The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, or CEA ( French: Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives), is a French public government-funded research organisation in the areas of energy, defense and security, information technologies and health technologies. The CEA maintains a cross-disciplinary culture of engineers and researchers, building on the synergies between fundamental and technological research.
CEA is headed by a board headed by the general administrator (currently François Jacq since 20 April 2018), advised by the high-commissioner for atomic energy (currently ). Its yearly budget amounts to €5.8 billion and its permanent staff is slightly over 21,000 persons.
History
CEA was created in 1945; since then, the successive high-commissioners have been
Frédéric Joliot-Curie
Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie (; ; 19 March 1900 – 14 August 1958) was a French chemist and physicist who received the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with his wife, Irène Joliot-Curie, for their discovery of induced radioactivity. They were t ...
René Pellat
René Pellat (24 February 1936 – 4 August 2003) was a French astrophysicist who co-founded modern plasma physics in France along with Guy Laval. He also headed major French national research agencies including the French Space Agency and the ...
Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa ( ; ; born 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012. In 2021, he was found guilty of having tried to bribe a judge in 2014 to obtain information ...
declared that CEA should change its name from ''Commissariat à l’énergie atomique'' () to ''Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives'' (); this change took effect on 10 March 2010, when the decision was published in the ''
Journal officiel de la République française
The ''Official Journal of the French Republic'' (), also known as the ''JORF'' or ''JO'', is the government gazette of the French Republic. It publishes the major legal official information from the national Government of France, the French Pa ...
''.
Research
It conducts fundamental and applied research into many areas, including the design of
nuclear reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a Nuclear fission, fission nuclear chain reaction. They are used for Nuclear power, commercial electricity, nuclear marine propulsion, marine propulsion, Weapons-grade plutonium, weapons ...
s, the manufacturing of
integrated circuits
An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip or simply chip, is a set of electronic circuits, consisting of various electronic components (such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors) and their interconnections. These components a ...
seismology
Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes (or generally, quakes) and the generation and propagation of elastic ...
and
tsunami
A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...
supercomputer
A supercomputer is a type of computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instruc ...
s in the world, the '' Tera-100''. TERA 100, first system designed and built in Europe to reach the petaflops in 2010, was ranked in 5th position in the worldwide TOP 500. CEA is now building TERA-1000 which is a key step in the implementation of their Exascale program for the computing needs that CEA would face by 2020.
In March 2016,
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency ...
published an article describing the "Top 25 Global Innovators – Government" and placed CEA as "number one" amongst "The World's Most Innovative Research Institutions."
Organisation
CEA is divided into four ''directorates'', or divisions:
Energies division (DES)
The (DES) comprises four institutes:
* Institut de recherche sur les systèmes nucléaires pour la production d’énergie bas carbone (IRESNE), in
Cadarache
Cadarache () in Southern France is the largest technological research and development centre for energy in Europe. It includes French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, CEA research activities and ITER. CEA Cadarache is one of th ...
* Institut des sciences et technologies pour une économie circulaire des énergies bas carbone (ISEC), in Marcoule
* Institut des sciences appliquées et de la simulation pour les énergies bas carbone (ISAS), in CEA Saclay
* Institut de technico-économie des systèmes énergétiques (ITESE or I-Tésé)
Technological research division (DRT)
The (DRT), known also as CEA Tech division, is divided between two CEA sites, at Saclay and Grenoble. CEA Tech focuses on technological research and development in the field of energy, IT (both hardware and software) and healthcare informatics. It plays an active role in transferring knowledge and research to industry.
The CEA Tech division is further divided into three research institutes:
* The CEA-Leti lab works mainly on micro/nano technologies and specializes in microsystems, biotech, photonics and nanoelectronics. It is located mainly in Grenoble, France.
* The CEA-List lab works mainly on systems and software-intensive technology and specializes in embedded systems, sensors and big data, and advanced manufacturing. It is located mainly in Paris-Saclay, France.
* The lab works mainly on cutting edge technologies related to energy and
nanomaterials
Nanomaterials describe, in principle, chemical substances or materials of which a single unit is sized (in at least one dimension) between 1 and 100 nm (the usual definition of nanoscale).
Nanomaterials research takes a materials science ...
. It specializes in building solar, carbon-free transports, biomass-hydrogen and nano materials-nanotechnologies.
The current director of DRT since january 2023 is Julie Galland.
Cadarache
Cadarache () in Southern France is the largest technological research and development centre for energy in Europe. It includes French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, CEA research activities and ITER. CEA Cadarache is one of th ...
* Institut de Biosciences et de Biotechnologies d'Aix-Marseille (BIAM) in
Cadarache
Cadarache () in Southern France is the largest technological research and development centre for energy in Europe. It includes French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, CEA research activities and ITER. CEA Cadarache is one of th ...
The current DRF director since 2 november 2019 is Elsa Cortijo.
Military applications division (DAM)
The (DAM) builds the nuclear weapons of the
French military
The French Armed Forces (, ) are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force, and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military ...
and designs the power plants for the nuclear submarines of the
French Navy
The French Navy (, , ), informally (, ), is the Navy, maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the four military service branches of History of France, France. It is among the largest and most powerful List of navies, naval forces i ...
