On January 16th, Grenoble Ecole de Management (GEM) officially inaugurated its new 5,000 sq.m. GEM Labs building located at the heart of Grenoble's scientific district. As a unique co-innovation center in France prefiguring the School of the Future, this new extension for GEM in Grenoble symbolizes the School's preponderant place in the innovation ecosystem, and its unifying role around the topics of innovation, technology and experimentation.
Engineers have their "fab labs", managers have their "business labs"
GEM Labs, GEM's new campus dedicated to innovation through experimentation, which opened its doors in September 2019, is located at 142 Avenue des Martyrs at the heart of the GIANT innovation ecosystem in Grenoble, within 10 minutes on foot from GEM's main campus. The official inauguration took place on January 16th, 2020, in the presence of 250 guests who got to discover the materialization of GEM's vision of the School of the Future.
"Today, innovation goes beyond technology, product, service and market. It transforms our structures: business models, organizations, ways of working and living…Faced with these mutations, leaders need to act as creative professionals who experiment new ways of conceiving and doing their jobs, developing their activities in order to create value. GEM Labs provides the impulse for new co-innovation dynamics, generates and disseminates new managerial practices that involve the next generation from the outset," explains Sylvie Blanco, GEM's Director of Innovation and Director of GEM Labs.
Phygital and immersive platforms
Unique in France, GEM Labs targets three groups: learners, innovation-project managers, and leaders. However, GEM Labs is more than just a traditional campus. Naturally, it has coworking and conviviality spaces, and modular teaching platforms, but its originality lies in its phygital and immersive platforms:
- A connected shop in partnership with PICTURE and CAIRN: a winter-sports equipment shop and technologies to explore the phygital world.
- Mymarketlab: a local convenience store to test the future of retail, in partnership with Auchan Retail and Panzani.
- Two connected areas: Street & Home. Replicas of an apartment and a street, in order to conduct experiments on daily-life issues.
- TIMLAB, in partnership with KORUS: A dedicated platform for project teamwork and design-thinking in order to help teams collaborate efficiently on an innovative project.
- Playground: A platform, 100% dedicated to GEM serious games and gamification, in order to help users ask themselves the right questions, change their behavior accordingly and "play" innovation.
"Learning processes have been experiencing unprecedented transformations for several years. With GEM Labs, we are laying the groundwork for a new business school standard that brings together technology, innovation and Society to train leaders and managers in a fast-evolving world, by co-building skills and knowledge, relevant to handling the great challenges of the 21st Century," explains Loïck Roche, Dean and Director, Grenoble Ecole de Management.
Key figures
- 5000 m2
- 15 millions d’euros d’investissement dont 11 millions par la CCI de Grenoble, maison mère de GEM et 4 millions d’investissement bâtiment et pédagogique par GEM
- 6 plateformes immersives
- Une Scène de 120 places
- 6 espaces de cowork
- 6 plateaux de cours (40 places) dont 3 équipés en audiovisuel.
- 450 places d’apprentissage
- 3500 étudiants et 50 entreprises / an vivant une expérience immersive
- 100 collaborateurs de GEM y travaillant (Directions Innovation et Relations Entreprises)
