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– A Journey Through the Forefront of Innovation Management –

A Six-Day Deep Dive into France’s Innovation and its Ecosystem

From June 22nd to 27th, the Japan Innovation Network organized the “IMSAP Global Studio France 2025” and took participants on a captivating six-day journey. We had the invaluable opportunity to visit 11 leading French innovative companies and institutions—a total of nine companies, one organization and one university—gaining deep insights into their robust Innovation Management Systems (IMS) and activities. This program served as an exceptional platform to experience firsthand the critical importance of innovation management elements and principles such as intent, strategy, culture, and non-linear and iterative innovation activities, all strongly emphasized by ISO 56001: Innovation Management System and other innovation management system standards.

Program Highlights

Day 1
The program’s opening day featured inspiring and insightful stories from a co-founder of Dassault Systèmes, sharing his innovation journey to establish the world-renowned company. Participants were particularly struck by his message about the three fundamental pillars of innovation: vision, strategy, and execution system (operation process). There was strong agreement that a robust innovation ecosystem is a key factor for innovation success, as innovation cannot be delivered effectively without establishing appropriate ecosystems.

Day 2
Participants visited Pierrefonds and engaged in interactive discussions on innovation strategy, culture, and activities with members of the Paris Club of Chief Innovation Officers, featuring major companies representing France. OKI Electric industry, JSR Corporation, Olympus Corporation and Nikken Sekkei Construction Management from Japan and Saint-Gobain, Alstom, Hemovis and Group One point from France, presented their innovation and innovation management activities, providing a wealth of knowledge for participants. We gained many insights about innovation and realized that, despite many differences in corporate culture, there are numerous common challenges. A visit to Château de Chantilly also offered inspiration, demonstrating how strong innovation and imagination can truly come alive within beautiful surroundings.

Day 3
This was a highly productive day, with visits to Rail Open Lab and Technip Energies. Participants gained valuable insights into their respective innovation management approaches and activities.

At Rail Open Lab by SNCF Réseau, managing France’s national railway infrastructure, the host provided detailed explanations of their open innovation activities and innovation ecosystems. Learning about their innovation strategies, culture, leadership, and concrete results was particularly impressive.

Similarly, at Technip Energies, an engineering and technology firm specializing in the energy industry, participants learned about their innovation activities and ecosystems. Technip Energies’ innovation and innovation management stood out for being incredibly well-organized and systematized.

Day 4
We visited Dassault Systèmes and had the privilege of meeting with Airbus at the same venue.

At the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab by Dassault Systèmes, hosts provided incredibly insightful presentations on innovation management and activities. Participants were particularly impressed by their concrete innovation initiatives and advanced software, which vividly showcased the excellence of their systematic and systemic approach to innovation. The 3D demonstrations were absolutely fascinating.

A representative from Airbus Central Innovation also joined the meeting, sharing insights into Airbus’s groundbreaking innovations. A key takeaway from his presentation was Airbus Central Innovation’s powerful portfolio approach: strategically aligning business model with technology. This powerfully demonstrated the critical importance of thinking about future business models.

Day 5
Participants visited EURECOM, a graduate school and research center in digital science, where immense knowledge was gained about their cutting-edge research and robust industry collaborations, highlighting the fundamental role of a strong industry-academia-government innovation ecosystem for sustained success.

At Nuvisan, participants learned about their comprehensive capabilities as a pharmaceutical CRO (Contract Research Organization), their significant investments in advanced technologies, and their strategic partnerships. Discussions covered the immense strength derived from having niche expertise in their field.

The day also featured highly insightful discussions at Schneider Electric, following informative presentations about their Innovation Management Systems.

We had valuable discussions and gained many insights, including:

• ISO 56001 and ISO 56002 can definitively serve as a benchmark to assess a company’s innovation management system status, and provide an excellent common language, understanding, and framework for innovation activities and global collaboration.
• Successful innovation requires many important elements: a clear (strategic) innovation vision, a well-defined strategy, strong leadership, robust processes, a dynamic portfolio approach, and proactive innovation activities.

Day 6
The IMSAP Global Studio France 2025 concluded with an incredible flourish.

Participants were warmly welcomed by Amadeus, a global leader in providing IT platforms for the travel and tourism industry, gaining profound insights into their innovation management systems. Amadeus impressed with its exceptionally well-structured innovation portfolio and activities. Their foresight into future needs and customer pain points, along with their comprehensive technology portfolio seamlessly integrating diverse functions (such as Global Distribution Systems for airline ticket booking, Passenger Service Systems for airlines, and Property Management Systems for hotels), truly illustrated their robust innovation approach. This integrated platform itself clearly serves as a strong foundation for innovation, enabling deep collaboration across different sectors.

A visit to ACRI-ST provided a deep dive into cutting-edge research and development in areas such as image processing, computer graphics, virtual reality (VR)/augmented reality (AR), and AI for visual data. Their strong industry-academia collaboration model was particularly noteworthy.

Our last destination was Fragonard Perfumery. A representative eloquently explained the company’s rich history, captivating all with their narrative and story. It was fascinating to learn how innovative the company has remained while meticulously respecting 200 years of perfume-making traditions and history. Participants were privileged to meet the fifth-generation owner, the successor to this remarkable legacy.

Overall, the IMSAP Global Studio France 2025 provided an incredible and insightful journey, offering profound appreciation for the French innovation landscape. This mission offered valuable opportunities to uncover numerous commonalities between Japanese and French approaches to innovation. Leveraging the insights gained through this mission and the broader IMSAP activities, Japan Innovation Network intends to advance innovation partnerships between Japanese companies and organizations and innovation ecosystems in France and beyond.