The RRSC Chair
The Risk and Resilience of Complex Systems (RRSC) Chair was established in 2009, more than ten years ago, in partnership with CentraleSupélec and Université Paris-Saclay. “At the time, no organization in France was studying this subject, even though it was becoming increasingly important for EDF,” explains Laurent Billet, Scientific Delegate at EDF’s R&D division. The growth of renewable energy was set to affect the operation of the electricity system, perhaps one of the largest and most complex systems ever designed by humans.
The RRSC Chair’s objective is to develop models and methods to assess the resilience of this system in response to the growing influx of intermittent generation capacity and the impact of external events.
In 2019, EDF and CentraleSupélec decided to join forces with two additional partners, SNCF and Orange, to take the analysis of complex systems to the next level. The aim was to study very large, interconnected industrial systems. Complex systems are often deeply interconnected: without telecommunications networks, it is impossible to operate the electricity grid; without electricity, there can be no telecommunications or transport networks.
EDF’s R&D Division Partners with CentraleSupélec – RRSC (Risk and Resilience of Complex Systems)
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[In this testimonial, Laurent Billet (Scientific Delegate within EDF’s R&D Scientific Department) and Anne Barros (Director of Education, Industrial Engineering and Operations Department, Chair of Risk and Resilience of Complex Systems) present the partnership between EDF’s R&D division and the Risk and Resilience of Complex Systems (RRSC) Chair, hosted by CentraleSupélec.]
Our pitch
Laurent Billet: This partnership takes the form of a research chair, the Chair of Risk and Resilience of Complex Systems, which we established in 2009.
At the time, new generation technologies, such as wind turbines and solar panels, were being introduced into our electricity system. These new sources of generation could affect the system’s robustness and stability. That is why we decided to partner with CentraleSupélec to establish a dedicated structure focused on the resilience of complex systems: the RRSC Chair.
To address these challenges, we brought in other partners operating large-scale systems, such as Orange in telecommunications and SNCF in transport.
Anne Barros: This Chair focuses on resilience. But what exactly is resilience?
It is a metric or performance indicator that we monitor over time. Studying resilience within the Chair means examining how much the performance indicator declines, how quickly it falls, to what extent it can recover, and how quickly that recovery occurs.
Our achievements
Laurent Billet: Our first achievement was being able to address what I consider a very challenging issue: the resilience of interconnected complex systems. The second achievement, and perhaps the most important one for me, was successfully bringing our two partners together around a shared research programme.
The Chair has grown steadily, and today we have around ten PhD theses underway, along with several research projects. The young researchers working on these theses represent an excellent recruitment pool for all three partners. They receive training in cutting-edge fields, tackling highly specialized topics that are of major importance to all three companies.
Anne Barros: We have achieved a great deal, and I would like to highlight two successes. The first is our ability to study use cases involving at least two of our three partners. We are now working towards cases that involve all three. We have also studied how failures propagate from one system to another. For example, how might flooding in a region of France affect the electricity grid, then the supporting power supply network, and ultimately the railway network itself?
The second major achievement is the considerable effort we have invested in calls for research proposals. This has been a real success: over the past year, we have secured funding for numerous projects.
We have now doubled the Chair’s budget through public funding. This recognizes both the importance of the subject and the quality of the work carried out by the team and its partners.
Our challenges
Laurent Billet: Our biggest challenge is moving from developing methods and algorithms to implementing them in practical tools, which necessarily differ from one partner to another.
Our solutions
Anne Barros: The partners are extremely committed, as are the members of CentraleSupélec. This enables us to combine scientific excellence with a shared, open industrial environment. Ultimately, we benefit both from the academic freedom that allows us to make progress and from the richness of an industrial environment that presents us with meaningful challenges and gives purpose to our research.
Finally, we benefit from the research ecosystem of the Saclay plateau, particularly for EDF’s R&D activities.
Laurent Billet: One significant challenge that we have overcome thanks to the strength of the partnership is recruiting high-calibre PhD students in an extremely competitive job market, particularly in recent years.
By recruiting outstanding candidates, the Chair has built a strong reputation. This has enabled it to achieve its original objective: to become a nationally recognized centre of excellence in the field of complex systems resilience.
Our partnerships
Anne Barros: The Chair of Risk and Resilience of Complex Systems provides the ideal framework for our work. When we promote a modelling framework or a tool, it is because scientific evidence shows that it is best suited to the industrial challenge we have been asked to address.
Laurent Billet: For EDF’s R&D division, a partnership like this one—and I believe the same applies to my colleagues at Orange and SNCF—should provide a channel for transferring knowledge and methods developed in academia into industrial research. Ultimately, it works well when inventions become innovations, meaning inventions that find a market.
Our future
Laurent Billet: In the short term, we want to maintain the momentum we have built by bringing new partners on board. In the medium term, I see two key research areas. The first is the use of digital twins to study the resilience of complex systems. The second is examining how complex systems can withstand climate-related risks, an issue that is more pressing than ever.
