Sophia Antipolis

Sophia Antipolis is a Technopole located in a pine forest of 2300 Hectare S of Valbonne beside Antibes between Nice and Cannes. It gathers more than 1300 companies of the whole world and nearly 30000 direct uses in Scientific research to point in the field inter alia information Technologies and communication (NTIC), Multimedia S or Médecine and Biochimie the whole in the area Climat iquement privileged Riviera. It is a small counterpart on the scale of the France of famous the Silicon Valley California nne of the the United States.

Geography

The Technopole is located in major part on the commune of Valbonne Sophia Antipolis and partly on the communes of Mougins, Biot, Vallauris and Antibes. Although alive on the same commune, one can make the distinction between the inhabitants of Sophia Antipolis, Sophipolitains and the inhabitants of the village of Valbonne, Valbonnais.

Name of the technopolis

The concept as the name had been defended with heat by the senator Pierre Laffitte, director of the école des Mines of Paris. His wife, fore-mentioned Sophie , inspired the first part of the name of the zone and gave her name to a place of the zone of activity. The second part comes from the Greek name antique of Antibes.

Another explanation for this name is of an etymological nature (Greek antique):

Sophia for knowledge or wisdom;
Anti Polished for “outside the city” or “the city of opposite” (reference to the sailors coming from the coasts Italian and sailing to bearing).

This park of Recherche is located in the middle of the forest of Valmasque.

History

2300 Hectare S of pine forest were acquired in the grounds (the coast itself being out of price), the improved lands (Route S, electricity, Gaz, running water), according to a precise rule: two thirds of green areas and dwelling for a third of zones of activities, spaces of leisures, Tennis, Golf, and residential zones. A part resold with companies with Speculation and benefit for the financing of the zone, with goal to create a synergy between Enquiring S and Industrial S.

That caused to somewhat marginalize the research center IBM of Gaude, or that of Texas Instruments of Villeneuve-Loubet which had further pushed the principle of building in the back-country niçois: short distance as the crow flies, but nonexploitable by road way.

Occupants

One finds there now:

more than 1.200 companies of the whole world including more than 900 head offices and 27.000 direct uses whose majority of the signs remain often very discrete and hidden in the pine forest like Sopra Group, Amadeus, Schneider Electric, ITT, Hewlett-Packard, Thalès, Thomson, France Telecom, Philips, Alcatel-Lucent, DIGITAL, Compaq, Legrand, Air France, Carrefour, Accenture, Toyota;
several research laboratories CNRS, INSERM, I3S, LEAT, INRIA, INRA;
of the research centres in Biochemistry in particular in Medicine and Perfumery (Perfume Chanel, Robertet…)
and more than 4.000 students of Universities of Engineer like Polytech' Nice Sophia, Institute Eurécom (Telecom Paris), école des Mines of Paris, CNAM, of the buildings of the University of Nice - Sophia Antipolis, management CERAM…);
a college: International Center of Valbonne;
the Telecom Valley

Other technopolises in France

A similar experiment is carried out with Inovallée in the Vallée of Grésivaudan in the east of Grenoble. On less scale, there exists the technopolis of Château Gombert close to Marseilles

Sophia Antipolis is most important technopolis of France with approximately 1300 companies and 30000 employment. Ulis in Île-de-France are also important a technopolis with approximately 1000 companies and 25000 employment.

Attention however not to confuse a technopolis (female and without accent) with a technopolis. A technopolis is a form more widened much, where several small technopolises inside are found. Sophia Antipolis, which at the beginning was indeed a simple technopolis (and the first in France, today it is a model for most recent), became a technopolis, i.e. a great urban center having a strong potential of teaching and research, favorable to the development of advanced technology industries. It is a technopolis which was transferred in a pole urban much vaster thanks to perished the urbanization and the influence that it acquired with the passing of years.

For more precise details, consult the page on the Technopole S.

Disadvantages

The spirit of this type of zone being partly to make profit with Enquiring number of S often under paid compared to their very important levels of studies and diplomas, the sun and the framework of privileged life of areas like the Riviera, according to the famous proverb " one does not have money but there is the sun " , the disadvantage resides precisely and paradoxically in the fact that the Riviera is in particular one of the areas of France where the current cost of living is highest, with regard to the prohibitive prices of the real estate.

Notes and references of the article

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