Explore our international achievements

In March 2016, the French Development Agency (AFD) asked Cerema to take part in the “Cities & Climate Change” technical seminars, organised in partnership with the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF). Cerema presented on the context and French initiatives in this field, as well as the services and tools developed to tackle these challenges.

A Cerema team generated a detailed map of the remains for the Franco-Peruvian “Huayruro” project whose mission is to recover ancient Inca villages buried in the year 1600 during a volcanic eruption 80 km from Arequipa (Southern Peru).

In the context of the European scientific collaboration project COST GABI (shallow geothermy applications for buildings and infrastructures), Cerema conducted a short-term scientific mission, from 11 to 22 November 2018, at the university of Sao Paulo on the subject of thermoactive foundation piles.

Mobilise Your City is an international climate partnership launched by the French and German governments, and sponsored by the European Commission. It promotes integrated planning of urban mobility in developing and transitioning countries. Cerema is a founding member of the initiative. Cerema offers its expertise in North Africa and Latin America.

In Peru, the FEXTE programme (Fonds d’Expertise Technique et d’Echanges d’expériences - Technical expertise and experience exchange fund) of the French development agency (Agence Française de Développement), supports the development of sustainable urban mobility plans in the country’s 4 large cities (Lima, Arequipa, Cusco and Trujillo). Cerema conducted several missions in Peru between 2016 and 2018 in the context of this programme.

The purpose of the FEXTE programme (Fonds d’Expertise Technique et d’Echanges d’expériences - Technical expertise and experience exchange fund) of the AFD (Agence Française de Développement - French development agency) in Egypt is to offer technical assistance to the Egyptian Ministry of Transport in terms of development and operation of urban transport systems. Cerema is mobilized to improve multi-modal exchange hubs and carried out a mission in January 2019.

In 2019, Cerema conducted a study for the French Development Agency in the context of the Yaoundé City Centre project in Cameroon, intended to improve the city’s traffic and mobility conditions. This study focused on road safety in the context of the redevelopment of three major junctions.

Cerema conducted a benchmarking mission on car-pooling-specific lanes in Canada in June 2018, providing useful feedback for the French Government and communities. The various high-occupancy vehicle “HOV” lanes in the Cities of Quebec and Montreal were inspected.

In the context of the France - Cepalc (Economic commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) cooperation programme, Cerema is working on urban mobility at the Latin American regional level and is drafting a Latin American repository of high level of service public transportation systems.

A Cerema team travelled to Colombia to work with the Colombian national road safety agency (ANSV) to analyse 1,000 km of road network and to identify potential solutions. With over 7,500 deaths per year on the roads, for a population of 47 million inhabitants, road safety is a major challenge in Colombia.

At the end of 2017, the “testing resources and approval” work group of the Nouvelle France Industrielle (NFI) - Véhicule Autonome plan, chaired by Cerema, conducted a study mission in the United States to visit the American test centres and to meet with autonomous vehicle stakeholders.

Cerema conducted an engineering mission in Madagascar to ensure that road safety issues were correctly integrated into the Antananarivo ring road project intended to bypass the East and North-east of the city.

Cerema was called upon by the Road Development Authority on Mauritius to provide technical assistance in the context of the work on the “Terre Rouge-Verdun” road, a major trunk road that suffered a significant landslide in 2015. Cerema, in partnership with Ifsttar, developed a solution for securing the road in April 2018.

With funding from the World Bank, Cerema conducted a preliminary study in Haiti on the local road network, to enable the Haitian ministry of transport to create a technical repository for the development of road infrastructures, also known as road repository.

Cerema collaborates with the United States Air Force (USAF) to determine the bearing capacity of soils for the landing of large aircraft. Project “Odyssey” compares the geophysical properties of soils, obtained in a high-yield non-destructive manner, with their geotechnical properties, obtained by destructive spot tests.

This Franco-Japanese programme aims to improve the empirical modelling of coastline changes, faced in particular with the impacts of climate change. In February 2019, two Japanese researchers from the Port and Airport Research Institute (PARI) spent two weeks in France in the context of a scientific collaboration with Cerema.

In August 2018, Cerema travelled to Haiti in the context of the cooperation between the GEOAZUR laboratory and the Haiti State University Faculty of Science to perform seismological experimentation technology transfer.

Project ANR-Remake (2016-2020) develops a predictive and quantitative model for earthquakes in Ecuador and Northern Peru, a region regularly hit by major earthquakes. Cerema carried out measurements in Quito to study changes in the seismic wavefield caused by the presence of large buildings.

Cerema conducted a benchmarking mission in Quebec to analyse the post-catastrophe reconstruction conditions following the 1996 floods at Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, along with the modes of action implemented. The aim was to gain an understanding of the reconstruction process and to determine the manner in which it constitutes an opportunity to reduce the region’s vulnerability to future events.

Cerema is a partner of the Franco-Quebecois cooperation project for flooding assessment and attenuation (COPARI) launched in 2015. This latter aims to establish a common basis for the assessment of vulnerability to flooding.

France’s WACA-F project, which supports the World Bank’s WACA programme (West Africa Coastal Areas Management Program) provides Senegal, Benin, and Togo with the historical cartographical data and bathymetric surveys they need to understand coastal erosion.

Since 2013, Cerema has been working on the problem of the city of Semarang on the island of Java, which is faced with a dual problem of sea level elevation and soil subsidence.