On October 13, its new home was inaugurated in Building 14 of Techn’hom in Belfort (9 rue Becquerel), in a fully renovated 2,000-square-meter space.
The CRUNCH Lab Innovation Center is a third place open to everyone. It is aimed at the general public, professionals (companies, institutions), nonprofit organizations, and the UTBM community. Although it is a department of UTBM, it operates much like a nonprofit organization. As a result, 50% of its users come from UTBM, 25% from the professional and business sectors, and 25% from the general public. The interplay between these three worlds is one of its greatest strengths, making it “a place for unlikely encounters.”
The CRUNCH Lab is now recognized as one of the leading third places in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.
UTBM’s CRUNCH Lab: What’s that all about?
The CRUNCH Lab is a physical space designed to host a community, enabling its members to freely share resources (technological equipment, digital resources, etc.), skills, knowledge, and expertise, and to access training opportunities, among other things. The CRUNCH Lab combines creativity (essential for innovation), flexibility, and a sense of community, among other qualities, and relies on alternative solutions to develop projects. It thus offers a path to individual empowerment within a collective dynamic driven by a shared interest—or even the public interest. In effect, the CRUNCH Lab supports anyone with a project.
It is worth noting that the CRUNCH Lab now hosts, among others, APF France handicap’s Indy Lab, with the goal of making innovation a powerful tool for empowering people with disabilities: innovation in the service of inclusion. Similarly, ENEDIS, as part of its industrial chair with UTBM, has located its ENEDIS Lab within the CRUNCH Lab. Finally, several partners developing medium-term projects with UTBM and its CRUNCH Lab are based directly in this third place: NEXT Engineering, IntHY Dev, Parco Cycles, La Vallée de l’Energie, and others.
The verb “to innovate” is not conjugated in the infinitive. Innovation cannot be decreed. Innovation cannot be improvised. It requires, above all, a certain mindset—that of an advocate for the angel, meaning not to focus immediately on an idea’s weaknesses and limitations but, on the contrary, to concentrate on its positive aspects and build upon them—as well as mastery of robust methodological processes. To this, one must add a great deal of commitment, bring together diverse sources of inspiration, and let it all simmer. Here are a few basic catalysts necessary for innovation.
Similarly, innovation is everywhere and must be everyone’s concern, regardless of age. Innovation cannot, in fact, be reserved for just a few experts. Quite the contrary! Anyone, given the right stimulation, encouragement, and support, can become an innovator. In fact, everyone must become one, given the profound changes our societies must undergo due to multiple transitions (ecological, energy-related, etc.): These changes will require a great deal of innovation across all fields of activity and all aspects of life.
> First, there’s CRUNCH Time, launched in May 2017. As an ideation exercise, it provides engineering students from UTBM and other partner schools—particularly in Switzerland—with annual training in the methodological tools and processes of innovation. With more than 1,500 engineering students tackling approximately 130 real-world challenges proposed by UTBM’s industrial and institutional partners, CRUNCH Time is the largest exercise of its kind organized in France, and most likely one of the largest in Europe;
> Next, the CRUNCH Lab, established in February 2018. A resource for the UTBM community, this “third place”—located on its Belfort campus (Techn’hom, 9 rue Becquerel)—is fully open both to the university’s partner companies and institutions and to any individual with a project who wishes to receive support in developing it;
> The CRUNCH Factory, which adapts the concept of the CRUNCH Lab—dedicated to ideation and the early stages of prototyping—into a production facility. The CRUNCH Factory was among the first 20 “la-bellisées” local manufacturing facilities in France by the end of 2021, as part of the France 2030 program.
Today, among the 100 locally-based manufacturing facilities certified nationwide, it remains the only one that was proposed and is led by a higher education and research institution. The CRUNCH Factory will be formally established in the coming months as a cooperative society of collective interest, bringing together, in particular, manufacturers from northern Franche-Comté.
The New Home of the UTBM CRUNCH Lab
To launch the CRUNCH Lab, in addition to its own investments, UTBM received support from multiple sources for the acquisition of equipment: the General Secretariat for Regional Affairs of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Regional Prefecture, the Prefecture of the Territoire de Belfort, the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Regional Council, the Grand Belfort and Pays de Montbéliard Agglomération urban communities, the Territoire de Belfort Departmental Council, and the Banque des Territoires.
As for its facilities, the CRUNCH Lab’s initial 80 m² quickly expanded to 200, then 500, then 900, and finally 1,500 m² as its activities grew and it acquired new equipment (more than 80 pieces of technological equipment today, in the fields of physical and digital modeling and prototyping). The team has grown and now consists of 10 people.
Since the current facilities were not fully suited to the organization’s activities, an architectural design competition was launched in late 2020 to design a new home for the CRUNCH Lab, covering an area of 2,000 m². The firm DEA Architectes (Mulhouse) won the competition (architect: Guillaume Delamazure). The renovation of the premises, at a total cost of approximately 5.5 million euros, was funded by the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Regional Council (3.65 million euros) and the UTBM (1.8 million euros). The work was carried out almost entirely by companies from northern Franche-Comté.
Inauguration of the New Premises
The renovation work on the new CRUNCH Lab facilities also made it possible to create a new CROUS Bourgogne Franche-Comté cafeteria within the UTBM building. This cafeteria, which has been open since September 15, is open to everyone: students as well as the general public.
These new, one-of-a-kind spaces will be inaugurated on October 13, in the presence of, among others, the prefect of the Territoire de Belfort, the vice presidents of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region responsible for higher education and research, and for digital transitions and innovation; the mayor of Belfort and president of Grand Belfort; the rector of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté academic region; the executive director of the CROUS Bourgogne-Franche-Comté; and a large number of guests, both professionals and members of the public.
On this occasion, several projects developed at the CRUNCH Lab will be presented in detail: the educational lung project with the Nord Franche-Comté Hospital, Chutopoly with the Arc-en-Ciel Foundation, the electric-assist bicycle with Parco Cycles, the innovation mural with Innover Malin, the E-Morphose educational cobot with MS-Innov, the robotic puppet with the Belfort Puppet Theater, and more.
