statistical learning.
Ten years of research
and development
Initially launched in 2007 by members
of the Python scientific community,
the scikit-learn project had a new
start in 2009 with the investment of
Inria’s Parietal project team.
To conduct research on brain imaging,
the team needed a predictive
modelling tool that integrated
with the Python ecosystem. It then
organised an open participatory
development with the objective
of builing an open source tool for
statistical data analysis.
Two years later, a first version was
released.
Scikit-learn is now supported by a
very large team of developers based
in Paris, New York, Sydney and around
the world. It is in the top three most
popular machine learning software
programs on GitHub.
Diversified
fields of application
Scikit-learn can process complex
data (databases, texts and images)
and classify them using state-of-
the-art techniques for automated
decision making. Scikit-learn is on an
open source and available under BSD
license.
A community of developers (inside
and outside Inria) quickly formed,
which made it possible to accelerate
the development of the tool and
foster many applications.
Scikit-learn is used by a large
number of Web companies to predict
user buying behaviour, offer product
recommendations and detect trends
and abusive behaviour (fraud, spam,
etc.).
One of scikit-learn’s strong points
is its generic nature, which ensures
great versatility and diverse
applications, such as fighting against
fraud and spam, analyzing medical
images, prediction of user behaviour
and optimization of industrial and
logistic processes.
The scikit-learn consortium
To support and stimulate the scikit-learn ecosystem, a consortium of
sponsors (BCG Gamma, Microsoft, Axa, BNP Paribas Cardif, Intel, Nvidia
and Dataiku) has been created with the support of the Inria Foundation.
It will found engineers to ensure the quality of the project and the
integration of new contributions, as well as the addition of ambitious
new features. These efforts will be lead in close connection with scikit-
learn’s vast community of users and developers. Both the foundation’s
partners and the open-source community will be involved in defining
the development priorities.

17
A joint laboratory
with Nokia Bell Labs
Joining forces to meet the scientific challenges of the future... This is the main thrust of
the partnership between the Institute and Nokia. For the past 10 years, they have been
collaborating by running a joint laboratory, with the aim of developing communication
networks for the Future Internet. A fruitful partnership which has been renewed for the
next four years.
Launched in 2008, the partnership
between the Institute and Nokia
Bell Labs* – the telecommunication
giant’s research centre – was renewed
in late 2017 for another four years.
A joint laboratory brings together
researchers, doctoral students
and postdoctoral researchers who
pool their knowledge and work
collaboratively on communications
networks. The aim of this
collaboration is to develop optimised
network resources that meet Future
Internet requirements. From IoT
to the driverless car, smart cities
to e-health… just some of the
burgeoning fields with numerous
technical challenges still to be
overcome. Future networks must be
capable of managing this multitude
of connected objects, of hosting and
ensuring the massive interconnection
of distributed functions and
displaying unprecedented agility in
their management of these multiple
and demanding situations of use.
Inria and Nokia Bell Labs are
collaborating on all these issues. Both
parties possess renowned expertise
in information theory, machine
learning, graph theory, game theory,
cybersecurity, network virtualisation
and advanced software control.
Over the next four years, the joint
laboratory will be concentrating
on four research priorities:
information theory and algorithms
to overcome IoT challenges; machine
learning and analysis to optimise
virtualised networks dynamically
and automatically; distributed and
evolutionary learning and control in
order to exploit complex IoT networks
containing dynamic elements with
augmented intelligence; cybersecurity
to ensure the confidentiality and
integrity of data and develop
resilience in response to intrusions.
Very high-level research projects will
be carried out to develop innovations
that will enhance the products
developed by Nokia in the future.
*Formerly Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs.
On the strength
of their rich
and productive
relationship
established over the
last twenty years,
Inria and Nokia Bell
Labs are trailblazers
in this adventure.
We have even higher
expectations and
more ambitious
plans for our future
collaboration via
our joint laboratory
focusing on the
fundamental
challenges facing
humanity in the
connected world of
the future
Marcus Weldon,
CTO of Nokia and President
of Nokia Bell Labs
”
”

18
Humanity must be at the heart of our projects.
Inria has adopted meaningful strategic priorities
based on the principles of transparency and ethics:
the main cause supported by the Institute is the use of
digital technology to help the disabled.
In its institutional development project for the
2019-2023 period, Inria has therefore undertaken to become
an exemplary institution in this regard by incorporating a series
of deserving disability-related actions into its
“Disability Programme” and ensuring their coherence.

