In 2001, under the impulse of the Ministry of National Education, the AIP-PRIMECA competence network was created in the fields of Integrated Design in Mechanics and Productics. It results from the merger between the AIPs (Inter-Institute Productics Workshops) - regional resource centres used as experimental support of in-depth training courses in the field of Productics, set up in 1984 and initiated by The Ministry of National Education, in cooperation with the Ministry of Industry and with the regions concerned - and PRIMECA (Computer Science Resource Pole for Mechanics), created in 1991 on the instigation of the Science Academy Application Committee in order to promote the use of computer tools in the design of mechanical products and thus to create a training channel in Computer Aided Mechanical Design.

Organized around resource poles, the local missions give impetus to training in the fields of Integrated Design in Mechanics and Productics. The association of pedagogical and scientific competences thus generates a training area around the themes of integrated engineering, favouring the setting up not only of in-depth teaching modules in disciplines but also of inter-disciplinary teaching packages aimed at training the industrial world future executives. These are transfer centres of research to training bodies and companies, by using industrial scale equipments.

The will to mutualize knowledge, strengthen the competence of all the poles and create strong synergies between the different actors of the network was concretized by the creation of an open or virtual institute which gives impetus to innovative pedagogical developments often...