The Université de Haute-Alsace currently operates 16 laboratories / research centres broadly divided into three research foci. This structure reflects the region’s industrial tradition and enables UHA to increase the visibility of its research, to add value to Mulhouse and Colmar within the regional university context and to anchor university research within the knowledge economy and at the international level.

Centre of Excellence for Chemistry, Physics, Materials’ Sciences and the Environment.

This centre, which brings together the elements of the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) of the University, leads an excellent, multi-disciplinary, research function expertise in the area of Chemistry, Physics and Materials’ Sciences. All scales of matter are considered from the molecule and clusters of atoms to nanoparticles, right up to larger scale materials. It brings together more than one hundred full-time researchers and lecturer-researchers and benefits from common instrumentation platforms (dedicated personnel and equipment) to enable specialist analyses in physics and chemistry.

It combines the efforts of 5 laboratories :

• The Risk Management and Environment Laboratory (GRE, UR 2334)
• The Mulhouse Institute of Materials’ Sciences (IS2M, UMR UHA CNRS 7361)
• The Laboratory of Molecular Innovation and Applications (LIMA, UMR 7042)
• The Laboratory of Photochemistry and Macromolecular Engineering (LPIM, UR 4567)
• The Laboratory of Vines, Biotechnology and Environment (LVBE, UR 3991)

Its objective is to promote research activities with commercial application potential, being :

1. Organic and bio-organic synthesis and chemical reactivity
2. The conception and study of new functional materials
3. The evaluation of biotic and abiotic risks in the environment
4. The reduction of environmental impacts related to the use of such new materials.

Centre of Excellence for Engineering Sciences

Research based upon areas of experimentation, modelisation and identification of complex systems, find their applications in sectors such as transport, robotics, imaging, textiles, biomechanics, biotechnology, bioaggressors and pollution emissions reduction.

The centre brings together three laboratories :

• The Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien (IPHC, UMR 7178)
• The Research Institute in Computer Sciences, Mathematics, Automation and Signal (IRIMAS - UR 7499)
• The Physics and Textile Mechanics Laboratory (LPMT, UR 4365)

The foci of this Centre coalesce around four principal areas :

1. Innovative methods and new tools for the modelisation, characterisation, aquisition and the handling of data, notably for automation and non-conventional imaging.,
2. Intelligent systems and digital systems applied in the fields of transport, mobility, handicap and e-health.
3. Advanced procedures for energy optimisation, additive fabrication, textile materials and composite materials.
4. The physics of high-energy particles and Neutrino astronomy.

These laboratories are located within the faculties and schools of the UHA.

Centre for Excellence in Humanities and Social Sciences.

The research led in Humanities and Social Sciences here at UHA appears to be becoming a more and more significant generator of scientific themes upon which the university can capitalise within the context of its cross-border, cooperative initiatives. Interculturality is a field of research of the highest priority for the laboratories which form part of this Centre, which, taken together, represent dynamic socio-cultural history, interactions and learning and a source of potential and creativity capable of underpinning business and sustainable economies.

The Centre also incorporates legal sciences, management and economics and comprises 9 laboratories :

• • The Laboratory for Archaeology and History of the Mediterranean and of Europe (ArcHiMèdE, UMR, CNRS, UHA Unistra 7044)
• • The Bureau for Theoretical and Applied Economics (BETA, UMR, CNRS Unistra UL7522)
• • The European Centre for Research into Law relating to Collective Accidents and Catastrophies (CERDACC, UR 3992)
• • The Centre for Organisational Management Research. (CREGO, UB – UR 7317)
• • The Centre for Research into Economies, Societies, the Arts and Associated Techniques (CRESAT, UR 3436)
• • The Institute for European Languages and Literature Research. (ILLE, UR 3437)
• • The Interuniversity Laboratory for Educational Sciences and Communication. (LISEC, UHA Unistra University of Lorraine (UL) – UR 2310)
• • The Laboratory for Societies, Stakeholders and Government in Europe (SAGE, UMR, CNRS, Unistra, 7363)

This Centre combines scientific practices with inter-disciplinary cooperation (Literature, languages, economic science & management, history, sociology, law, information and communication sciences and archaeology) and works within a timeframe stretching from antiquity to the modern age.