After five highly productive years of collaboration and achievements, I am delighted that this partnership has been renewed. It underscores our shared ambition to advance R&D programmes that design and develop effective, resource efficient and sustainable treatment solutions, supporting sustainable development across agriculture, food systems, the environment and the bioeconomy.”
Innovation at SUEZ:
For 160 years, SUEZ has placed science and innovation at the core of its growth strategy, delivering cutting-edge water and waste management technologies and solutions for its clients. This ambition rests on first-rate research capabilities and close ties with academia, both essential to sustaining rigorous, world-class research in environmental and resource sciences. The Group mobilises 400 researchers and 1,300 experts across 10 Centres of Excellence and Research in France and China, and holds a portfolio of 1,842 patents, including 42 filed in 2025. This innovation drive saw SUEZ ranked 37th in 2025, for the second year running, in the Top 50 patent applicants of France’s National Institute of Industrial Property, the only environmental services company to feature.
Partnerships and innovation at INRAE:
As Europe’s leading institute for agronomic and environmental research and among the world’s foremost, INRAE teams work to promote the sustainable development of agriculture, food systems, the environment and the bioeconomy. With 450 direct contracts in place with socio-economic stakeholders (companies, co-operatives, technical institutes, chambers of agriculture, interprofessional organisations, etc.) and leadership of five Carnot Institutes, including one focused on the bioeconomy, INRAE pursues a dynamic partnership and innovation strategy to accelerate the emergence of solutions. Each year, the institute files 140 disclosures of inventions and exploitable results, 30 patents and 8 plant variety certificates. Since 2000, 307 start-ups have been created in connection with INRAE, 107 of them directly spun out of the institute’s research.
