What is Collaborative Design?
The Collaborative and Integrated Design research group aims to understand and model the interactions between all stakeholders involved in the design of manufactured products and/or associated services (field experts, users, citizens, etc.). It also aims to propose supports (based on cognitive and tangible representations), tools (integrated into the designers' environments), and methods (either integrated into the company's organization or accessible in an open-source format).
Members of the Collaborative and Integrated Design research group have historically developed research activities centered on the development of methods and tools for collaborative design that integrate both knowledge and stakeholders. Over time, thematic evolutions led the team to question the core foundation of its work, and the concept of interaction emerged as a common denominator for all its activities. Within this collaborative framework, the study of interactions encompasses human-human interactions, whether mediated or not by virtual or tangible artefacts, as well as human-machine interactions, including interactions with generative Artificial Intelligence agents.
The research studies often aim to support the ongoing transformations in society and companies towards reducing the environmental impacts of industry and empowering citizens to reclaim technologies. The integration of technologies, whether digital or not, is therefore accompanied by a critical analysis of their performance in relation to other criteria, such as those related to environmental or societal impacts.
We welcome PhD students from engineering, cognitive sciences, management sciences, or computer science, depending on the collaborative projects we develop with our partners.
Our ambition is to contribute to the field of design sciences in close connection with the humanities and social sciences (sociology of organizations, management, cognitive ergonomics, psychology) and information and communication sciences.
Plateforme Vision-R
Research areas
Complex interactions in digital design environments
- Immersive collaborative virtual environments for multidisciplinary design
- Experimental studies of new visualisation and interaction metaphors
- Cognitive approaches to mediated interactions in virtual environments
Design sciences to understand and support ongoing transformations in companies and society
- Product-service systems, servicization of offerings
- New forms of local, urban, and sustainable industrialization
Collaborative approaches towards reducing the environmental impacts of industry and empowering citizens to reclaim technologies
- Collaborative approaches within territories, in open collectives (innovation spaces, maker spaces...)
- Support for innovation incubators in developing countries
- Open-source approaches, study of citizen movements (repair cafés, low-tech approaches, maker spaces...)
Current Research Projects
eNSEMBLE (2024-2027)
Redefining digital tools dedicated to collaboration by inventing mixed spaces (physical and digital). G-SCOP is leading two PhD theses on the influence of visual metaphors in co-design and on citizen platforms for territorial risk management.
TRACCS: KNOW-HOW +4°C (2025-2030)
Studies the systemic adaptation strategies of territories (Alps and Jura) facing a +4°C global warming by 2100. The team contributes to the experimentation and dissemination of narrative methods for local public decision-making.
Engineering Digital Twin (2026-2032)
Establishing the foundations for the next generation of digital twins. G-SCOP contributes to developing methods to adapt interactive systems to the tasks of diverse users throughout a digital twin's lifecycle.
LAUDS Factories (2024-2027)
Towards small, versatile, and local urban factories to co-create personalized products in small batches. This project aims to develop a model to support LAUDS factories by leveraging maker spaces.
CONTINUUM (2021-2029)
Creating a collaborative infrastructure of 30 platforms across France for research bridging computer science and humanities/social sciences (SHS). A high-performance visualization network to observe and manipulate digital data via virtual/augmented experiences.
MIMESIS'Lab (2024-2029)
A joint laboratory with SKYREAL. Aims to understand how humans represent design information and to develop natural 3D human-machine interactions to improve human-centered system architecture.
ASEEC (2026-2027)
Integrating sufficiency principles into eco-design practices to influence the adoption of sustainable approaches. Aims to propose a training module to integrate sufficiency into existing design tools.
Satiable (2025-2026)
A participatory science methodology surrounding the challenges of technological innovation (energy sufficiency). Co-construction of desirable scenarios for 2050 via projection and citizen empowerment workshops.
ACCEL 4.0
Developing innovative training and support systems bringing together the industrial, academic, and scientific ecosystem. A consortium including UIMM Ain, Grenoble INP, Pôle formation AFPMA, and Lycée Carriat.
GAIA XR (2026-2029)
Continuing the work of MIMESIS'Lab, this project aims to develop an open collaborative platform for synchronizing immersive universes to exchange heterogeneous content across multiplatform environments.
AIDEAS (2023-2026)
A joint project with IRT Saint-Exupéry to adapt generative conversational AI to system architecture activities via LLM fine-tuning, and to define recommendations for engineer-AI interactions.