The i3S Laboratory
Presentation
The i3S laboratory (Laboratoire d'Informatique, Signaux et Systèmes de Sophia Antipolis) was officially founded in 1989, as the merging of two units: LISAN and LASSY. i3S is a joint research unit (UMR 7271) from CNRS and Université Côte d'Azur (UniCA). The Inria UniCA Center (Centre Inria d'Université Côte d'Azur) is a secondary supervisory institution.
The i3S laboratory is one of the most important research laboratories in information and communication sciences and technologies on the Côte d'Azur, and was one of the first to be established in the Sophia Antipolis technology park.
It brings together nearly 300 people, with around 80 faculty members coming mainly from 3 components of UniCA: Polytech Nice-Sophia, EUR DS4H and IUT Côte d'Azur. The laboratory also includes 20 CNRS researchers and 10 Inria researchers, as well as around 20 administrative and technical support staff. 
Over 100 PhD students, around ten postdocs and 60 master's or engineering school interns complete the workforce.
Affiliated to CNRS Informatics, the research topics of the i3S laboratory cover a wide spectrum of the thematic areas of sections 27 "Computer Science" and 61 "Computer Engineering, Automation and Signal Processing" of the CNU (Conseil National des Universités), as well as sections 6 and 7 of CoNRS.
The laboratory is structured into 4 divisions:
- The "Communications, Networks, Embedded and Distributed systems (COMRED)" division is composed of 2 EPCs i3S-Inria (Kairos, Coati) and a Scale research group.
- The "Discrete Models for Complex Systems (MDSC)" division is composed of the MC3 and C&A research groups.
- The "Signal, Images, Systems (SIS)" division is composed of the Signal, SigNet, MediaCoding, Design groups, the Morpheme EPC, and Robotics and autonomous systems.
- The SPARKS division contains three EPCs i3S-Inria, Wimmics, Maasai and Marianne, as well as a PRIME eXplAIn team.
Directors since the laboratory's founding
| Period | Director | Deputy direction | |
|---|---|---|---|
| UMR 7271 | January 2022 – present | Frédéric Mallet | Vicente Zarzoso |
| January 2017 – December 2021 | Olivier Meste | Frédéric Mallet | |
| January 2012 – December 2016 | Michel Riveill | ||
| January 2008 – December 2011 | Luc Pronzato | Olivier Meste | |
| January 2004 – December 2007 | Jean-Marc Fédou | Laure Blanc-Féraud | |
| January 2000 – December 2003 | Pierre Bernhard | Luc Pronzato | |
| URA 1376 | January 1995 – December 1999 | Gérard Favier | Annie Authossere |
| January 1990 – December 1994 | Jean-Claude Bermond | Jean-Paul Partouche | |
| January 1989 – December 1989 | Olivier Lecarme | Fernand Boéri |