The ceremony, which took place at the Lyon Convention Centre, officially marked the creation of the Institute's ninth center, "an acknowledgement of the all the work we and our partners have done over the last 25 years" as Stéphane Ubeda, Acting Director of the Inria Lyon Research Center, pointed out.

This long-standing collaboration with ENS de Lyon began in 1996-97 with the creation of a first project team within the Parallel Computation Laboratory (LIP - ENS de Lyon, UCBL, CNRS). Continuity of one of these "pioneer" projects, the AriC - Arithmetic and Computing project, was presented by Guillaume Hanrot, Professor at ENS de Lyon. To date, 15 Inria project teams are located in Lyon, including 6 in partnership with ENS de Lyon.

The creation of the Inria Lyon Research Centre will make it possible to strengthen existing research areas, but also to develop new areas in a multidisciplinary approach. This ambition is shared with Inria's historical partners. A  strategic joint agreement with École normale supérieure de Lyon, the University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and INSA.