Essonne
Essonne () is a department in the southern part of the Île-de-France region in Northern France. It is named after the river Essonne. In 2019, it had a population of 1,301,659, across 194 communes.GANIL at
Caen
Caen (; ; ) is a Communes of France, commune inland from the northwestern coast of France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Calvados (department), Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inha ...
Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine (; ) is a department in the Île-de-France region of France. It covers Paris's western inner suburbs. It is bordered by Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne to the east, Val-d'Oise to the north, Yvelines to the west and ...
* ,
Grenoble
Grenoble ( ; ; or ; or ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of the Isère Departments of France, department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regions of France, region ...
Isère
Isère ( , ; ; , ) is a landlocked Departments of France, department in the southeastern French Regions of France, region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Named after the river Isère (river), Isère, it had a population of 1,271,166 in 2019.
* ,
Cadarache
Cadarache () in Southern France is the largest technological research and development centre for energy in Europe. It includes French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, CEA research activities and ITER. CEA Cadarache is one of th ...
,
Bouches-du-Rhône
Bouches-du-Rhône ( ; , ; ; "the Mouths of the Rhône") is a Departments of France, department in southern France. It borders Vaucluse to the north, Gard to the west and Var (department), Var to the east. The Mediterranean Sea lies to the sout ...
Essonne
Essonne () is a department in the southern part of the Île-de-France region in Northern France. It is named after the river Essonne. In 2019, it had a population of 1,301,659, across 194 communes.CEA Valduc,
Côte-d'Or
Côte-d'Or () is a département in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of Northeastern France. In 2019, it had a population of 534,124.
* INBS PN CADARACHE, in
Cadarache
Cadarache () in Southern France is the largest technological research and development centre for energy in Europe. It includes French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, CEA research activities and ITER. CEA Cadarache is one of th ...
*
CEA Cesta CEA-Cesta or simply Cesta (; ) is a research facility that is part of the (DAM) of the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), dedicated to the design of nuclear weapons.
The center was established in 1965 on the '' commune'' of Le Barp between B ...
,
Gironde
Gironde ( , US usually , ; , ) is the largest department in the southwestern French region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Named after the Gironde estuary, a major waterway, its prefecture is Bordeaux. In 2019, it had a population of 1,623,749.
* CEA Gramat
* CEA Le Ripault,
Indre-et-Loire
Indre-et-Loire () is a department in west-central France named after the Indre River and Loire River. In 2019, it had a population of 610,079.Orano
Orano SA is a French multinational corporation, multinational nuclear fuel cycle corporation headquartered in Châtillon, Hauts-de-Seine. The company is engaged in uranium mining, conversion-enrichment, Nuclear reprocessing, spent fuel recycling ...
*
STMicroelectronics
STMicroelectronics Naamloze vennootschap, NV (commonly referred to as ST or STMicro) is a European multinational corporation, multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the largest of such companies in Europe. ...
Areva
Areva S.A. was a French multinational group specializing in nuclear power, active between 2001 and 2018. It was headquartered in Courbevoie, France. Before its 2016 corporate restructuring, Areva was majority-owned by the French state through t ...
CEA has played an active role in research, development and innovation in the four main areas of low-carbon energies (nuclear and renewable), technologies for information and health technologies, very large research infrastructures (TGIR), and defense and global security.
Moreover, two of the ten CEA centers across France have joined with the
University of Paris-Saclay
Paris-Saclay University (, ) is a combined Research institute, technological research institute and Public university, public research university in Orsay, France. Paris-Saclay was established in 2019 after the merger of four technical ''grandes ...
to develop high quality research and training. The centers which form a part of the University of Paris-Saclay include:
* CEA Saclay Center, which conducts research mainly in areas related to climate and environment, materials science, nuclear energy, life sciences and technological research
* CEA Fontenay-aux-Roses Center, which conducts research and innovation in areas related to imaging and biomedical technologies
(Since 2017, these two centers merged into CEA Paris-Saclay center, and are now referred to as sites in that center.)
The CEA researchers involved in the University of Paris-Saclay represent over 20% of the university's research potential, particularly in the field of physics and engineering. CEA maintains a strong presence in training to master and engineer level by administering INSTN, wherein various courses are taught by its researchers.
CEA has around 400 researchers who hold an accreditation to supervise research, making it a significant contributor to the research and doctoral programs of the University Paris-Saclay.
INSTN
The INSTN, '' Institut national des sciences et techniques nucléaires'' (National Institute for Nuclear Science and Technology) is a public higher education institution administered by the CEA (French Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission) under the joint authority of the Ministry of National Education, Higher Education and Research, the Ministry of the Economy, Industry and the Digital Sector and the Ministry of the Environment, Energy and Marine Affairs.
Others
* Atos, ENS Paris-Saclay and CEA launched an academic partnership in 2016.
See also
* GANIL (laboratory shared between the CEA and the CNRS)
* Groupe INTRA
*
Laser Mégajoule
Laser Mégajoule (LMJ) is a large laser-based inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research device near Bordeaux, France, built by the French nuclear science directorate, Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique (CEA).
Laser Mégajoule plans to deliver ...