19
Regarding research
25 project teams are working on this issue, combining
several types of expertise for an optimal impact;
With respect to innovation
these actions will be defined according to the needs
expressed by users, in collaboration with associations
and innovative firms, including start-ups;
Regarding the digital accessibility
of our content: Inria must set out to be exemplary in
its provision of access to digital content, by promoting
(as the European host of W3C) and applying the WCAG
(Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards to its
own activities.
As an employer
through its “Workers with disabilities” scheme, Inria is
developing an integration policy that promotes
training, competencies and professional experience.
The POTIOC project team in Bordeaux
has developed an audio-tactile augmented reality system
that makes interfaces accessible to people with visual
impairments. Here is a botanical atlas based on real plants
that enables users to discover their actual textures and
understand their different parts which are listed in a caption.
UT4H, a start-up
created in 2018, is developing Home-Assist – a comprehensive connected solution
designed to simplify and facilitate the daily live of elderly people living alone, their loved
ones and professional careers. Via connected objects in the home linked to a secure
health data platform, Home-Assist helps with everyday activities, facilitates social contact
and enables users to live more safely in their own homes.

2020
ANNUAL BUDGET REPORT FOR 2018 FINANCIAL YEAR
Inria’s initial budget for 2018, adopted in November 2017, was
established in terms of revenue and expenditure for a total sum
of €236.5M, increased to €240.6M in the last amending budget
adopted in November 2018.
Regarding execution of the 2018 budget in terms of revenue, the
Subsidy for Public Service Expenses (SCSP) was €172.1M in 2018
compared with €170.6M in 2017 and €167.5M in 2016. This subsidy
accounted for 72% of revenue received for the 2018 financial year.
Own resources amounted to €66.8M, i.e. a 104% execution rate
compared with the amounts set in the last amending budget.
This accounted for 28% of all Inria’s resources for 2018. The main
sources of Inria’s own resources are:

Total revenue was €239M in 2018, i.e. an execution rate of 101.2%
compared with the amending budget.
By nature, expenditure is broken down as follows: €167.1M for
payroll costs (69.5% of total expenditure), including €133.6M for
the Restrictive Wage Bill and €33.5M for the Non-Restrictive
Wage Bill.
The workforce of staff whose salaries are capped as financed under
the SCSP was 1,616 in full-time equivalent terms (FTE), compared
with 1,579 in 2017, 1,604 in 2016 and an initial 2018 budget forecast
of 1,603 FTE. The workforce of staff whose salaries are not capped
as financed out of own resources was 730 FTE, compared with
729 FTE in 2017 and 805 FTE in 2016.
€51.3M for non-scheduled investment and operating costs (FCI);
€9.1M in expenditure related to scheduled investment
transactions (OIP);
Total disbursements in 2018 came to €227.6M, compared with an
initial forecast of €236.5M, i.e. a 96.2% execution rate.
By purpose, expenditure in 2018 included:
l €160.1M on scientific activities at the research centres (Aggregate
1), i.e. 70% of total expenditure in 2018;
l €23.1M on joint research activity (Aggregate 2), i.e. 10%;
l €44.4M on support functions (Aggregate 3), i.e. 20 %.
The scientific themes relating to Inria’s key objectives are shown in
the table below and factor in all expenditure, regardless of funding
source and all aggregates combined.
CERTIFICATION OF THE FINANCIAL ACCOUNT
As has been the case since 2010, the 2018 accounts have been
the subject of certification by two auditors. The certifiers have
reiterated the qualified opinion previously issued (register of trade
payables; physical inventory and monitoring of fixed assets).
The 2018 financial account shows a profit of + €1.4M (compared
with a profit of + €0.8M the previous year).
This evolution is due to several factors, mainly:
l the decrease in grants and related income (- €4.2M), despite a
slight increase in the subsidy for public service expenses
(+ €1.5M);
l almost entirely offset by the increase in direct income from
activity (+ €4.0M), driven in particular by the increase in income
from contracts with private-sector partners (+ €3.5m);
l the increase in other income (+ €1.5M), which is mainly due to
the increase in write-backs of provisions;
l the decrease in the use of goods and supplies, works and services
(- €4.2M);
l the latter more than offset by the increase in payroll costs
(+ €4.4M) and in depreciation, amortization and provision
allowances (+ €0.5M).
The balance sheet total (assets and liabilities) amounts to €257.8M
compared with €253.9M in 2017.
Financial report
*Including: €11.3M from the ANR, €14.2M from other public-sector partners,
€20.4M from the European Commission and €8.9M from private-sector partners.
Research contracts with
third parties in the private or
public sectors
* Research project
and programme subsidies
Product sales:
publications, conferences, etc.
Financial transactions related
to fixed assets
Sources
of Inria's own
ressources
in M€44,9
9,9
4,7
2,7
TEAM EXPENDITURE PER THEME €M 116,6
Applied Mathematics, Computing and Simulation 18,4
Algorithms, Programming, Software and Architectures 26,2
Networks, Systems and Services, Distributed Calculation 19,4
Perception, Cognition and Interaction 29,6
Healthcare, Biology and Digital Planet 23,0

