The Var, a geostrategic location at the orbital hub of the competitiveness clusters
180 members (including 100 innovative enterprises) - 18 joined from the Var in 2010.
Spearheading and promoting the optics and photonics sector in Southeast France (Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Languedoc-Roussillon).
The OPTITEC cluster has awarded its label to over 94 collaborative R&D projects, representing a total investment of €220M and an average 50% funding success rate.
The number of SMEs involved in these projects (over 80, including 30 SME project lead bodies) is evidence of the strong synergy between research and industry.
The OPTITEC competitiveness cluster's particular niches are complex optical and imaging systems, in hostile environments (astrophysics/space; nuclear submarine environment) and develop along three major lines:
- optics and environment
- optics in health
- system optics.
Key figures
Southern France’s optics and photonics cluster:
- France’s No. 1 optics-photonics community,
- 12 360 jobs,
- 5000 skilled jobs including 1500 research workers,
- regional GDP of €900M,
- the mean annual growth rate of the regional sector is 10%,
- 600 direct jobs created in 3 years (health, environment, telecoms, image processing and industrial processes sectors),
- 25 photonic ventures started up in the last 8 years with an 83% survival rate.
- 15% of turnover dedicated to R&D.
- 38.2% of sales go to export.
- Complex imaging optics systems.
- Space and astrophysics.
- Energy.
- Sea.
- Biology, health and medical.
- Microelectronics, Telecoms.
- Sustainable development and industrial processes.
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