— Bertrand Bocquet The
experimental explorations of a determined engineer-researcher
Bertrand Bocquet
Teaching at CNAM, Paris.Meeting, Boutique des Sciences, Lille. CNAM, detail, Paris.
LILLIAD Learning Center Innovation, Lille.
How does one design a space where researchers from different disciplines and where researchers and citizens can truly work together? Bertrand Bocquet has spent much of his research life devising spaces. Spaces where research is done differently, where those normally kept out can enter, where disciplines mix. And each time, he learns something new about how to make them habitable.
He’s a physicist who dedicated his doctoral thesis to capturing microwave signals that were so weak he struggled to believe they existed. He’s an experimenter and apprentice researcher who used to work every Wednesday in a hospital with his prototype device on breast cancer patients. Once a patient started crying because she didn’t understand what he was doing, and Bertrand understood: just as modern physics discovered that phenomena don’t exist in themselves but only in relationships, so research cannot exist without those who inhabit it. One cannot understand phenomena by keeping people out.From there began his search for other possible ways of doing research. He didn’t abandon engineering; instead, he expanded the field of its possibilities. He began asking himself: how does one design a space where researchers from different disciplines and where researchers and citizens can truly work together? He became a designer of collaborative architectures.And this didn’t make his life easy.Between 2011 and 2013, Bertrand built his first experimental space: an interdisciplinary group with colleagues from biology, physics, mathematics, and sociology. The University of Lille recognised it as an “emergent équipe”, but with one hard condition: after two years, they would have to find a laboratory to take them in, or disband. But no laboratory wanted such a heterogeneous group. The university wasn’t structured to host this type of space. The group split. But Bertrand had experimented with a model and understood which conditions make an interdisciplinary space uninhabitable. In 2016, part of the group moved with him to the CNAM in Paris.Meanwhile, he worked on bringing to France the experience of Science Shops, the “Boutiques des Sciences” born in the Netherlands in the 1970s. These spaces are designed to reverse power relations: associations bring questions, the science shop team translates them into research projects and carries them out with students coached by researchers. This is research that starts from the real needs of all parties involved. A different way of inhabiting science that lifts the veil on the “undone science”: an expression coined by David J. Hess to refer to those areas of research that are generally overlooked, but which social movements or civil society organisations often identify as worthy of further investigation.In 2016, Bertrand inaugurated the Boutique des Sciences in Lille with €30,000 from the Hauts-de-France Region. Every year, they launch a call, requests arrive. But Bertrand discovers that opening a space and putting people in contact isn’t enough. A collaborative space is only inhabited if the right tools are available: researchers struggle to relinquish control, and associations lack academic language. Bertrand develops “participatory engineering”: workshops, world cafés, works on stakeholder postures and other tools that allow the negotiation of the research question, co-construction of knowledge. It’s the infrastructure that makes the space habitable.In 2017, the regional political colour changed and the funding wasn’t renewed. Activity reduced from six to two projects, but continued. Gradually, the Boutique was recognised and finally integrated by the university in 2020. The space proved to be liveable.There’s an episode that illustrates this difficulty. In 2012, working with environmental associations, it took them a year to articulate a shared question. Almost every time, people clashed harshly. Hard sciences against social sciences, researchers against activists. The space existed, and the people existed; however, the tools to inhabit it together were missing. And each time Bertrand thought: next time no one will come back. Yet, everyone returned. But a year was too long. Devices were needed to make the space less conflictual and to optimise time.And so he did. He studied, followed training courses on participatory action research, and built a repertoire of tools that don’t impose but facilitate the emergence of shared ways.In 2024, recognition arrived. When the university created the Institut des Transitions Environnementales et Sociales, colleagues came to Bertrand. Bertrand organised co-creation workshops. And something happened: the institute, which was meant to be a space for research only, expanded. Participants pointed out that spaces for training and relationships with society were also needed. Three missions instead of research alone were articulated across four thematic axes conceived from below. The space adapted to those who had to inhabit it.Today, Bertrand is a professor emeritus and has been retired since January 2025 but continues to transmit this design knowledge. He’s on the Scientific Council of the Boutique and continues with ITES. His satisfaction is the Boutique, because it demonstrates that these alternative spaces are habitable, liveable, sustainable.Bertrand Bocquet is an engineer-researcher who has dedicated his career to designing spaces where research is conducted differently. Spaces where the human dimension is central. Because he’s convinced that this is the only way to produce truly useful knowledge. He’s fought against university structures designed to separate. He’s invented tools, experimented with devices. And he continues, with methodical and creative tenacity, applying the scientific method it’s not enough – observe, experiment, learn, refine – not only to circuits but also to meeting spaces, to ways of inhabiting research.He’s the stubborn architect of other possible ways of doing science, and every experience – every space built, every resistance encountered, every tool refined – is another brick in his constantly under construction edifice.
Bertrand Bocquet’s key dates
1986 · Begins doctoral research on measuring microwave thermal noise to characterise breast tumours.
2000 · Technology transfer of the imaging system; collaboration ended in 2002 for marketing reasons. Questions about innovation.
2003 · A shift in direction towards microfluidic microsystems. Collaboration with biologists and chemists. Questions about interdisciplinarity.
2013 · Creation of SCité – Sciences, Sociétés, Cultures dans leurs Evolutions: interdisciplinary research group on science–society issues.
2016 · Creation of the Lille Science Shop. Integration into the CNAM laboratory in Paris.
Work in participatory action research.