Anne Barros: Thanks to the doubling of the Chair’s budget, we have been able to recruit, and are continuing to recruit, researchers and PhD students with stronger expertise in artificial intelligence. They will help us integrate these tools into our research challenges.
The second major area is education and training, since this is both a research and teaching chair. We have now established a new one-year programme at CentraleSupélec, designed for students in their final year and dedicated to risk and resilience. It will involve the entire Chair team and, of course, all three partners.
La R&D d'EDF partenaire de CentraleSupélec et de l'Université Paris-Saclay
For us, resilience is a performance indicator that we monitor over time.
“What we study is the resilience of these systems,” explains Anne Barros, Director of the Chair of Risk and Resilience of Complex Systems. “For us, resilience is a performance indicator that we monitor over time. This could be the number of railway stations served, the transmission delay in a telecommunications network, or the ratio between the energy demanded and the energy supplied by an electricity grid. This indicator can fall following an incident, equipment failure or external event. We examine how quickly performance declines and the extent of the drop (vulnerability), and then how quickly the indicator can be restored to an acceptable or even normal level (recovery and restoration). To minimize vulnerability, we seek to optimize system design and interconnections to limit the propagation of failures and their impact. For the recovery and restoration phases, we aim to optimize operational control and maintenance strategies.”
“One major achievement of the Chair has been demonstrating our ability to address the challenge of large, interconnected complex systems. This is an extremely difficult subject,” emphasizes Laurent Billet, noting that Anne Barros gave a particularly well-received presentation on the topic during the plenary session of the 2023 ESREL conference. “We achieved this goal by developing a coherent PhD research programme (see box) closely connected to real industrial challenges.”
Bringing three major industrial partners together within a single research chair is another significant achievement. It required convincing the companies to share data, agree on research assumptions and identify common use cases—in short, to trust one another. And the story does not end here. “We want to expand the consortium to include new partners,” announces Laurent Billet. “We are interested in water networks, gas and electricity transmission systems, aerospace systems and more.”
Over the years, the Chair’s reputation has grown. “It has achieved the goal we set for it: to become an internationally recognized institution in the field of complex systems,” says Laurent Billet with a smile.
The Chair’s reputation attracts new academics and researchers, thereby increasing its research capacity. It also appeals to excellent PhD candidates, despite the highly competitive job market for graduates with a master’s degree. The partners’ commitment, their determination to work together, and the promise of fascinating research topics that cannot be found elsewhere are major selling points in persuading the brightest students to join the Chair and embark on a PhD.
In 2024, the Chair will be renewed for a further five-year cycle. This renewal will be accompanied by a new scientific programme. Discussions have already taken place to identify new research directions. Proposed topics include digital twins, the impact of climate change, cybersecurity as a systemic threat, and the resilience of computer systems.
One major achievement of the Chair has been demonstrating our ability to address the challenge of large, interconnected complex systems. This is an extremely difficult subject.
A Partnership Built Around a PhD Research Programme
The Chair of Risk and Resilience of Complex Systems is built around a PhD research programme. Its doctoral projects are the driving force behind its research. Industrial partners bring their needs and challenges, while PhD students, supervised by academics, explore new ideas and solutions. “We consider the partnership successful when inventions developed by academics become innovations—that is, when they solve a problem for customers or find a market,” explains Laurent Billet.
This approach offers several advantages. Each industrial partner brings its own network of PhD students and research topics. Since Orange and SNCF joined the partnership, the volume of research has increased. The Chair now supports more than six PhD theses each year, either directly within the Chair or through funded projects. In addition, its PhD students and postdoctoral researchers represent a valuable recruitment pool for the partners, as they receive training in highly advanced research areas.
Another benefit of the partnership is access to public funding. “Our research budget has now doubled thanks to public funding,” explains Anne Barros. “This demonstrates both the quality of our work and our ability to secure funding, ensuring that our research does not rely solely on contributions from our industrial partners.”
Finally, the Chair’s success and growing reputation are helping to expand its engagement with students. “We will now be teaching on the international Master’s programme at INSTN, working with students from abroad,” announces Anne Barros. This will help strengthen the Chair’s appeal to future researchers from around the world. In September 2024, we are also launching a third-year course within the CentraleSupélec curriculum focusing on risk management.
Misconception: PhD Students Don’t Want to Pursue Industry-Focused Research
On the contrary, an increasing number of PhD students are interested in industry-focused doctoral research. It gives them access to real-world challenges and real-world data.
“As academics, we conduct research on industrial sciences, but we can never be entirely sure that it meets industry’s needs. We need a partner who can keep us grounded in reality,” acknowledges Éric Favre, Professor at the University of Lorraine and a member of the Mélusine partnership. “When working in applied research, our work only has real value if it starts with industrial challenges,” adds Anne Barros.
Industrial research also benefits from the growing appeal of research in general. “During a panel discussion with third-year students at CentraleSupélec, 90% said they were interested in pursuing a PhD. The field is clearly attractive,” observes Ange Caruso, Partnerships Delegate at EDF’s R&D division. “Today, we have no difficulty maintaining the number of PhD theses we offer.”
