Recherche

Research and development: The key to competitiveness and growth

Thales annually invests around 20% of consolidated revenues in R&D, including a significant part dedicated to fundamental research and advanced studies, which are the primary source of technological innovation today.

With a portfolio of 13,000 patents, research at Thales represents 50 R&D centres on five continents and 22,000 R&D engineers.

An open research policy: Thales at the heart of new innovation ecosystems

Thales operates a policy of research and technology partnerships with the local industrial and scientific ecosystem in each country where it has major operations.As well as prestigious research institutes and universities, this knowledge network also includes Thales's technology providers and customers, particularly in North America, Australia, Singapore, South Korea, France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

In practice, it translates into a wide range of public-private cooperative research initiatives, such as the Mobile Virtual Center of Excellence programme in the UK, the competitiveness clusters ("pôles de compétitivité") supported by the French authorities and various European technology platforms (ACARE, ARTEMIS, ENIAC,NESSI, etc.).

5 key technology domains

1/ Hardware technologies

• Nanotechnologies
• Acoustics
• Microwave
• Imagery
• Thermal management
• Signal processing
• Manufacturing techniques

2/ Software and critical information systems

This domain is constituted of a 12,000-strong R&D community.

• Signal and information processing computers
• Software-dominant systems
• Real-time & embedded systems
• Distributed systems
• Web and service-oriented technologies
• Architectures
• Model-driven engineering (MDE/MDA)
• Engineering methods and tools
• Information system security and dependability

3/ Security technologies

• E-security
• Rail signalling
• Systems and process control
• ID management / multimodal biometrics
• Biological and chemical detection

4/ Processing, control and cognition

• Data fusion
• Data mining
• Autonomous systems/robotics
• Synthetic environments
• User-centered design
• Human factors

 5/ Networks and secure communications

• Secure mobility
• Quality of service on highly constrained networks
• Secure service-oriented architectures
• Cryptography
• Wireless technologies and ad-hoc networks

Corporate research at Thales Research & Technology

To support its operational units, Thales has created a network of corporate research laboratories called Thales Research & Technology.

These laboratories are located at university campuses close to the company's research partners. They host more than 500 researchers, 80 PhD students and around 100 scientists from partner organisations.

The joint Thales Alcatel-Lucent research laboratory dedicated to III-V semiconductor technologies is part of this global network.

The main missions of these laboratories are to develop disruptive technologies, forge links between the company and leading scientific bodies, provide a platform for innovation, attract talented science graduates, and create intellectual property for Thales.

These laboratories have a broad spectrum of scientific skills including physics, electromagnetism, optics, materials science, embedded software, mathematics for decision-making, secure networks, and signal processing.

R&D staff worldwide

France: 13,000 people

United Kingdom: 3,000 people

USA, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia: approx. 1,000 people

Canada, Belgium, Korea: approx. 500 people