PROF.-DR.-ING. ERWIN FRANQUET

Vice President for Societal and Environmental Transitions
Université Côte d’Azur, Nice, France

Prof.-Dr.-Ing. Erwin FRANQUET is a Full Professor at Université Côte d’Azur, with a Ph.D. degree from Université Aix-Marseille (2006) and an habilitation from University of Pau (2016). He is also an engineer in the field of energy and thermal engineering. His teaching activities are focused on renewable technologies and their use in industrial applications or in buildings as well as on energy management. More recently, it involves smart mixed grids combining all types of energy (electricity, heat, cooling) together with economic and political related features. After managing the MSc programme « Energy in Industry » for 8 years, he is now leading the «Sustainable and Smart Buildings » Department at Polytech Nice Sophia. In accordance, his domain of research concerns the energy management at buildings and districts scales with a focus towards renewable energy and sustainable transition. This obviously involves all the energy technologies from generation to storage as well as the consumption side, that is to say both supply and demand.

In addition to his skills in Physics and Computer Sciences, he embarks to also incorporate Human Sciences, from Economics to Laws but also Psychology and Sociology. His current research is focused on the adaptation to climate change, and sustainable development yet with an holistic viewpoint which aims at fostering multi-disciplinary approaches so as to increase the success of the proposed changes and to avoid technological-only solutions.

Recently, he also became Vice-President of Université Côte d’Azur, in charge of environmental and societal transitions, where he is coordinating all actions in this field, from teaching to research, and buildings management and human resources related questions.