I recently finished my in-person split secondment at Valeo at the end of August and am very grateful to have had this opportunity. Valeo is a very large company, one of the largest companies in France and a major manufacturer of automotive components. Besides that, Valeo has a reputation for innovation and research and development and I could definitely feel that in the spirit at Valeo. Working on a PhD, sometimes it can be hard to find like-minded people in industry. At Valeo, however, many people have PhDs and come from a research background, and Valeo is heavily invested in funding PhD theses, research, publishing papers, etc. It was wonderful to meet the engineers at Valeo because I knew that when I talked about my research, they understood the main ideas and the process of completing a PhD. It was also refreshing to see different points of view on how research and innovation should be done in an industrial setting. After my time at Valeo, I am more aware of the expectations and culture of industrial engineering companies and feel better prepared to adapt my skills to both academic and industrial environments.

contributed by Marielle Debeurre (ESR 13)