2121
Amount
(in euros)
2018
Amount
(in euros)
2017
Variation
2018 / 2017
%ITEM
Subsidy for public service expenses 172,132,749 170,614,575 0.9%
Operating subsidies granted by the State and other public entities 33,912,234 39,611,017 -14.4%
Subsidies allocated to funding maintenance costs - - -
Donations and bequests 508,706 522,667 -2.7%
Allocated tax income - - -
SUBSIDIES AND SIMILAR INCOME 206,553,689 210,748,259 -2.0%
Sales of goods or services 14,440,560 11,295,342 27.8%
Income from the sale of assets 29,731 29,344 1.3%
Other management income 2,089,954 1,188,157 75.9%
Inventory and self-constructed assets - - -
Income earned for provision of a public service - - -
DIRECT INCOME FROM ACTIVITY 16,560,245 12,512,843 32.3%
Write-backs on depreciation and provisions 15,251,013 13,163,265 15.9%
Write-backs of asset-related funds 6,192,438 6,770,584 -8.5%
OTHER INCOME 21,443,451 19,933,849 7.6%

OPERATING INCOME 244,557,385 243,194,951 0.6%
Purchases 119,741 103,481 15.7%
Use of goods and supplies, works and services 38,053,394 42,230,932 -9.9%
Payroll costs 155,822,975 151,472,276 2.9%
Other operating costs (incl. losses/write-offs) 19,670,196 19,605,280 0.3%
Depreciation and provisions, Net accounting value of assets disposed of 29,469,555 28,973,397 1.7%

OPERATING COSTS 243,135,861 242,385,366 0.3%

NET INCOME (OR LOSS) FROM ACTIVITY 1,421,524 809,585 75.6%
INCOME STATEMENT 1/2

2222
Amount
(in euros)
2018
Amount
(in euros)
2017
Variation
2018 / 2017
%ITEM
Income from shares and loans - - -
Net income from sale of financial assets - - -
Interest on non-capital receivables - - -
Income from short-term investments and cash - - -
Income from sales of short-term investments - - -
Foreign exchange gains 10,666 20,615 -48.3%
Other financial income 39,808 - -
Write-backs on depreciation and provisions - - -

FINANCIAL INCOME 50,474 20,615 144.8%

Interest - - -
Net loss on disposal of securities - - -
Foreign exchange losses 20,862 6,032 245.9%
Other financial costs - - -
Depreciation and provisions for financial costs - - -

FINANCIAL COSTS 20,862 6,032 245.9%

NET FINANCIAL INCOME (OR LOSS) 29,612 14,583 103.1%

Corporate tax - -

FISCAL YEAR PROFIT OR LOSS 1,451,136 824,168 76.1%
INCOME STATEMENT 2/2

Editor in chief: Bruno Sportisse
Editorial Manager: Ariane Beauvillard
Graphic Manager: Sophie Barbier
Graphic Design and Production: Philippe Aran
Photos Credits: © Inria: Pierre Morel p. 3, p.8, p.14; G. Scagnelli p.10-1 et 2, p.11-3,
p.12-2; Kaksonen p.12-3; C. Morel p.19
Fonds ext.: A. Macarri / UCA p.10-3, p.11-1; Fondation Simons p.11-2;
Collège de France / P. Imbert p.12-1

Domaine de Voluceau - Rocquencourt - BP 105 - 78153 Le Chesnay Cedex France
www.inria.fr

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