SPORALTEC’s core business is to facilitate the development of your innovative projects. An “Innovation” committee will approve your project, for which we then provide support in 3 phases:
1) Creative Lab: Where concepts emerge
SPORALTEC allows you to take advantage of its Living Lab, which is recognized by the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL), a veritable laboratory for creating new products and testing them in utilization scenarios.
- LUPI® Methodology
SPORALTEC is associated with the Cité du design of Saint-Etienne, and has adopted the usage-based “LUPI®” approach: an innovative co-conceptualization design methodology integrating users and companies.
- BIONICS® Methodology
Another methodological approach is that of bionics: the study of biological systems for technological and industrial purposes. SPORALTEC works in collaboration with the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) to determine new technological pathways and new concepts for innovative sports-related products.
2) Network: Partner Research and Laboratory/Showroom Visits
SPORALTEC assists you in identifying the best partners to match your project, and mobilizes its network in order to arrange meet-ups in the field of innovation and research. Showroom and laboratory visits give you an overview of industry activities and innovations. Additionally, we provide you with support in researching international partnerships.
3) Fab: Tests and Prototypes
Once the preliminary phases of researching innovative concepts, conducting usage scenarios and establishing contacts with suitable partners are done, SPORALTEC supports you throughout the testing phase, where your products and services are placed in laboratory or usage situations. Sporaltec is therefore associated with public university laboratories as well as private structures.
- Network of Testing and Trials Platforms
Exercise Physiology Laboratory (Laboratoire de Physiologie de l’Exercice – LPE)
SPORALTEC works with the LPE (EA 3848) for R&D in the field of sports and health. There are technological, biomechanical and physiological platforms for studying human performance in motion, under laboratory (Saint-Etienne testing platform) and field conditions (Chambéry testing platform).
Project Coming in 2014: Platforms at the Regional Institute of Medicine and Sports Engineering in Saint-Etienne (Institut Régional de Médecine et d’Ingénierie du Sport – IRMIS)
In partnership with SPORALTEC, two new platforms will be created, to house infrastructures specifically dedicated to evaluating athletes and leisure/health sports equipment: one biomechanical platform (for testing the efficiency of sports and protective equipment on the individual) and one bioclimatic, in vivo platform able to contain a man or woman practicing physical exercise (to test sports and protective equipment on the individual, in real conditions, thanks to a climatic chamber reproducing different climatic atmospheres). This IRMIS structure will house the LPE laboratory.
- Support for Financing and Project Development
Similar to a “resource broker”, SPORALTEC guides you to the best and most suitable partners for financing your innovative projects.